Customer Reviews

Catamarans: The Complete Guide for Cruising Sailors

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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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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.

A man who loves his cats but does at least make an effort to point out the dogs! As long as you feel you have done independent research and accept the author does sell cats for a living, the book is great for those thinking of making the switch from monohull to catamarans and needing some additional reading to justify the expense and that lingering guilt of making the move from one hull to two. But this book sure puts in hard print all the reasons one does make that move!

Awesome book! Definitely a must have for any cruising catamaran owner. The author offers many insights and helpful tips in sailing a cruising catamaran, including heavy weather tactics, sail trim, boat handling and anchoring tips, design characteristics, as well as some knowledgeable recommendations for those shopping for a cat.

When my first copy came in the mail I was totally drawn into if for about a week. This was by far the best book written about modern day cruising catamarans. Besides all the valuable info the photography is incredible. I was so impressed with the book that I showed it to a new catamaran owner I had recently met who was about to have a crew sail his FP Tobago (35ft) across the North Atlantic from Florida to the UK. Since they were all mono-hull sailors with no experience in sailing cats I thought it'd be a great idea for them to read prior to their departure. I let them borrow it for a few days and that's all it took. The owner begged to buy this book from me. I was glad knowing that it would be valuable addition to his boat. Last I heard the book was in the Azores - after successfully sailing through a Force 7 storm.

In summary, this book deserves all 5 stars and is equally suitable for your boat and/or your coffee table at home.

Kevin Welsh
S/V Bladerunner

A wonderful compilation of what you need to know when interested in catamarans for touring. The author is clearly a cat fan. But who can blame him.

I own many sailing books (including books that specialize in multihull sailing), but this one makes you want to jump through the pages onto the boats. What wonderful photography. This is not said to take away from the wealth of information written by Gregor Tarjan, just to tell you what a joy is has been to read (drool) my way through this book. You will not be disappointed.

Wonderful photos, at the expense of substance. Definite biase towards OUTREMER catamarans (Tarjan is the US dealer for that boat). Nice for the coffee table.

This book offers a good general overview of sailing catamatans. It is a good place to start if you want to understand the topic, depending on how technical you want to get. It attempts to cover a very broad range of topics and I think it would have been better to concentrate on a smaller range of topics and go into more detail.

In many places throughout the book it promises to deliver an in-depth analysis of the characteristics of a sailing catamaran but fails to deliver. Instead it discusses the topic without providing the necessary formula's, etc required to enable the reader to evaluate a catamaran design objectively.

The book represents value for money (only because it is very reasonable priced), but there is a serious need for a book that goes into the details and specifics of catamaran design, - which this book does not.

Very knowledgeable discussion of the positive and negative aspects of Catamarans.

The author is a naval architect who specialises in catamaran design. He has been sailing them for over 40 years and is much more knowledgeable than a normal author of a nautical book.

One minor comment is that he appears overly negative about his comparison with monohulls. But the points he makes are all valid.

In fairness I am a monohull sailor who wants to move to a catamaran and as such I possibly have an inferiority complex.

It is a well written, very informative & beautiful book with gorgeous photographs on every page. It has a lot of great information from a different perspective than usual with enough information for even the best sailor.