Non-RIB, Cheetah Catamarans

[Pikey Dave]

I've been on cats from 20' fishing boats to cross channel "fast cat" car ferries. Also a 45' Safehaven Wildcat dive charter & they are all terrible. Guaranteed to heave even the strongest stomach in all but calm weather. The worst was the fast cat ferry from Cherbourg to Portsmouth. Moderate sea on the port beam, it was carnage. I've never seen as much puke. The smaller cats are a hard ride in a head sea as the wave gets trapped between the hulls & has nowhere to go, so the boat bottoms out.

[Dauphin]

Spent some time on a local Cheetah which is used mainly for trips for a charity. Nice boat to helm and a comfortable ride in sloppy seas. Only heard good things about the company itself.

[ncp]

To summarize..

The good:

Originally Posted by karlT

I bought a 6.2m new from cheetah a few years back. Great boats and a good company to work with. They are accustomed to shipping overseas.

Originally Posted by tim griffin

Great boats great people

Originally Posted by Dauphin

Spent some time on a local Cheetah which is used mainly for trips for a charity. Nice boat to helm and a comfortable ride in sloppy seas. Only heard good things about the company itself.

The bad (people that just don't like the ride of cats but have never ridden on the boat in question):

Originally Posted by Pikey Dave

Never been on a good Cat yet. Loads of room, horrible ride. They don't call 'em "vomit comets" for nothing.

You basically have 2 hulls wanting to go in different directions, whichever hull lands first gets first grip, then the second hull lands & tries to straighten the boat, the result is a corkscrewing motion that's horrid.

I've been on cats from 20' fishing boats to cross channel "fast cat" car ferries. Also a 45' Safehaven Wildcat dive charter & they are all terrible. Guaranteed to heave even the strongest stomach in all but calm weather. The worst was the fast cat ferry from Cherbourg to Portsmouth. Moderate sea on the port beam, it was carnage. I've never seen as much puke. The smaller cats are a hard ride in a head sea as the wave gets trapped between the hulls & has nowhere to go, so the boat bottoms out.

Originally Posted by Siochair

I have found that some cats can have an uncomfortable movement especially with quarter seas. Fine head on but there is something unsettling when the sea is from any other direction. The smallest I have been on was just over 12m so can't say if it would be the same for boats in the size you are looking at.

There is the caveat that I am prone to motion sickness anyway but it did seem worse on cats.

Hearsay:

Originally Posted by Bigtalljv

Since others brought up the ride I'll chime in too and not be the only Mr Negative. From all the people I have talked to I'd be concerned with the ride too. I know just one or two people personally who had cats here in California and they got rid of them due to ride issues. Now I have had a brief internet conversation with an actual boat designer and cats can vary quite a bit. A lot has to do with the height of the tunnel so it not bottoming out in the swell or something like that . Some of the more mass produced ones were notorious for their bad ride and that might be what the people I met had. I know of one person who has a 30+' cat if some sort and spends much of his retired time on it so he must be ok with it.

Other friends have a 25' or so power cat down in the Caribbean and really like it. The deck space and storage is impressive, even has a head in it. Huge top covers most of the desk. They summer up our way and have said on multiple occasions they would not want to rock fish here in their boat. It's much better when moving. They do tuna and wahoo fishing down their way.

If cats were the perfect west coast boats I think you'd see a lot more of them...

What I'm getting out of this is that (a) the ride of a cat is a personal preference and (b) Cheetah Marine is a good company to work with if you like catamarans.

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by ncp

To summarize..



The good:









The bad (people that just don't like the ride of cats but have never ridden on the boat in question):









Hearsay:







What I'm getting out of this is that (a) the ride of a cat is a personal preference and (b) Cheetah Marine is a good company to work with if you like catamarans.

Seems like a fair assessment. I would certainly spend some time on one though before buying.

[ncp]

Originally Posted by Pikey Dave

Seems like a fair assessment. I would certainly spend some time on one though before buying.

If I were to go down this route, it would be a long process, starting with a trip to the UK... And that's not something I've planned yet.

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by ncp

If I were to go down this route, it would be a long process, starting with a trip to the UK... And that's not something I've planned yet.

Don't hang about, we're very cheap at the moment[emoji6]

[ncp]

I know...I've never considered anything from that side of the pond.

$1.22 = 1.00 GBP today....down $0.03 since I priced a Cheetah a few weeks ago.

There's always AUS at $0.76 = 1.00 AUD

Still, not booking a trip quite yet!

But who knows what our current president (and more so our nations and the worlds sentiments regarding him) will do to the value of our dollar. I think it's probably highly uncertain and volatile! (that's all I'll say here and hopefully that's not too political)