Vessel Highlights
Famed Catana 471, owner's version, US configured (120VAC, propane, etc). This boat is fast, safe, comfortable!
Enjoy boating while avoiding polluting the atmosphere. We filled our tanks in Margarita, Venezuela in November 2006. Although we do not sail in the summertime, I see that we still have over a quarter of a tank (3 more months?). The twin Four Winds wind generators and 8 solar panels are the biggest two reasons. We usually have either wind or sun and sometimes a lot of both. We make our own water and use very little fuel for either the gen set or the main engines. With all the storage space, we provision the boat where it is the least expensive and then go months without buying anything except fresh veggies.
http://www.escapecay.com/TheYacht2007.htm |
Layout & Accommodations
Sleeps 7 in 3 staterooms. Cockpit folds down for another double. Galley faces aft (so the cook participates in what's happening in the cockpit) and the nav station faces forward as it should. Huge amounts of storage with many shelves added later. (The buoyancy of this boat is so great, you can add thousands of pounds without noticibly altering it's performance!) Although the boat has factory air conditioning, 7 Hella fans produce a nice breeze on those rare nights when there is none. |
Electronics & Navigational Equipment
B&G Hydra 2000 wind, depth, and speed instruments are the best!
2 autopilots (in case one fails) talk to the other instruments so that, for instance:
A/P will steer a compass course (of course) but will also steer to a waypoint you have entered into the Garmin 128 gps. Or, it will also steer to the wind angle you have entered so, if you are trying to point as high as you can, you can trim the sails for, say, 38 degrees apparent, and it will change the boats heading as need be to maintain that angle. Hence, your VMG is always optimized. Knowing the wind angle, the A/P can thus tack for you, facilitating single handing.
Since the radar knows the compass heading given out by the A/P, and it knows the boat's lat/long, you can put your cursor on a target and it will give you the target's lat/long! Plot two lat/longs on your electronic chart over 5 or 10 minutes and you have the target's course and speed.
Electronic charts - the boat navigates via a Dell laptop computer. The laptop does NOT sit on the nav table. Instead, it rests in a bracket out of harm's way and communicates to the nav table via wireless keyboard, mouse, and external (built in) monitor. If something should happen to that laptop, there is a backup laptop already configured and stored in the ship's "Faraday box"- a large ferro-magnetic box to protect against lightening - along with a backup gps. Hence, a lightning strike will NOT knock out your navigation! Both labtops are included in the price.
A Pactor III allows for inexpensive world wide email via Sailmail, or if you are a Ham radio operator, Winlink is free. Sailmail is paid up through March of 2008 ($250/year) and with it, you can receive text copies of NOAA's weather report for the Caribbean, SW N. Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico. Plus, you can easily request daily or twice-daly grib files. Or, if that fails, the built in Navtex receives weather almost anywhere in the world independent of whether the computer, Pactor, and SSB are working. |
Engine /Mechanical Equipment
Catanas normally come with Volvo engines but we think Yanmars are more reliable and last longer. So twin Yanmar 4JH3E 56 HP diesels power the boat into and out of marinas. We like to sail wherever we go so the engines have only 1,000 hours on them in the 6.5 years we've owned the boat. "They're just getting broken in now!" |
Electrical System
We are big on electrical conservation and efficiency so we swapped out the 65 A stock alternators for 100 amp high output Balmars with electronic "smart" regulators. Nor do we run the diesels every morning to recharge batteries for several reasons: First, if we do need to recharge by burning fossil fuels to make noise, polution, and electricity, we do it with a Northern Lights 5.5 KW genset (also with less than 1000 hours in 6.5 years). But most of the time, we either recharge when the sun comes up using our 8-75W solar panels OR we don't recharge at all because there has been enough wind during the night to have remained "energy neutral" (about 11 kts).
After a cold front passage, we quickly have our batteries charged with the wind and sun so we make water until the tanks are full. Then, as an energy saving device, we use our factory installed ice maker to store additional "energy" in the form of ice cubes. These can later be dumped into the refrigerator to ease its draw, or into the glasses of very impressed neighbors in the anchorage for a sundowner. One time in the Bahamas, we had so much water and ice, we filled three other boats up who desperately needed it (none available in Mayaguana) and received bottles of wine in return. Hence, this boat can boast having turned "wind into wine," a pretty useful trick.
Although the icemaker was ordered as an energy storage device, we found another use for when we are up on the hard. Our refrigerators are water cooled so don't work then. But by running the ice maker all the time and pouring the cubes into the refrigerator once or twice a day, we have cold beverages all day long. |
Deck Equipment
Decks are clean, free of lines and hatches. All rigging lines pass through a raceway under the deck and surface in the cockpit just below the big Harken #53 2 speed power winch. Ventilation is nonetheless excellent thanks to huge portals and scoop hatches mounted vertically under the tramp. The boat is constructed of mostly high modulus fibers like carbon fiber and Kevlar which Catana calls "Twaron." |
Sails & Rigging
Full battened main (861 sf) and furled gib of 613 sf. Carbon fiber mast weight is 350 LB less than it would otherwise be if it were made of aluminum!
Three sets of reefing lines, outhaul, topping lift, and main halyard (all made of Spectra) appear in the cockpit below the 2 speed power winch. Hence, all reefing and sail trimming can be done easily and safely from the cockpit! The sail can easily be dropped into the lazy jacks without going on deck.
Best of all, the sail can be raised from the cockpit. The Harken high speed and low speed power buttons are located either side of the winch. So one person raises the sail on a typical Catana after performing anchor duty, while the helmsman steers the boat. But we installed a push button at the helm in parallel with the high speed button. Hence, as I motor up on the anchor while my wife raises it, I also am usually raising the main at the same time. After all, most of the time while the anchor is coming up, the boat is already into the wind. Since we started doing it that way, we find it more efficient than the normal "pull up anchor, motor out of the anchorage, then turn back into the wind to raise the main, then fall off and sail." Another reason why there are so few hours on the engines.
Main Sail - 861 sq.ft.
Genoa - 613 sq.ft.
Spinakker - 1398 sq.ft. |
|
Details are thought to be reliable but are not guaranteed.
Offer subject
to change, prior sale and tax when applicable.
© 2007 2Hulls, Inc[CCC04262007BW]
Used Catana 471 Catamaran For Sale - Escape Cay
2Hulls -your best source for used Catana catamarans for sale, and sailboat or
powerboat information for used cruising, sailing or racing Catana
multihull catamaran yachts. |