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Catamarans: The Complete Guide for Cruising Sailors
 
 
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Catamarans: The Complete Guide for Cruising Sailors [Hardcover]

Gregor Tarjan (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

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Book Description

September 17, 2007

The modern cruising catamaran has arrived

The arguments are over and the verdict is in--cruising catamarans comprise a rapidly growing percentage of the cruising fleet worldwide. Their advantages of space, stability, speed, and handling under power are truly compelling, and modern cats are every bit as reliable as monohulls. This long overdue, in-depth guide will help you choose and cruise the right catamaran for your needs.

“An authoritative guide for novices and experienced sailors; the best book written on the subjects since the early 1990s.”--“Trimaran” Jim Brown, renowned multihull designer

“In Catamarans, Gregor Tarjan shares his enthusiasm for yachts with two hulls, based on years of sailing all types. An excellent introduction.”--Dick Newick, legendary catamaran and trimaran designer

“If you are contemplating spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a cruising catamaran, the small price of this book is probably the best investment you could possibly start with.”--from the Foreword by Charles K. Chiodi, publisher of Multihulls Magazine


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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

From the technical details to the luxurious lifestyle, Catamarans covers every aspect of cruising cats, giving you a “dream book” combination of how-to manual, buyer’s guide, and coffee-table showpiece. Yacht designer and expert sailor Gregor Tarjan reviews the basic concepts of multihull design, construction, performance, and handling and discusses the latest developments in this important and comprehensive book.

Full of informative illustrations, graphs, and spectacular photos, Catamarans examines multihull seamanship and how it differs from sailing a ballasted monohull, revealing little-known tricks to get maximum speed from a cruising cat. You’ll discover desirable attributes of multihulls and what to look for when purchasing your own. There is even a catalog of noteworthy production catamarans that will help you compare, rate, and evaluate different types.

This gorgeously illustrated book is the perfect introduction to the possibilities of these exciting sailing machines and an invaluable owner’s guide.

Gregor Tarjan is a USCG-licensed captain, a merchant marine officer, a member of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, and founder and president of Aeroyacht Ltd. (www.Aeroyacht.com), an internationally recognized brokerage specializing in cruising multihulls and large luxury catamarans, both sail and power. He has sailed more than 80,000 miles on multihulls and monohulls, performed dozens of offshore deliveries and transatlantic crossings, and crewed with such sailing luminaries as Dennis Connor and Yves Parlier on boats ranging from America’s Cup yachts to 120-foot monster cats.

His professional background includes a degree in yacht design and a career as project manager for builders of large yachts. He is the author of numerous technical and seamanship articles for boating magazines and is considered one of the world’s leading experts on multihulls. He lives with his wife and two sons on Long Island, New York.

The modern cruising catamaran has arrived

The arguments are over and the verdict is in--cruising catamarans comprise a rapidly growing percentage of the cruising fleet worldwide. Their advantages of space, stability, speed, and handling under power are truly compelling, and modern cats are every bit as reliable as monohulls. This long overdue, in-depth guide will help you choose and cruise the right catamaran for your needs.

“An authoritative guide for novices and experienced sailors; the best book written on the subjects since the early 1990s.”--“Trimaran” Jim Brown, renowned multihull designer

“In Catamarans, Gregor Tarjan shares his enthusiasm for yachts with two hulls, based on years of sailing all types. An excellent introduction.”--Dick Newick, legendary catamaran and trimaran designer

“If you are contemplating spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a cruising catamaran, the small price of this book is probably the best investment you could possibly start with.”--from the Foreword by Charles K. Chiodi, publisher of Multihulls Magazine

About the Author

Gregor Tarjan is founder and president of Aeroyacht Ltd., one of the world’s top brokers of large sail and power catamarans. He is a USCG licensed captain and a veteran of dozens of ocean crossings.


