Being able to average 9- 10 knots on a catamaran rather than 6-7 knots on a monohull will give you more options in your strategy to avoid bad weather.
Catamaran sailboat speed. Im trying to understand how a displacement catamaran can seemingly violate the Froudes Law. As we all know sailing upwind with a cruising catamaran without daggerboards is hard to do because the boat makes a lot of leeway. Gemini Sunset is a blue water live aboard catamaran.
Stable flight attitude allows pushing hard so in good condtions iFLY reaches high boat speed beyond 30 knots in a controllable way. On the other hand the average speed of cruising sailboats is 4-6 knots 45-7 mph and can attain a top speed of 7 knots 8 mph. A catamaran is faster than the average.
A good performance catamaran can sail 12 to 15 times faster than windspeed in some conditions meaning less time motoring and more time sailing says Greg Young designer of the TAG 60. In essence cruise speeds of over 8. That being said the average speed of racing sailboats is 15 knots 17 mph.
Personally I find the most important benefit of speed of a multihull is the ability to outrun bad weather. A catamaran is a sailing vessel with two parallel hulls of the same size as opposed to a monohull which only has one. Its been suggested that boat owners can choose two of the following three.
This increases the chances that someone could fall off the boat or onto the deck in a monohull boat. Get to know everything that you can about sailing a catamaran and ensure that you are always safe when sailing on one. The two hulls are joined by a platform.
Even when not planing they will travel much faster than what the hull speed formula. Most sailboats cruise at a speed of 4-6 knots 45-7 mph with a top speed of 7 knots 8 mph or 13 kmh. The challenge when sailing a catamaran is knowing when to speed up and when to slowdown.