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'A catamaran', insists my authoritative learn-to-sail manual, 'has two hulls of equal length, with a mast supported in the centre of a bridge deck between them'.  Unfortunately at the time of the OCSG's end-of-October meet at Lakeside, Windermere, 1 had only read as far as page 8 ('An overview of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary'), and was therefore ignorant of this received sailing wisdom.  Thus unconstrained by convention (and deeply worried at the prospect of setting out alone in a force 5 and higher), 1 readily accepted an invitation to build and sail a 'canoe catamaran' using my boat (OC 84) and Dave Stubbs' OC 71.

With hindsight it would seem that our informal approach parted company with classical catamaran design at quite an early stage.  Not only were our boat's hulls of noticeably different lengths (15' 6" for OC 71 and 17' 7" for OC 84), they were also constructed from different materials.  The principal joining structure between the boats was made by lashing a 12' fencing rail into place across the mast-thwarts and under each hull with straps more normally used to secure the canoes onto car roof bars.  This gave a rigidly mounted but flexible fixing which was then supplemented with tight ropes running from bow-to-bow and stern-to-stern.  A balanced lug sail on one hull and a chopped-down Bermuda rig on the other helped to continue the boat's asymmetrical theme, as did the independent rudders and differently styled lee-boards.

Once clear of the shore, we quickly and easily made the other side.  Although the rail was clearly under stress as the two hulls alternately bobbed and dipped on the rollers coming up the lake, everything held well and felt quite secure.  The first real problem appeared on tacking.  Acting in concert we were only just able to turn the boat by putting our respective rudders over on a verbal mark, with even the slightest misjudgment necessitating a hasty gybe to avoid grounding.  The answer was to raise one rudder and proceed with one pair of hands on the helm.  We left both sails set and both lee-boards down.  After a few exhilaratingly fast runs, a further change of tactics was forced on us as Dave's lee-board mount cracked.  With one rudder and one board out of operation, it was decided to drop sail on OC 71 and effectively demote Dave to outrigger status.  The resulting loss of power meant that Dave had to assist turning our now rather cumbersome craft with his paddle.

We continued to make fair progress to Fellfoot, where the size of the boat gave me a few nervous moments.  Manoeuvring through a mass of moored boats in variable winds to pick up an empty space on the jetty may have looked impressive, but I should confess that I was actually aiming one jetty upwind of our eventual landing spot.  Only after we had come alongside the jetty did it dawn on me that whereas Dave could just step ashore, I was still stuck 12 feet out into the lake.  Despite helpful suggestions that I should walk across the 3" wide rail, I'm afraid I insisted on turning the boat around. 

Running for home with the wind directly behind us was an experience to savour.  Though we started carefully with only OC 84's sail up, we soon threw caution to the winds (!) and set both sails 'gull-winged' at 90 degrees to the boat.  Our two-and-a-half hour upwind run was retraced in around 20 minutes of fast and graceful sailing; so graceful, in fact, that Dave was able to stand up and hold both arms out in order to provide Dave and Jan Poskitt with a photo opportunity.

If I'm pressed to draw conclusions from this experiment then I suppose the first must be that anyone could repeat it given a suitable connection between boats and half an hour to lash it up.  Disparity of hulls/boards/rigs is not a problem, though my boom did come very close to Dave's head on several occasions.  The second is that this technique allows for safe and entertaining sailing in what would otherwise be quite hairy conditions.  My caution is that the sheer stability of the boat allows you to:

1. forget that you're out in a high wind, and

2. doing something your boat wasn't designed to do.

With no warning lean it's all too easy to forget that the forces ordinarily acting on your boat are being concentrated and magnified in certain areas.  In our case this led to a cracked board (where normally the boat would have heeled) and a bent mast (because there's no need to spill wind if you're not going over).