Multi-hull Cruising Catamaran Class

A couple of months ago, I started thinking about the withdrawal symptoms I'd felt last winter when there wasn't enough wind to sail for weeks on end. This year, I wanted to find a way to sail through the winter (so to speak). I'd heard that catamarans (the big cruising kind) were much faster in light wind than monohulls and thought it might be a good idea to get some training, so I could add the cat as another option for chartering in the winter. I also thought it would be fun to take a bunch of friends in such a big, spacious boat up the delta for a weekend or two in the summer.

So I looked into multihull cruising catamaran classes at the various sailing schools in the bay area and decided on MSA. I liked the instructors I'd met there so far, and they had the most reasonable chartering rates of all of the clubs, particularly since I'm already a member.

There were 5 of us in the class, Stan Lander was the instructor, and we were on a Seawind 1000 (33' long by 24' wide cruising catamaran) called Bluewater.

I knew one other person in the class from beer can racing in RWC... Lisa. Lisa had just completed her bareboat certification at MSA and knew one other guy from that class who was also taking this class... and they'd had Stan as their instructor for that class, too. Of the 5 of us students, 4 already had bareboat certification (a requirement to get certified at the end of this class). The fifth student was chartering a cat in the Caribbean in March and just wanted to get familiar with it. He didn't care about certification.

It was the worst weather of the season so far... really cold (I mean it... in the 40s during the day!) and raining all weekend. We actually had a few hours without rain on Saturday, but it was overcast all day, so it was bitter cold. And it poured all day Sunday.

Even with the bad weather, the class was excellent, and Stan was a great teacher! We practiced new techniques for tacking and gybing, and learned how to do back-and-fills and docking with twin engines. That was really cool!

We spent most of Sunday morning taking the written test at the "kitchen table" on Bluewater with Stan motoring us up to Paradise Cove. There we practiced anchoring with a bridle and then practiced crew overboard drills on the way back. Poof! In two days, I had yet another ASA certification and another option for chartering in the winter... or so I thought!

The other students and I got along great and decided that we wanted each other to be there the first time we take out our other sailing friends on our new toy. So we made a plan to charter Bluewater in January and all go sailing together... and take a few friends along to teach them the ropes.

I got on MSA's online reservation web site the next day and discovered that Bluewater was booked until March! Long story short... it turns out that Bluewater's owner took her over to the east bay for some maintenance and racing over the winter and wouldn't be bringing her back until the spring. Bummer! If I'd known that, I would have taken the course at another school where I could charter the cat right away or would have waited until the spring. Anyway, a couple of us complained, and MSA said they'd try to get us a couple of days on Bluewater over the winter. Failing that, they're going to give us a free refresher course in the spring when she returns to the fleet.

The best laid plans... so there probably won't be any cat sailing this winter. :(

And, no, I didn't take any pictures. It was too cold, too wet, and I was way too busy most of the time!