Rolling Trawler

[jmcgeehan]

As my wife and I are in the research stage of transitioning to a liveaboard life (for 5 months of the year....the other 7 are spent at our home in Puerto Rico), we have been asking for opinions on the type of vessel we may choose to have as our home. A recent comment from a friend was that a catamaran (40-45 feet) was the way to go. His reasoning included the warning that a trawler's "rolling" nature would make life unbearable....or at best, unpleasant. We do plan on a significant amount of coastal exploration (east coast of the United States, Nova Scotia, Hudson River Valley, etc. I would be very interested in opinions regarding this subject.

Best, John McGeehan, Montauk, NY

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mr. jm. Welcome aboard in case I missed you. EVERYTHING rolls at sea, cats included. I would suggest as part of your research that you beg, borrow but not necessarily steal as many different vessels as you can, go to sea under various conditions and experience for yourself exactly WHAT rolling is all about and what your particular comfort limits may be. There are numerous threads dealing with roll mitigation on TF. Active and passive stabilization, picking your weather and altering course are some of the topics discussed.
Oh, and don't let anyone talk you into a vessel that does not pick you. (You really don't pick the vessel-trust me)

 

[Capt.Bill11]

Go charter some boats, including catamarans before you by. Only you and your wife can say what type of motion and how much of it you will be comfortable with.

Also bare in mind that it's easy enough to add passive at rest stabilizers to any boat.

 

[Nomad Willy]

If you can't handle a bit of rolling perhaps horses would be a better pastime?

 

[Phil Fill]

It depends on the amount or lack of roll. Having an roll or 4 to 8 seconds is a comfortable roll. Most trawlers soft chime are designed to halve a solt roll. Cats and tried have very little roll which is a hard snappy roll. So it depends on water anchor and dock you will be in. You should undersand stability and roll period.

 

[FF]

If the cat is built light enough to be of use it will follow the surface of the water.

A round bulged monohull (softest riding) will roll, but it will stop and go the other way smoothly with no snap roll..

The cat will lift rapidly and drop its hull with the water surface , so a 4 or 5 ft beam sea will quickly lift each hull in turn and drop it into the trough just as fast.

Most will alter course to smooth the ride.

Behind a rolly spot like ST Barts , both will use multiple anchors to point into the swell.

Finding a marina or yard to handle a cats beam can be a task.

 

[Steve]

Check them out in advance, there's a whole lot of people that live on cats and trawlers with no problems, rocked to sleep?