IT HAD TO BE A CATAMARAN
EXPERIENCED MONOHULL SAILORS DAVID MCLEMAN AND HIS WIFE ANNE-LAURE KNEW IT HAD TO BE A CATAMARAN TO FULFIL THEIR AMBITION TO CROSS THE ATLANTIC
I have owned, cruised, and raced yachts for nearly 30 years. My wife Anne-laure loves cruising, but is not a racing fan. Three years ago our nest emptied and we decided to plan a sabbatical from work and cross the Atlantic. We sold our cruiser-racer, downsized the house and set out to buy the perfect cruising yacht.
I had plenty of offshore sailing experience, including four Fastnet races and numerous Channel crossings under my belt, so I knew I wanted a well-sorted, safe, reasonably quick and fun-to-sail boat that could handle the passages with ease. Anne-laure was keen on space and comfort at anchor.
We quickly decided that a catamaran would be the perfect choice for us. Cats mostly fall into two camps: 'condomaran' cruising cats with big volumes, and performance cats with narrower hulls, daggerboards and liberal amounts of expensive carbon fibre. We'd previously chartered cats abroad and loved the accommodation, but I had been frustrated by poor sailing performance, especially in light airs, and limited bridgedeck clearance that resulted in waves slamming underneath in a seaway.
The performance cats are sensational on coastal passages when empty, but daggerboards compromise accommodation. When loaded with the extra gear needed for extended, self-sufficient cruising, a lot of the performance disappears. I was impressed by renowned French cat designer Eric Lerouge’s comparison of mini-keels and daggerboards on his Freydis cats in the 1990s, which concluded that the difference was only a couple of degrees of pointing ability, and that those mini-keels added buoyancy for extra load-carrying capability, and were cheaper to build.
After sailing the Nautitech Open 40, we finally settled on the slightly larger Nautitech Open 46 catamaran. Sitting between the volume and performance brands and designed by racing yacht designer Marc Lombard, she provides a great balance between performance and lifestyle. The hulls are narrow at the waterline but flare above for great accommodation. The 80cm of full-width bridgedeck clearance has meant no slamming in nearly 9,000 miles of offshore sailing, and the 1.5m draught
mini-keels, deep rudders and generous sailplan give good performance both upwind and downwind in big seas.
The single level for galley, saloon, cockpit and helm stations makes life easy whether at sea or at anchor. Dual aft helms are a Marmite topic – you either love them or you hate them. We love them: they offer a great view of the sails when sailing and a good feel on the helms with very short cable runs to the rudder quadrants, and easy docking which can be done single-handed.
As the Open 46 was recently launched, buying new was the only option. Ours was hull number six, and we ordered her before the first hull was even launched. Nautitech has now sold around 100 boats, and we’d have had no hesitation buying second-hand if any had been available at the time.
PLANNING AND PREP
After our first season with the boat, we started to plan for the 2018 ARC+ via Cape Verde, using the World Cruising Club’s excellent checklists as a guide. We added a 100lt/hr watermaker (daily showers are great for morale!), satellite comms, washing machine, breadmaker, solar panels and a small diesel generator. We also put in a second autopilot, electrically separate from the primary systems, in case of lightning strike; an extra, specialised downwind sail (see page 94); and spares for everything.
Chafe on sheets, halyards and sails from the constant movement ruins many ocean crossings. Therefore, we replaced running rigging, installed extra padeyes and low-friction rings on Dyneema strops to allow us to control sheeting positions and added a preventer for the boom which also reduced mainsail twist. For personal safety we added AIS locator beacons to our lifejackets, as well as two EPIRBS in case the worst happened. We passed the ARC safety inspection first time.
We chose to sail with three other crew, whom we knew well ashore from racing. To check that we all enjoyed offshore sailing and would survive six weeks together, we split the delivery to Las Palmas into two parts. Lucy and our daughter Tara did the first sail from the Hamble, across Biscay to Spain, and then Mike and Sarah did a further fortnight from Vigo down to the Canary Islands. We also undertook sea-survival training together.
