MULTIPLE CHOICE

Is a multihull right for you? Veteran catamaran sailors (and monohull converts) weigh in on the variables that can help you make the right decision for your style of cruising.

- THERESA NICHOLSON

One summer evening many years back, a friend invited me to sail on a new Leopard 47 off Newport, Rhode Island. Although daylight was slowly fading, there was still a tug of a breeze when we met on the dock. After 11 years of cruising on my 60-year-old, gaff-rigged double-ender Tosca, just the ease of boarding the Leopard with a simple, normal step onto a stable platform with no life-threatening leaps, stern-boarding cardio or ultra-athletic bowsprit avoidance-impressed me.

But as we slid out of the marina and hoisted the main, bluewater-voyaging PTSD washed over me, and I fought the need to madly stow charcuterie boards and wineglasses, my bags, their bags, pillows, plates, everything. When the captain suggested we set the jib, I braced myself in the cockpit, a reaction from years spent sailing with tight sheets on a steep heel. I still remember the sensation as we caught the first gust on the fast cat: We lifted over the water and took off, flying across the bay. Nothing on the tables slid. Nothing down below moved. No one was sprayed or flung across the cockpit. It was so quiet. The moon rose, the stars came out. More bottles of wine appeared. I was all-in.

That sunset sail decades ago brought me up to speed on what I'd been missing about cruising multihulls. My slow-but-much-beloved ketch provided full-contact sailing. I knew very little about multihulls, and the little I knew wasn't helpful. I'd been cruising with friends on a wet Wharram cat in western Fiji and daysailing on a worn-down trimaran in Tonga. I'd seen the French cruisers zip by on their multihulls in Tahiti, but none of my Pacific friends in 1990s had anything close to the Leopard 47 I sailed that night.