Editor’s Note: Many thanks to Ted Clements of Antares Catamarans and Shane Grover of Seawind Catamarans for patiently answering our questions. There are a lot of reasons why catamarans are more expensive than monohulls. It’s not just the two hulls. There are many more complicated calculations and structures needed to build the complex shapes. Building a bridge deck and the structures around a pair of hulls is a lot more difficult to design and build than a single hull, and we’ll explore a little about why. Part 1: Forces on the Hulls Load and force calculations on a boat hull isn’t a simple calculation, and even monohulls take a lot of designing to build a shape which performs well and has the strength to hold together at sea. Land vehicles have fairly predictable forces and motion on them, but boats can take forces and stresses in any direction. Waves slam […]
