This is a new 44’ powercat design by Kurt. It is simple, elegant, and perhaps the most bang-for-the-buck design I’ve seen. Kurt estimates displacement at 2550 kg/5600 lbs, which i suppose indicates the boat dry would be 4000 lbs and change. This would be a very easily driven hull. 2x 50-60hp outboards should be sufficient to go fast, and the mpg is going to be spectacular. Twin 40 gal tanks should give a range of 400-1000+ miles depending on conditions and how fast you want to go. Beam as designed is about 18’/5.5m, but could be easily increased for more deck area.
I am a professional boat builder and this is a boat I would love to build. A client of mine has commissioned these plans from Kurt and a detailed construction spreadsheet from me. At the moment they are unsure whether they wish to proceed with this design. Plans might be available at a discounted price. If you are interested, we are available to build this boat during the coming winter in Sarasota, Florida. If you are in Asia we can arrange to build this in the Philippines. Drop me an email at matthewhreynolds@gmail.com or text/call 1.941.323.5122.
Finished up and sent off to Buffalo NY, one 48×28 day charter catamaran. About 14 months with a crew of three plus an occasional fourth. Here are some pix – some text and vids to follow. Three sets of images, the crossbeams, the daggerboards and trunks, and the hulls.
Hi! I’m starting the build of a kurt hughes design day charter cat to be completed spring 2022 in southwest florida. it will be a cylinder molded wood composite build. I’d like to communicate with anyone else who is currently building, or has built a similar boat. i’m a professional boat builder, having built and worked on several of kurts designs.
couple of questions:
anybody have a suitable dagger board mold? or want to use mine when i’m done with it?
any good leads for sourcing rudder shafting?
if anyone needs uni or triax i have found somebody with a couple tons nearby (sarasota area). vectrix and very reasonably priced. let me know in the comments and i’ll post info.
At the end of 2018 I posted a power cat hull build. Upon completion of the two hulls, they were picked up by the owners and taken home to Maine to build the crossbeams and cockpit, as well as fit engines, electrical, etc. I’m happy to report that the resulting boat looks spectacular, and the owner/builders say that the shakedown cruise went well, with a smooth dry 20 knots. stock props.
Ten years ago, most visqueen used to be of fairly high quality and it wasn’t hard to walk into home depot and walk out with a roll of plastic good enough for bagging. But at some point cheap, porous, recycled visqueen took over the market, which is fine for most uses but ridiculously bad for vacuum. Good polyethylene sheeting will be somewhat transparent, and smooth texture. I recently ordered a roll of Xpose Safety 4.5 mil through amazon, and it was inexpensive, and excellent. i bagged 7′ x 18′ curved foam roof panels on a 3cfm vac pump and got a nice hard vacuum with not much attention to detail. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PBXHWFB/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I took on the job of building a set of hulls for Kurts 28’ power cat design which we stretched to 31’ by adding about 2.5 inches to every station. We upped the stringer size by 30% and glassed with 8oz rather than 6oz but otherwise stuck with the plan and laminate schedule. We used multiple layers of 8 and 10oz to make up biax tapes, i find it makes for easier fairing and allows for tapering the buildup. We did a half-way-to-yacht quality fairing job, primed with 545 and installed cleats, hatches, fuel tanks, and fuel fills. There will be lightweight 25 hp engines mounted on rear transoms. We finished both hulls and shipped to the owner in maine, who is going to build the cross arms and center cockpit over the winter. I really can’t recommend committing to building a boat over the summer in sarasota, florida in a non-airconditioned space, but, in the spirit of running a marathon, and other ridiculously painful ways to enjoy yourself, we did it. Total build time, including purchasing, hardware, and mounting on a trailer for shipment, was in the neighborhood of a thousand hours. LOTS of pictures after the break-
Upgraded the video on this a bit: The layup on a 68′ cylinder molded hull currently under construction in Roatan: it’s speeded up quite a bit, this is about 25 minutes of real time. the half hull panels are approximately 11′ x 71′ – 4 layers of 3mm plywood and 33 gallons of epoxy.
