Current Work | Visayan 60' Catamaran (V18)

Visayan 60' Catamaran (V18)

Designer: Mike Allen

Profile

The Visayan 18 is the newest and largest of our Visayan series of cruising catamarans. This is a truly large, but shoal-draft global-cruising cat, able to take you comfortably anywhere your dreams may wander. As with all our Visayan series designs, this cat has been optimized for warm weather tropical cruising. And, as with all our custom designs, a cold weather version is, of course, possible.

As our latest launching (8/2005), this first Visayan 18 is now in active service as an administrative vessel for a Christian mission organization with stations to supply throughout the Philippine islands. Built to basic specifications on an extreme budget, we expect to see this vessel underway throughout the islands for many years to come.

Ketch Sail Plan

A conservative ketch sail plan makes this design a motorsailer which is most useful in typically light air tropical sailing conditions. The vessel has been fitted with twin 160 hp Yanmar diesel engines allowing it to meet mission schedules regardless of weather conditions, and if necessary quickly move to safe harbor to dodge the all too frequent typhoons that visit this area. Generous fuel capacity should give sufficient cruising range to avoid having to purchase fuel in remote areas where it may be scarce or contaminated during mission operations.

The ketch sail plan spreads the sail area to allow for smaller sails more easily handled by a limited crew. Simple hollow box timber masts and fore beam built in our shop provide significant cost savings over the typically towering aluminum rig a modern boat of this size would normally carry.

Shoal Draft Sailing Keels and Rudders

For simplified construction and minimum interference with the interior arrangements this design includes fixed low aspect-ratio shoal-draft sailing keels. The long slim hulls complemented by these hollow foil shaped keels will provide excellent windward performance for this conservative cruising design. The boat will sit very comfortably on the keels which provide protection for the propellers and rudders in the event of intentional beaching or accidental grounding. Barn door rudders, transom-mounted with massive hardware, eliminate the need for deep kick-up or removable rudders otherwise required for ”beachability” of catamarans. As big as it is, the Visayan 18 can be easily parked without concern on any smooth beach for bottom cleaning, anti-fouling or other hull or rudder maintenance.

An Enduring Ship

As usual, the stout vacuum molded Constant Camber hulls and careful Boatshop wood/epoxy construction provide a long-lived attractive vessel with a seaworthy appearance without intentional efforts at styling or elaborate graphics to meet fleeting aesthetic expectations. This boat will serve and endure for many years.

Click here for the contruction pictures of the Visayan 18 as she was under construction. (This is Constant Camber project #19)

//back to the top