'ROUND THE WORLD
D
on has been a multihull sailor since the ‘70s, and nothing would persuade him to turn to a monohull. But
Don and Anne Taber kicking back in Malaysia during a five-year circumnavigation aboard their Marples 44 trimaran 'Redwood Coast II'.
he stopped proselytizing years ago. I’m a former monohull sailor, but I can’t imagine ever going back to the chaos of cooking on a monohull in a following sea, or having to sleep wedged into a bunk. It’s hard to beat the comfort of sleeping on an almost-always level boat, but the downside is that the mooring fees can be shockingly expensive. For instance, we were charged $9/ft./night at Finike, Turkey, because Redwood Coast’s footprint is 120 sq. meters. And the Finike Marina was one of the less expensive ones. The good side of having a boat that covers a large area is that there's lots of room to move around, and there's plenty of deck space for solar panels. Redwood Coast, for example, had six 70-watt solar panels on the amas. As a result, during our five-year cruise we never once plugged into shore power. Furthermore, we never had to run the engine in order to keep our house batteries charged or keep the refrigerator cold. During our Zihuatanejo-to-Zihuatanejo circumnavigation we ran our engine a total of just 1,800 hours in four years. Monohullers frequently inquire about Page 112 • Latitude 38 • September, 2010
our trimaran’s top speeds. While Redwood Coast can hit double digits fairly easily, it’s hard to maintain such speeds over several days or even 24 hours. In fact, we found our trimaran’s most surprising performance to be in super light winds. Don and I had cruised extensively on Redwood Coast prior to our circumnavigation, and we couldn’t help but notice how many more large cruising catamarans are out there these days. What are the pros and cons of each? We don’t really have an opinion because we haven’t had any experience on large cats. The following are some of the highlights from our circumnavigation.
W
e left Santa Cruz in the winter of ‘04 and made it down to Zihua in time for SailFest in January of ‘05. That year Z-town turned out to be the best place, weatherwise, from which to head across to the Marquesas. Our passage was 18 days. An injection pump repair in Mexico turned out to be the precursor to our engine ‘blowing up’ in Taiohae. After a couple of days of troubleshooting, Don determined that the valve was stuck in the piston. The engine manufacturer assured us that they would send a replacement long block to Tahiti as soon as possible. Being engineless, it would have been foolish for us to try to sail in and out of the tricky lagoon entrances of the Tuamotus, so we had to forget those. In fact, the only way we could enter the reef at Tahiti was by tying our dinghy between our main hull and starboard ama and powering into the anchorage at Marina Taina at four knots. "ASAP" for the engine manufacturer meant it arrived by air five weeks later. We’d spent the waiting period clearing out the engine room, and stripping the motor of parts we would reuse. Twentyfour hours after taking delivery of the long block, Don had the engine up and running! After adventures in French Polynesia,
we made the jaunt up to Penrhyn in the Northern Cooks, then continued along the northern route via Suwarrow, American Samoa, Samoa, and Tonga. Once New Zealand weather guru Bob McDavitt gave us the green light for the passage
"As a result, during our five-year cruise, we never once plugged into shore power." from Tonga to New Zealand, we were off. We made the 1,100-mile trip in 5.5 days, at an average of 8.3 knots. After a season in Opua in the Bay of Islands, we sailed back to Fiji. Our first destination was Kandavu, which is often overlooked by yachties because it’s an all-day uphill sail from Suva. We found a fantastic anchorage in Daku Bay, not far from an island resort. Since the island is remote and technical support is nonexistent, Don, who's an electrician by trade, was asked to look at the installation of a solar array. The resort owner, tired of having to run a generator 24/7, seized the opportunity to hire Don to get things
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY REDWOOD COAST II
The big trend in long distance cruising during the last 10 years has been the dramatic increase in the number of multihulls, almost all of which are catamarans. Ironically, though, in the early days of cruising multihulls, trimarans rather than catamarans were the most popular. Since we don’t hear much about cruising trimarans these days, it was nice to hear from Anne and Don Taber of Santa Cruz, who completed a five-year circumnavigation on Father’s Day of last year aboard their Marples 44 Redwood Coast II. Don built the trimaran himself over a fiveyear period, 25 years ago. Below, Anne shares some tales from their lap around the planet, as well as a few thoughts on monohulls versus multihulls for cruising.