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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.
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Deck Plan
The Visayan 40 deck plan shows the usual huge and useful deck area of our Visayan series designs. In addition to the large flat stern deck area, the wide side decks and forward deck areas are all flat enough for comfortable movement about the boat in harbor or in a bouncing sea. Large deck lockers are available in the forward beam area, and under the aft deck, as well as in the cockpit seating and helm bench seat. All the accoutrements of cruising, spare line, extra anchors, fenders, fishing gear, spare fuel and water containers, and so on, will find themselves properly stowed and out of sight.
A split mainsheet lead to the headsail winches through rope clutches gives excellent mainsail control at minimum cost and clutter. The aft deck area has effectively no cluttering hardware in the way of life aboard in the harbor. While we do not normally bring headsail halyards aft from the rotating mast, all other sailing controls are lead to the aft corners of the cockpit for convenient and safe sail handling.
The 9 foot hard dinghy shown or a smaller inflatable comes aboard easily and rides comfortably underway eliminating any temptation to tow it at sea.
The helmsman and companion enjoy an excellent view from the their shaded and elevated helm bench. The fabric top shades all the seats, and the bench seats are long enough for an afternoon snooze when it just can't be resisted.
General Arrangement
The first Visayan 40 was built with fixed keels and the two person settee in the port hull as shown here. This comfy two-seater table compliments the in-hull navigation station and chart table to make the center section of the port hull an attractive and sociable cabin. We show the normal pivoting centerboard as an option on this design. If enhanced windward performance is a priority the optional centerboard version with pilot berth on top of the board case will be the way to go.
In either option you have two spacious stern cabins with a wide double berth in-hull for cool sleeping in the tropics, a comfortable hull side seat, generous hanging locker, and wash basin. Two forward cabins with double bunks on the underwing provide well-spaced private accomodations for guests or children. As usual we have our large galley down in the starboard hull, conveniently connected to the salon area with a wide open pass-through shelf for serving convenience and galley openess. A large properly insulated ice box or refrigerator is placed in the salon but near the galley. Two full-size propane bottles for a 2 burner stove with oven are safely stowed in an easily accessible self draining locker under the helm bench.
The cool openess of the salon with wide opening forward and aft windows has to be experienced to be appreciated. The 4 free standing dining chairs will stack and stow in the space of one when unused, further clearing the room for home-like spaciousness. Just as frequently the chairs will be found outside on the broad stern deck for late afternoon sundowners.
Twin Yanmar 2GM 18hp engines are suggested for economical cruising at adequate speeds and good range. Yanmar 3GM 27hp engines will fit in the boat for a bit more speed under power, but fuel consumption and engine weight will be considerably more. Fuel tanks are built into the aft deck hidden beam for easy access for filling and cleaning. Large water tanks are under the salon seat.
The Visayan 40 provides for real home-like comfort for extended cruising with the reasonable original purchase price and operational costs of a very economical 40 footer.
