Choosing a second Hand Multihull

This episode dives into our thoughts on how to go about looking for a good cruising SAILING boat. Now we say SAILING because there are a lot of boats out there that are great platforms to liveaboard should you just want to hang out in the bays, however, if you want to do some bluewater sailing, the criteria does step up a level.

We have broken down the criteria we had to find a boat to undertake our planned journey from Italy to New Zealand. The first criteria we set was that it needed to be a catamaran. We enjoy the multihull sailing and with a family of five the extra real estate onboard was a priority. The second criteria was budget. We wanted to buy our boat without going into debt, this meant that we had a small budget and were looking at a second multihulls. Catamarans are more expensive than monos so this meant that the cats we were looking at were definitely in the vintage category!

The third and most important factor was that it needed to be a proper sailing boat. We were planning on some long bluewater passages and needed a vessel that could perform well at sea.

We took inspiration from our racing background.

We wanted a boat that was lightweight.

Skinny hulls were something we were trawling the internet for as skinny hulls meant a light, fast catamaran.

We wanted clean hulls. No unwanted keels or added appendages that would slow the boat down. This meant we needed daggerboards, which could also allow us a shallow draft and improved sailing performance.

A reputable designer was important. A reputable designer with a proven track record helps enormously in knowing what you are getting. Buying a boat from a reputable yard means those worries about build quality aren’t as much of a gamble.