Catamaran

Catamaran is a kind of multihull or ship that is formed by two hulls that can be sailed or engine-powered. This transportation was used by Paravas, which was a community of the south East Asia area. The model is recently in use by sports and leisure, overall when the use of the two multihulls becomes more popular because it has been discovered that the boat gained stability and huge capacity.

Multihull component terms

The multihull component terms are different than the ones that are used in regular boats. There are three terms that are used: aka, vaka and ama and all this terms are popular in the Malay and Micronesian areas.

• Aka: Aka is the Micronesian term that is use to said to the part that connects hulls of the catamaran (depending of the model it can be three or two).
• Ama: Ama is the Micronesian term that is use to said proa, which is use in the catamaran as the outrigger.
• Vaka: or the main hull of the catamaran, which consists on in a vaka and the main canoe-hull.

Navigation whit a catamaran

The navigation with almost all the multihull is pretty similar but the catamaran has some special issues such as:

• The speed that can reach is pretty high.
• The mast of the catamaran has higher chances of being broken because that the catamaran has a lot of stability.

Uses for a catamaran

The catamaran has different uses, such as:

• Catamaran Sailing boats: These catamarans could be use as Sailboats and for recreation only. Most of them are designed to be sailed and landed on the beach. Once on the beach the rest on the keels so it can protect the vessel.

Large catamarans are pretty good for long trips and also make good cruising.

Some of the issues that the catamarans may present when on board can be:

• It is default to track a catamaran if they do not have a dagger on the centre.
• The catamarans can reach high speeds even more than monohulls.
• When it is come to the turning, the catamaran are pretty slow if you compare with a monohull.
• They have less probabilities of capsize.
• Trying to learn to drive them when someone is use to the monohulls is kind of difficult because not all is similar.
• Catamarans for transportation of passengers: The catamarans are used in the transportation of passengers more than before because of the high speed ferries. Ferries use a cushion in between the hulls in order to reach higher speeds.
• Power catamarans: Power catamarans are a recent model that is equip whit a more powerful model than the ones that uses a yacht and previous catamarans.
• Megacatamarans: It is the biggest catamarans that uses lot of hulls, it is known also as a yacht catamaran model that is use for transportation (a luxury way of moving in a coast).