The Need For A Genuine Peoples' Catamaran - A Folk Cat.

In a world with an expanding population, where the present margins of its land mass face reduction as the ice caps melt, and one where many thousands of us will thus become homeless there is a need for finding an easy way of living on the sea or on the sea edge.

Global weather irregularities in the last few years seem common and might indeed be a reflection of global warming. Many scientists think so and are giving us the parameters in which we must live to avoid calamitous overheating in the future. Sceptics might propose that our 'now' is a blip; they could be right; however in the meteorological history of the world blips can mean many tens if not   hundreds or thousands of years. I think it is best to be cautious and to take the default situation of 'warming' as real till proved otherwise. 

The shortage of land for those where housing was on low lying waterside have a way out. Of course nothing is quite like the feel of terra firma but in many countries whole rafts of people live on junks and boats at the water's edge and have developed occupational and social life styles that go with it.

No doubt for many such  people there was no choice, the craft under their feet is cheaper than the cheapest apartment. It doesn't have to be a hovel. In effect such 'rafts' of these occupied craft may indeed be preferred to shanty towns, not always the healthiest of places to live. 

In a more salubrious setting tens of thousands of beautiful craft lie, with electricity, water and sanitation at hand throughout the wealthy world in what might also be seen as rafts - marinas. That they are mostly unused, idle and empty is not under discussion. But they, for the most part, except for serious storms, offer good accommodation with little disturbance year long - some rocking, some heeling, but easy access to shore, car parking and often public transport.

Most by far are monohulls.
Catamarans on the other hand offer a more stable and capacious craft with the dual hulls allowing of a convenient segregation for family life and the interconnecting platform perfect for communal socialising and galley facilities.
Patently vulnerable to extremes as we have seen in tsunamis but so too were much of the other housing on the waters' edge.

Without doubt catamarans are more expensive than mono-hulls if for no other reasons than that they have two hulls.
This imperative cost might in some way be radically mitigated
 - the hulls are identical but do not need the degree of hull strengthening of a mono-hull to accommodate hefty keel forms.
- the inherent stability of catamarans, not relying on the 'ballast' effect  means the whole hull can be very light throughout.
- cheaper construction methods thus can be used not suitable for mono-hulls.
- new configurations of the hulls to each other can radically increase the below deck capacity of the mono-hull form yet move the buoyancy laterally and enhance stability.
- new platform arrangements offer the potential for many centre keel configurations that global sailors might wish to install.

I am proposing to build a catamaran that will be more that usually capacious below deck, cheap to build, perform well, and of an easy rig, it will be easy to sail. It will look different but be attractive.

In the future, allowing my boat is successful, I see the general construction to be completed by a specialist company or yard and the finishing left to the buyer or outfitters of their choice - in the manner of Rolls Royce cars in days gone by where RR produced the engine and chassis and the likes of Mulliner - Park Ward and Hooper in the body work and finishing off.

I shall keep you up to speed on my thinking and the practical development as it occurs.