[manintheboat]

I think there is great marketing ability in an offshore cat style boat, but the simple truth is that they do not match up to conventional v-hulls. True, in a head on 3 foot swell a cat can handle the wave better (engineering proves this theory), but in any quartering head or quartering following sea a cat style boat will fail 100% of the time. It is because of their lack of handling in quartering seas that I cannot approve of cat style offshore boats.

I think they do a world of good in flats boats, but thats just my opinion

Utterly rediculous statement.

Fail 100% of the time? Is this opinion based on any first hand knowledge, or are you just pulling this opnion out of your arsse?

Basically, catamarans are not for everybody. They run very well in head seas compared to like-sized mono hulls. In fact the ride in head seas is much better compared to like sized mono hulls. The ride in beam seas does take a little getting used to for sure. The weakest point in a catamarans offshore ride is in a big quartering following sea. That sea situation can be a little unnerving the first time you experience this but when you learn to trim the boat properly it is a non-issue. Honestly, a large quartering following sea is a handful for most boats, mono or cat.

Bottom line is that catamarans are very capable offshore boats, especially if you are looking for something under 25'.

 

[manintheboat]

I troll with my boat quite a bit and it does just fine. The only downside to trolling is that if you are slow trolling directly into 3-4' steep seas, you will slam a little, and can take some green water over the bow. Of course, this is when you are trolling very slow, if you move the speed up to around 10 knots, then problem is lessened greatly. There is a guy who has a Glacier Bay a few spaces down from me (his name is Skin on this board) and he trolled up wahoo, dolphin and a sailfish a couple of sundays ago so he seems to have no problems trolling either.

I really think that the reason that there are not more cats out there is pretty simple. There are not nearly as many made. If you want a new catamaran, you have basically 7 manufacturers (GB,World Cat,Twin Vee, Pro-kat,Renaissance Prowler, Kevlacat, Sea Cat) to choose from verses hundreds of mono hull manufacturers. Also, monohulls have been the traditional design of choice in America for years, and it is hard to change that trend. Basically, the American boat consumer is conditioned to buy mono hulls, which are faster and much better looking in my opinion.

There is no perfect boat. You pretty much have to make up your mind as to what boat works best for you, especially since you are the one making the payments.

Just to make sure that I was understood. I am not necessarily of the opinion that Cats $uck as trolling machines. I do have too much anxiety about my observation as to the seeming trend of snapper guys with cats and tuna/billfish guys with monohulls to actually plunk down the large dollars for a boat I plan to have for a while. After all, since the ride is inarguably superior in a cat, why isn't everybody running them? Since I spend about 3/4 of the time chasing pelagics I want to make sure that the hull I choose is best suited for that activity. As for the boat not making the fisherman, absolutely. But in an all other things being equal game, which this is, it's a good idea to pay attention to what you really want. You don't have to read this board long to see plenty of sad stories about the boat/fisherman marriage not working out. Hopefully that will smooth any feathers that I inadvertantly ruffled and maybe someone will post up whether they have made the same observation in boat owner trend and the guys that drag baits behind cats will discuss the wake issue.

 

[manintheboat]

I think that the prokat 23' is actually 28' LOA, so if you are fishing 23> you could do a lot worse than the prokat.