We, at Aventure have a safe guard policy, as discussed in many

         This policy safeguards us, as boatyard from problems and we can

         Regards,

         Tim Jordaan

Hello Bob, I totally agree with your statement on large boats being easier to handle, but a lot of people are intimidated by moving up. I worked my way up from 16' off the beach cats to a 24' cat then a 33' sailing cat that I cruised from Australia to the Caribbean before commencing a ten year maritime career starting on a 51' mono up to 75' and several 100' plus foot mono's and a 105'x 37' power cat ending on a 145' Feadship. As for single handing; for more than 24 hours it is unsafe and un-seamanlike and should be discouraged. Who watches the boat while you sleep? Even proximity alarms set on the radar will not pick up small fishing boats. I cruised with single handed sailors and thought they were crazy. I had to single hand a 51' from Anegada to Tortola in the BVI's when one of my charter guests passed away. This was a four hour night time motor and docking at the other end with no auto pilot, but no problem. The secret to single handed docking is preparation. Prepare your bow, stern and the two spring lines off their center cleat and run them all outside your life rails back to the cockpit. Then tie a bowline with a big loop in the end of each line. Tie your fenders in place along the hull and then lift them back over the rails onto the deck. When you arrive safely in the harbor, drop your fenders back over the side, then pick out your AFT spring line and hold it by the loop as you approach the dock. If there is someone there to take a line always pass them the AFT spring line loop ONLY and tell them LOUDLY and CLEARLY to drop the loop over the FIRST bollard or dock cleat that you approached, this will be your aft dock line cleat. Then you haul in the slack line and cleat it off, even if the boat is still moving ahead slowly, the line tightening up will quickly stop the forward movement and pull you nicely against the dock. You can even leave the motor idling ahead as this will keep you pinned to the dock while you nonchalantly pass the other lines ashore and then tighten them. If there is no one ashore to help you, YOU must step ashore with the aft spring line and secure it to the aft dock bollard and your boat won't go anywhere other than to the end of the spring line giving you all the time you need to secure the other lines, no rush no panic. Sorry to be so wordy, but I trust this helps someone. Graham Pfister TrawlerCat Marine Designs BC, Canada www.trawlercatmarine.com Message: 9 Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:47:00 +0100 From: "Tim Jordaan" <tradesure@libello.com> To: "Power Catamaran List" <power-catamaran@lists.samurai.com> Subject: Re: [PCW] Rough seas stuff - Buzzards Bay Message-ID: <LBECKKBLHOPINOAMBEEGGEOJCEAA.tradesure@libello.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Georgs, I certainly hope that we could not be opened to such a debate when in fact there are quite a few accredited builders that can build upfront easily more than $1 million and more. We, at Aventure have a safe guard policy, as discussed in many previous mails under the heading, insurance. We only build upfront and the client only pays for what he sees, firstly the hull and deck, then he pays, plumbing and engines, then he pays, as so forth, all insured on his own builders insurance policy. This policy safeguards us, as boatyard from problems and we can always deliver, exactly what our client wants. Regards, Tim Jordaan -----Original Message----- From: power-catamaran-bounces+tradesure=libello.com@lists.samurai.com [mailto:power-catamaran-bounces+tradesure=libello.com@lists.samurai.com]On Behalf Of Graham Sent: 26 October 2009 17:07 To: power-catamaran@lists.samurai.com Subject: [PCW] Rough seas stuff - Buzzards Bay Hello all, I agreed with pretty much everything Rod said right down to this next paragraph: "I'd also suggest that if the builder says he can't build your new cat with a receipt of only a 15% or 20% deposit from you (instead, he wants stage payments from you), that isn't necessarily a sign of a builder with a worrisome financial situation -- but it might be. Conversely, if the builder WILL build you a complete boat, with only a 10% or 20% deposit, he's likely to be a better funded entity. (But he could be just hoping to take you for your deposit...period.)" Rod is somewhat correct but he should have qualified what size of cat he is referring to and whether it is a production cat, a semi-production cat or a custom built cat, so let me elaborate. Starting at the last referenced, "a custom built cat", especially over 45' that can cost a builder over US $1m to build and take over 12 months to complete. There are no builders out there I know of who could or would carry that amount of debt for that amount of time. Sure they can finance the construction debt, for a price, but then they would have to pass the finance charges on to the customer increasing the price of his boat even more, which is okay if agreed to ahead of time, but more often it's less expensive for the customer to 'pay as he goes'. Most custom boat builders I'm aware of who contract for boats over US $1m prefer a 10% to 20% deposit topped up monthly on invoices tendered to the customer that includes purchases made for his boat and the labor hours used by the different trades. This way the builder does not have to finance the customer's boat and the customer sees the equity in his boat grow each month. A reputable custom boat builder works to a construction schedule that shows how many workers of which disciplines work how many hours in that month on the customers boat. Some builders offer an "open book policy" where they are willing to, literally, open their tax books to you and show you workers wages paid. You should have your lawyer check that the build contract includes a section laying out that the builder cannot use the partly built boat, or any part thereof as equity or collateral on any purchase(s) or......whatever...... I'm not a lawyer, but this is to prevent vendors holding your partly completed boat as security on unpaid bills should the builder suddenly go belly up! Even a semi-production cat that owners make changes to can run up a sizable construction bill and will take extra time to complete. Time amounts to labor and overheads that have to be paid for, so the same conditions and restrictions that apply to a custom build should apply to a semi-custom build. Production cats are a different kettle of fish. You usually pay a deposit and receive a hull number that will become your boat when the production schedule gets around to it. These boats are usually under 40' and cost a lot less than custom and semi-custom cats, especially if it has outboards and not inboards. But this is a competitive market with low margins and we all know what happened to PDQ. I knew they couldn't sell their boats for that price and stay solvent but, they wanted to go head to head with some other companies and paid the price. 'Caveat emptor', let the buyer beware, but have a good lawyer on your side to check the contract and give you an edge on the unknown. Graham Pfister TrawlerCat Marine Designs BC, Canada -----Original Message----- From: power-catamaran-bounces+graham=trawlercatmarine.com@lists.samurai.com [mailto:power-catamaran-bounces+graham=trawlercatmarine.com@lists.samurai.co m] On Behalf Of power-catamaran-request@lists.samurai.com Sent: Sunday, October 25, 2009 9:00 PM To: power-catamaran@lists.samurai.com Subject: Power-Catamaran Digest, Vol 54, Issue 18 Send Power-Catamaran mailing list submissions to power-catamaran@lists.samurai.com To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.samurai.com/mailman/listinfo/power-catamaran or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to power-catamaran-request@lists.samurai.com You can reach the person managing the list at power-catamaran-owner@lists.samurai.com When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Power-Catamaran digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Rough seas stuff - Buzzards Bay (Rod Gibbons) 2. Re: Rough seas stuff - Buzzards Bay (gram rupert) 3. Buzzards Bay Cat (John Schieffelin) 4. Re: Rough seas stuff - Buzzards Bay (Robert Deering) 5. Buzzards Bay and the rest. (Tim Jordaan) 6. Singlehanding (pauljchristman@aol.com) 7. Re: Singlehanding (Georgs Kolesnikovs) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- **********************