This is the introduction that I wrote for my intended website some 9 months ago!

Welcome to Tom Garetson's boat build weblog (BLOG). The purpose of this is to keep friends and family updated as to the progress of my latest venture (read as adventure or hair-brained idea); building a sailing catamaran.

The blog will hopefully give you some of the background on how this idea was formed, why I am building the boat and how, and the design I've chosen. It also has plenty of photos to give you a better idea of what my verbose confusing ramblings are trying to describe.

Let me know if you have any questions (and what they are), or just say hello via email. I hope to update this a couple of times a month with photos or just stories on the new adventure of building a boat capable of sailing across the ocean.

The plan is to use this catamaran as transportation and accommodation to travel and explore; and like most of my life's plans is indefinite in duration. Most of these travel destinations will be in warmer climates than the two I have spent most of my life in (Wisconsin and England).

The sailing catamaran provides a stable, roomy, safe and energy efficient home (not to mention fun and challenging).

Some of you are probably wondering how I (a wisconsin boy) came to this idea of sailing as well as wondering what sort of experience I might have on the water.

Although Michelle and I had two inland lake/river powerboats, my first experience sailing came in the early 90's in England with my friend from Ford, Tony Paine. Tony had a 24 foot Jeanneau sailboat called crystal, near his home on the River Crouch. He took me sailing up and down the river a dozen or so times. On one occasion we sailed out the river into the North Sea and up the coast to Brightlinsea. This was a trip that was too long to get up and back in a day, so it required us to stay on the boat overnight, and return the next day. Tony and I also participated in the annual regatta at his yacht club. We didn't do very well on either of the two occasions, but always had fun trying to over-take another boat (we even did it once, but he eventually overtook us and we ended up last in our group)

Tony introduced me to some of the fundamentals of sailing, the joy of harnessing the wind for movement, the quiet of this, the confusing terminology of sailing, the very particular ways of sailors, and that yelling at your crew is not personal (although deserved when you wrap the jib sheet the wrong way around the winch AGAIN).

The next sailing experience was more extensive and on sailing catamarans. It was in 2002 in Australia. Here I sailed with my friends Ray & Jackie Bailey on Cat's Chorus, their 42 ft Schionning catamaran, and new friends Michael and Sue, on HIPPOCAMPUS (a 43 ft Crowther Cat). In all I spent nearly 5 weeks and hundreds of nautical miles, cruising around the southeast coast of Australia and across the Bass Strait to Tasmania. Most of it was on CAT'S CHORUS, and Ray was very good about teaching me what he was doing and why. I think it was good for him too as this was the inaugural cruise for Cat's Chorus and she wasn't short of a few bugs.

In addition to this I have been like most "wannabe" cruisers, reading and studying sailing through books and magazines.

Once I decided that I wanted to try this cruising / sailing thing, I began to look for an appropriate vessel. Firstly, I knew from my Oz experience that I wanted to cruise on a catamaran. The stability, room and speed makes it a far better choice for a new home. I then began to surf the internet and spoke to brokers learning the second-hand boat business, the market and price levels, and the buying process. After about two years of this, I concluded that I was probably going to spend as much money for a second-hand boat that would need to be re-fit for confidence, safety and my preferences as I would for a new boat.

There are three distinct advantages to building your own boat; 1) You know the boat inside & out, bow to stern, which makes it a safer boat and an easier to repair boat in case of a mishap., and 2) You get to select the systems you need and the systems you want., 3) If you can find a builder as I did, who will let you actually help build the boat, you save money. We all know I like to save money!

Although I continued to look for a suitable second-hand cat, I developed a short list of features that I would want on a cat that I might want to build;

-37 to 42 feet long (keeps sail area and overall boat size more manageable, but large enough for sufficient space as a liveaboard)

-Space for 3 double berths and 2 heads

-galley down in the hull rather than up on the bridgedeck

-two inboard diesels for dependable smooth non-intrusive power

-Twin helms for easier safer views forward in all sail positions

-Good sailing characteristics for greater speed and the safety that comes from the ability to "beat the weather"

In the end I considered three designs that I felt met my feature list: Farrier F41, Schionning Cosmos 1230, and the just introduced Woods Transit 38. All three designs met all of the short-list criteria.

The Pros & Cons (in my view) of each design:

I chose the Transit 38 designed by Richard Woods because he is and has been designing, building and sailing catamarans for 40 plus years, he designed this boat for himself to be used for the same things I plan to do, it represented the most flexibility in making modifications that I wanted to the interior, and having hulls available already built would save quite a lot of time and money.

The final piece of the puzzle for building my sailing catamaran is the builder. While considering the F41, I asked the designer to recommend some builders that I could contact. One of them was Lombardi Yachts in North, Virginia.

John Lombardi has been building multihulls (catamarans and trimarans) for over 20 years. His boats have won awards and races and most importantly praise from his owners. John's reputation is such that Ian Farrier suggested him eventhough John had never built a Farrier design (actually John is now building an F32 trimaran). It also transpired that with some creative business and insurance arrangements, john would allow me to work on the boat myself. This opportunity provides me with the great benefits of cost savings and intimate knowledge of the boat's build details.