A multihull orthodoxy has grown up which has as its central theme, "If you haven't got speed, you haven't got anything." The designs and the numbers of sales in recent years of production cruising catamarans deny that premise.
Many people are taking advantage of the other sterling qualities of cruising catamarans- shallow draft, level sailing, seakindliness, and large deck and interior areas. These cruisers are willing to sacrifice the potential of speed (and I stress potential) for creature comforts.
The concern of this multihull orthodoxy, shared by me, was that the bow design of the Packet Cat would simply turn the boat into a huge blundering barge in serious weather.
Knowing that breakthroughs often come from outside any field of endeavor, I squirmed with impatience waiting for my first sail on the Packet Cat. The production cruising catamaran itself, first introduced in the early 1960s, was a breakthrough from outside the traditional field of multihull sailboats.
The rain and west wind whipped the Manatee River into a turbulent froth. The river channel extended almost due west through a pass and out onto Tampa Bay. I had mixed emotions about a sail in that type of weather, yet I wanted it rough as a cob to obtain a realistic idea of the boat's seakindliness.
Two 27-horsepower diesels spread wide apart by the hulls of this catamaran made short, easy work of getting away from the dock, thus passing the first test of a user friendly cruising boat. Under those same conditions, a single-screw boat would have had a difficult time getting out and away from being pinned against the slip by the winds.
With the wind directly on the nose, we motored out the inlet into the teeth of a nasty chop, the low tide exacerbating both the period and height of the waves. At times the waves were three to five feet and very close together. That was exactly the situation I wanted. I had to answer the question: Would the Packet Cat pound under these conditions? Would she just push a huge frontal wave like a barge?
In all fairness it must be said that all boats in this size range-powerboats, keel boats, and catamarans-will pound under these conditions. It is simply a matter of comparison how badly they will pound.
Starting from the worst case, there is the "kidney-jarring, confidence-shaking, smashing and banging" scenario. Then there is the "mild bump when lunging forward off the occasional odd- direction wave and smashing headlong into the next oncoming wave" condition. If we construct a "one through five" scale, with one being terrible and five being superb, the Packet Cat, without doubt, ran a good solid four.
There was no doubt in my mind that the Delta Pod Bow achieves its objective of preventing the bows from plunging deep into the oncoming waves. I spent more than an hour lying on my stomach with my head over the bow, watching the wave action between the hulls. I was watching for what some believed would be the inevitable result of this hull shape. It never occurred. Green water never came aboard any place, while boats alongside us were being swept from stem to stern.
For those just beginning their consciousness-raising about cruising catamarans, I must inject that bridgedeck clearance has long been a major drawback to using catamaran technology for cruising. The bridgedeck is the bottom of the supporting structure between the hulls.
A catamaran of less than forty feet, built with the bridgedeck low enough to have reasonable headroom in a central cabin, may pound unmercifully. If it is built high enough not to interfere with the boat's sailing qualities, on a smaller boat it almost precludes having a central cabin unless a person is willing to make substantial sacrifices to aesthetics. Several recent catamaran designs have unusually high freeboard to control this problem.
Packet Cat designer Bob Johnson chose another approach-the Delta Pod Bow. This bow configuration absorbs the tendency to plunge, thus it lessens the pounding. The technology is not without precedent. Popular Australian designer Lock Crowther has a wave-piercing ferry design using a similar bow concept.
Packet Cat tacked, jibed, beat, reached and ran with reasonable level of performance. I estimated our speeds to be higher than a comparable monohull cruising sailboat under the same conditions. We easily sailed seven to eight knots, tacked with reasonable aplomb with no need to backwind the jib, and handled all points of sail without any bad habits showing up, although I would have liked a little firmer helm.
The balanced spade rudders, shaped like a DC3 tail section, create the lack of even a little weather helm. This gave me a lack of feeling at the helm when we were reaching. We did this with eight adults in the cockpit trying to keep warm and dry. That much weight so far aft subsumes the boat being out of trim, yet the boat shrugged it off, performing within reasonable parameters.
The boat had little tendency to pitch. Pitching, or hobby-horsing, can be the bane of some catamarans, especially at that size range. Long narrow hulls with fine ends tend to oscillate fore and aft. The asymmetrical water plane (footprint) of a monohull in that size range dampens the tendency. The Packet Cat 35 did heel more than many wider cats, heeling as much as five degrees when hard pressed.
The mainsail handling system was a delight, requiring only two lines to perform all functions. The sail rolls up around the boom, and there is a halyard to raise it and a furling line to retrieve it. The operation was simple, secure, and effective. The jib was a roller reefing jib, which worked well. All lines led to the cockpit and did not interfere with the usage nor leave tails strewn helter-skelter around the deck. Later models have used in-mast furling rather than in-boom furling.