Cruising in Catamarans [Paperback]

Charles E. Kanter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2002

How To: Determine your own crusing needs

How To: Rate the cruising boat of your dreams!

How To: Compare various catamarans and trimarans, both new and used that are on the market.

This book contains numerous aids, forms, and graphs to help you compare cruising boats, no matter how many hulls they have!

Bonus! Anchoring tricks of the trade. Learn about bridles, kellets, star and Bahamian moorings, anchoring modern light displacement boats

Bonus! Most extensive glossary of nautical need-to-know. A book in itself!

Bonus! Photos, diagrams and descriptions of the user-friendly and not so friendly aspects of cruising catamarans spelled out in a no holds barred manner from a marine surveyor with no financial ties to any boat, product or service.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This book he has put it all together. Thinking about a cat? This book is an absolute must. -- Latitudes & Attitudes Magazine

About the Author

Charles has 32 years of experience in sailing, surveying and critiquing over 1000 multihulls.

Charles also has over 100,000 miles under sail in multihulls, thousands more in monohulls, and 15 years of full-time liveaboard experience.

Product Details

• Paperback: 406 pages
• Publisher: Seaworthy Pubns; First edition (August 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0961840668
• ISBN-13: 978-0961840662
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,654,684 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good book for serious cruisers and live-aboards, December 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Cruising in Catamarans (Paperback)

This book is an excellent, highly independent criticism of the pros and cons of various sailboat designs, with a strong and logical argument for cruising catamarans.

Mr. Kanter makes some keen observations, not only about catamarans, trimarans, and monohulls, but also about the people who buy, sell, design, and build them. From the viewpoint of someone relatively little experience with catamarans, but extensive experience in monohulls, these observations have a ring of truth to them. They cut right through the marketing B.S. to the reality of cruising. In addition, he has a sense of humor and enjoyment about those unique cruising experiences that all sailors can appreciate.

The book is best for intermediate or advanced sailors.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Opinionated but Very Good, March 28, 2003

By 

Amatori Augusto (Milan Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Cruising in Catamarans (Paperback)

And isn't that exactly how you want your marine surveyor to be? Mr. Kanter is a well known US marine surveyor specialized in multihulls. He has strong opinions borne out of his own experience and well laid out in the first few chapters on the features of good catamarans. He has a few pet peeves (e.g. the lack of rub-rails) and a tendency to get carried away (after the chapter on good/bad helmstations he could not bring himself to review any Catanas), but the information is very solid. He then reviews a number of catamarans built over the last decade, both in and out of production. Each catamaran gets a thorough write up typically based on several surveys/test sails - a welcome relief from the flimsy politically correct reviews of most sailing magazines. My only wish for this section is that the information be a little more standardized and complete (that would have earned the book the fifth star). I would have also liked details of Chuck's own catamaran "La Forza", which he often references in the text.

Having said all this, I think that this is currently (03/03) the best resource available for someone looking to buy a catamaran. I will know who to call when I buy mine.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some good information, September 30, 2006

By 

Mr. Chris Mowatt "Octopus" (Scotland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cruising in Catamarans (Paperback)

I was disappointed in this book after reading the other reviews. It seems like this is the best book available on cruising cats, but if so the others must be very poor.

It was more like a collection of notes. It didn't seem like it had been edited or proof read. There were sentences that didn't make sense, words omitted and spelling mistakes. The book was badly laid out with poor structure and style. All this wouldn't have mattered if the information was good. Some of it was.

Charles Kanter has a few pet hates and he laboured these points. Things like excessive beam and quarterdeck steering position. He also went on a bit about the advantages of cats over monohulls. Most people who buy this book will have already come to that conclusion. A short review of the advantages would have been sufficient. He also devoted a lot of space to brief reviews of different models, some of which are pretty rare. It might have been better if he'd done a proper review of the top 10 selling production models. He also devoted quite a lot of space to trimarans. There is a large chunk of the book devoted to the importance of having your boat professionally surveyed, which, coming from a professional suveyor, was a bit of a laboured sales pitch.

What I want from this book was more information on how to handle a catamaran, anchoring, mooring and berthing considerations, heavy weather sailing, sail trimming, down-wind sailing, how to avoid or reduce slamming, shoal water anchoring, best practice for beaching a cat etc.. There were bits of this.

So, a mixed bag. Having looked at the reviews of other books about cats it may be the best one available, which only makes me want to write a better one.