[MHml] Catamarans

[Dave Howorth]

On Thu, 2006-09-07 at 17:40 +0000, Peter Gelinas wrote:
> I have been lurking this site for a while, hoping to learn more about 
> cruising catamarans.

Welcome!

> 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.

Probably the single best book is "The Cruising Multihull" by Chris
White. Another book I like is "Multihulls for Cruising and Racing" by
Derek Harvey.

There are also a few books on catamaran racing that have some useful
info. Depending how much you know about sailing cats, you'll learn a lot
of useful skills much faster on a beach cat than on a big cruiser. It's
a lot easier to understand the effects of apparent wind and of sail trim
etc on a small boat.

I don't know about an FP owners' group - have you asked FP? - but I'd
definitely recommend joining a multihull sailing club. I don't know
where you're based, but here in the UK we have MOCRA, for example.

Cheers, Dave