EXPECTATION VS REALITY

TERYSA VANDERLOO ON WHAT THE FIRST YEAR OF SAILING AND LIVING ABOARD A PERFORMANCE MULTIHULL HAS TAUGHT HER

- TERYSA VANDERLOO

Terysa Vanderloo and her partner Nick Fabbri have candidly documented their shift from a monohull Southerly 38 to performance catamaran on their YouTube Channel Sailing Ruby Rose - from choosing and spec'ing a new Seawind 1370, to the many challenges of commissioning and learning to live aboard a brand new boat.

"Nick and I have been sailing monohulls for 20 years and 15 years respectively, and lived on board a 38ft sloop for five years. Since taking delivery of our 45ft catamaran almost a year ago, we've felt pushed to and beyond our limits several times," she explains. "While we expected a steep learning curve, the reality was that shifting from a monohull to a catamaran was so much more challenging than we ever expected - although I'm happy and relieved to report that 10 months later, the rewards are more than worth it."

They share their key learnings:

SAIL BY NUMBERS

Something we always knew theoretically but hadn't had much experience putting into practice, was that sailing a catamaran required greater attention to numbers rather than relying on how the boat feels.

The best example of this is reefing. We've had several instances where the wind has picked up suddenly but we didn't realise until we glanced at the instruments, because some of the usual cues that we relied upon - such as the boat heeling or its motion through the water - were absent.

One thing I had to adjust to is the physical disconnect between ourselves and the sails. We are divided from the mainsail by our solid coachroof, although we have a window above each helm.

This lack of easy visibility to the sails from most areas of the cockpit and saloon took us a long time to get used to, both from a practical and logistical perspective, but also in terms of feeling quite disconnected from the sailing experience.