Portfolio | Visayan 40' Catamaran (V12.2)

Visayan 40' Catamaran (V12.2)

Designer: Mike Allen

The Visayan 40 fits in the middle of our series of tropical Visayan catamarans. This design may look small if you are used to large cats, but it is a very big 40 if you have been sailing smaller designs. There is plenty of boat here for world cruising if that is in your future plans.

The original Visayan 40 was built with the fixed keels seen here. Experience shows the keels sail well, giving good weatherly performance and protection to the hull bottom, shaft, and rudder. They are simpler and less expensive to build than a centerboard, and eliminate centerboard conflict with interior arrangements. This is worth considering in a smaller live-aboard cruising cat. The pivoting centerboard shown as an option will provide slightly better windward performance however, so it is a matter of establishing one's priorities with respect to the use of the boat when the choice is being made. As with all our Visayan designs, the rudders kick up even in the fixed-keel version, as this is still a very worthwhile feature for safety and convenience.

Full headroom is available in the salon and hulls, and a large area of the after deck area is covered by a light tube and fabric bimini for shade and weather protection. Excellent underwing clearance is provided.

For good sailing performance the Visayan 40 is designed to carry our standard shop-built Barlow-designed rotating wingmast with fully battened mainsail, overlapping furling jib, and a recommended powerful screecher and spinnaker headsails.