Posted: 17 March 2013.
We recently found this fun article written by the talented Alan Lucas (author of many cruising guides) for The Coastal Passage publication and just had to share this tongue-in-cheek description of the rising popularity of multihulls in recent years. We hope you enjoy reading it too!
Multihulturism
By Alan Lucas, SY “Soleares” for The Coastal Passage
Unless your head has been buried in the bilge these past couple of decades, you cannot help but have noticed the disturbing shift in the sailor’s psyche away from healthy xenophobia about almost everything to an acceptance of other influences and cultures. Nowhere is this more evident than in his or her irrational acceptance of multi-hulls.
Don’t believe me? Look out your porthole, there’s a plague out there.
Being an honest-to-goodness, fair dinkum tar-and-canvas Ocker, I reject this merciless invasion of all that is right and decent in Australian boating and make no apology for railing against the erosion of our true maritime values. Multiculturalism is one thing, but multihulturism is quite another.
As a dedicated monohulturist, bitter and twisted about not being able to afford a vessel that holds its value and goes twice as fast, I maintain that multihulturism is divisive and discriminatory and should be stamped out. Catamarans, especially, are everywhere, clogging up our waterways and popping out from behind headlands and islands to frighten the life out of decent, traditional sailors who they zoom past with haughty indifference to claim the best position at the next anchorage: and it’s not as if they need to be first because their shallow draft gives them the best anchorage anyway!
Click here to read full story.
