[MHml] Catamarans

[Peter Gelinas]

Dear members

I have been lurking this site for a while, hoping to learn more about 
cruising catamarans.

Unfortunately I don't seem to know enough to even understand the relevance 
of much of the discussions. Terminology such as biplane rigs, dolfin 
smackers, seagull *****'s? are quite unknown to me. I seem to understand 
that most of you design, build or race your own multihulls. That is not my 
objective.

I recently purchased a 10 year old Fontaine Pajot 42'. My objective is to 
slowly cruise the Med (Portugal to Turkey) in as much comfort and with as 
much room for family and friends as possible. This boat, which I have 
learned from previous posts most of you probably find ugly, suits my purpose 
perfectly.

I would like to learn more about the terminology, the rigging, the sailing 
of my boat. For example, I will need a new mainsail soon, and I would love 
to know if there are better options than the company recomended to me ( 
Rolly Tasker ). I would like to have the rigging and the routing of the 
control lines looked at by someone with experience in these boats. I would 
like to learn how to rig the spinnaker .... etc.

If any of you can recommend some books, websites etc. geared to the typical 
cruiser rather than the builder/racer, please pass them along. If anyone out 
there knows of a F.P. owners group, I'd like to know about that too. If any 
of you have experience with this boat, I love to hear that too.

Thanks in advance
Peter