Uhmm, 'empty space in the bow areas' is exactly how you get performance in a cruising cat. Filling everything with more staterooms is what you do with a charter cat, not a genuine cruiser. I can't even begin to imagine having to cruise with 6 or 8 or more folks on board. And with 60 feet loa, there's still plenty of capacity to carry the amenities 'needed' for cruising, provided you don't get carried away with dish/clothes washers, dryers and trash compactors. If you don't want to be so 'involved' while you're on passage, it's really okay to shorten sail and still make better speed than most cruisers.
There was another 50 foot performance cruising cat that was labeled a Gunboat killer at half the price. It showed up in Antigua this year at Sail Week. It was not even close against the Gunboat 62's and 66's even on corrected time. I guess it's the highest compliment to Gunboat that everyone wants to have a Gunboat killer! I'd suspect the next generation of Gunboats designed by Nigel Irens will be very, very good.
No shit, Sherlock. Speak of stating the blindingly obvious. Now read my post again and compare the MC 2 60 to the Gunboat along the dimensions I mentioned (interior volume of the hulls, percentage of usable space vs. empty space) and tell me that those design decisions do not affect cruise-ability. It is a trade-off/choice between comforts and speed potential - and in this case a completely conscious one, driven by Raph's intended usage profile.
At the risk of stating the obvious (gawd, I shua don wanna do dat agin). It appears that the murky area is your definition of cruise-ability. I followed your advice and re-read your post. Help me out, are you stating that cruise-ability is a function of space? amenities? What amenities or lack thereof in the MC are missing that so affect this cruise-ability you speak of? I assume (yep, that's dangerous) that cruise-ability is the ability to cruise. I easily cruise with similar amenities to the MC 60 but in far less speed and performance, ergo, she's still cruise-able. But to each his own.
I ordered MC60 no 2 simply because it suited my needs the best. I was going to build a custom 60 footer as I have built many multihulls over the past 40 years and I've enjoyed the process but it's very time consuming and I realised that my current work commitments would not allow me to spend the time required to study all the alternatives available today. McConaghy's was my preferred builder of the custom boat and when they became involved with Raphael Blot and his RB60 as it was then I started to look more seriously at this boat and I visited the yard to inspect the full size mock-ups they have built and I was really surprised at the room on the boat. After talking to Raphael Blot and the designer Renaud Banuls, I realised that this cat met almost all my requirementsand an enormous amount of detailed work had gone into the design and drawing up the specifications.
Perhaps we just need a gunboat to venture down this way.soma said:
Yes we'll be keeping Mad Max and the last Gunboat 66 launched in Sth Africa http://vimeo.com/29957426 shows Brisbane as it's home port
Close to USD2 million or so. Bit lower of you are quite frugal, but can go as high as you want to - beauty of the semi-custom concept. Reckon that is a fair bit of boat for the money.