THE CROSSING
The Atlantic crossing was in almost perfect conditions. Although starting early in November the tradewinds were established and we had a quick five day sail from Las Palmas down to Mindelo, Cape Verde. Our mantra was that it’s a ra ra rally (not a race!), but we were pleased to win the catamaran class on the water and on handicap.
The second leg, 2,300 miles across the open Atlantic to St Lucia, was more interesting. Day one was calm, before 25-30 knot winds and big seas blew in for days two to four, subsiding to 15-22 knots almost dead downwind thereafter. Approaching the Caribbean the squalls increased, easy to see during the day and on the radar at night, with most being two to five miles across. We could alter course 10-15° to avoid a direct hit, but would also drop or furl our specialist downwind sails each time.
Offbeat behaved perfectly in the breezy conditions. Sailing quickly, as close to the speed of the waves as possible, means less rolling and fewer side impacts from diagonal waves. We regularly hit speeds in the mid-teens on the surf, but there was never a hint of nose-diving from our fine bows. We reduced sail in line with Nautitech’s reefing guidance, as on cats it’s less obvious when the boat is overpressed. Our deep rudders and mini-keels helped her to track straight and the autopilot was never overloaded – unlike comments we’d heard from some of the heavier, slower cats with smaller rudders. The only problems en route were chafe on one of our downwind sails, and on our spinnaker halyard.
BANGS AND CREAKS
We were surprised just how noisy it can be on board at night. The boat is full of sounds which play havoc with your perception of the environment, especially on the Nautitech, which has an enclosed saloon with 360° views.
We identified three sort of noise on board – whooshes, bangs and creaks. If you are below in the cabins, the sound can be very loud. And as you can’t actually see
the waves, the sky or the 'numbers' (wind speed, boat speed, etc), you can only guess what’s happening based on the cacophony. Everyone on board had the experience off-watch of coming racing up to the saloon to check when we are going to slow the boat down and put a reef in – only to discover that the wind has actually decreased – it’s just the noises have changed.
Whooshes are the sound of the water rushing past the hull, as the boat surfs down the face of a wave. In the cabins you hear an express train of bubbles rushing under the hull as speed increases up to 13 knots. Bangs are when waves hit the hull. As we are going downwind, these are from waves catching the boat up from behind. Most just lift the stern and gently lower it again, but the waves aren’t in neat lines; the diagonal ones come between the hulls and smack into the side with a violent jolt, right next to your pillow when sleeping in the aft cabins. Ironically, the slower the boat goes, the more bangs we get.
Finally there are the creaks, of which there are two varieties. Woodwork creaks as the hull moves and the interior walls and furniture flex against each other, and each cabin has its own selection of these which you quickly come to recognise. The other variety comes from the rig, created by the loads on the sails, mast, halyards and sheets. All boatowners listen carefully to these, as a change can indicate a potential problem.
We maintained an hourly log which showed minimal changes and helped us reduce the tendency for unnecessary sail changes (for which our policy at night was all hands on deck).
It all added up to a quick crossing, arriving in St Lucia in just over 12 days at an average of 7.6 knots.
ARRIVING FRESH
The trip of a lifetime successfully completed, we arrived freshly showered, well-fed, having had plenty of sleep and were still friends!
There a new chapter in our adventures began, with four months cruising up the Caribbean island chain. We wound up in Antigua, where Offbeat was shipped back to the UK as deck cargo. She was one of 30 other yachts on the MV Arubaborg chartered by Peters & May. I thoroughly recommend this if you don’t have the time to do the west-east Atlantic crossing. The loading and unloading care was excellent and Offbeat was delivered to Portsmouth Harbour at the end of May, ready for the UK summer season.
I still own a J/70 yacht for racing, and the racing fleets are still dominated by monohulls, but I can’t imagine a cruising or liveaboard life on anything other than a catamaran.
David and Anne-laure own their own cloud IT services business and live in Berkshire. Their third child had just graduated from university when they started to plan their trip with sailing friends Mike and Sarah, both retired dentists, and Lucy, a management consultant.