Product Details

  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press; 1 edition (September 17, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0071498850
  • ISBN-13: 978-0071498852
  • Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.8 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #357,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews
5 star:
 (7)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful photography and interesting text, January 19, 2008
This review is from: Catamarans: The Complete Guide for Cruising Sailors (Hardcover)
This book is an excellent addition to the stable of books dealing with cruising catamaran sailing. It's a heavy hardback with beautiful photography, an attractive layout and good diagrams. Picking up this book after reading Charles Kanter's 'Cruising in Catamarans' or its recent update published as 'Cruising Catamaran Communiqué' you wonder how two books on the same subject with similar ideas behind them could be so different!

This book is beautiful and would make a wonderful coffee table book as well as an interesting read. There's some great photography often in beautiful locations. There are also photographs and plans of different catamarans and the text is helpful. Tarjan doesn't spend too long on the old chestnuts of catamaran vs monohull and will they capsize but he gives a good overview of general principles of catamaran sailing, heavy weather tactics, manufacture, some technical information on hull shapes, rigs, keels vs daggerboards and benefits/downsides of different configurations.

It becomes clear very quickly when reading this book that Tarjan tends to spend time on larger cruising catamarans. Here in the UK most Cats vary from 26ft - 40ft; most that I see are probably 35ft or less. Tarjan mentions the 34 foot Gemini 105MC in his text but most of the cats he discusses/photographs are whoppers, 45-60 feet. Perhaps these are more common in America but for sailors in UK waters they might make your own boat look a bit weedy.

Tarjan also is keen on speed. He perhaps affords it more importance than many cruising sailors would and there's plenty of discussion about how useful speed is to get you away from bad weather, but the text reads very much as if the cruising cat owner is really also a racer and I would imagine this is not very often the case. Charles Kanter's contention that most cruisers aren't speed freaks seems more likely to me and his more thorough and detailed treatment of catamaran sailing is perhaps more useful to the novice than in this book where less time is spent on multihull seamanship and more of that time on trimming sails for maximum speed.

However despite these reservations this book is a great read and good value for the price. It has at the end the apparently obligatory list of current multihulls (including one that's 100ft long!) with a very short amount of copy on them and a couple of photos. There are some helpful appendices with the Beaufort scale, a long-range cruising equipment checklist and other stuff and the photo credits, much appreciated because of the quality throughout of the photography and printing. The downside of this book? This author, although interesting, doesn't grab your attention in the same way as Charles Kanter. I think this makes another excellent addition to my cruising catamaran bookshelf but I wouldn't choose it over Charles Kanter's 'Cruising Catamaran Communiqué' if I could have only one book because that has more information for the medium sized cat owner to find helpful (by this I mean the 30-40 foot range). But it's still a great book and worthy of five stars.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Just what we were looking for, November 23, 2007
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Catamarans: The Complete Guide for Cruising Sailors (Hardcover)
As experienced monohull sailors, we were looking for a book that gave us the necessary insight to sail a multihull next April. This book is just the ticket. Lots of good background info, without dummying down. Half way through the book you get to Multihull seamanship and how sailing a Cat differs from a monofull. Pretty hard to sell a die hard monohull sailor on a Cat, but I think they've done it. Great intro to Cats.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth buying, June 24, 2009
By 
Conrad B. Senior (Easton, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Catamarans: The Complete Guide for Cruising Sailors (Hardcover)
.

The book discusses what everyone who has read anything about catamaran already knows--low weight, high bridgedeck clearance, and shallow draft (daggerboards) are preferred. Some details are given about certain boats. I get the impression the author does not want to be negative on some boats because he hopes to sell them. This book was designed to lead customers to him, more than anything else. Which is not a bad idea. I'd rather buy a boat from him, than his book. I would bet on the fact that he would give you more information if you were buying a boat from him, than you would get in his book.

I found several big holes in the book relating to hull shape and market factors.

What I wanted was a more frank evaluation of the various boats. What I got was a book I can leave on my coffee table for those mildly curious about these boats--like a child's picture book.

The bottom line is I came away with nothing of value. I felt I could have written a better book than this without any catamaran experience.

Do your own research, talk to those who have sailed these boats and you will be better served.
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