Richard Woods Designs

29/05/2026

There is something seriously wrong with the weather. We just had a 3 day holiday weekend - yet it was hot, a light breeze blowing and not a cloud in the sky!

So Jetti and I decided to take a gentle cruise in our 30ft Sagitta catamaran to Hope Cove, about 15 miles east of or mooring in Plymouth.

We just drifted along, together with a whole variety of different boats. No drama or excitement, so this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc4-y52kUwI

just shows the deck layout and some of the interior of our boat.

Hope Cove was crowded when we got there so, unusually, we had to anchor in 30ft of water - normally we try for under 10 ft. And very glad we were not on a monohull, they were all rolling rhythmically in the SW swell.

Next day we sailed back to Plymouth, a bit more wind so touched 6+ knots at times.

Apart from the lack of roll, the other big advantage of a multihull is that we have all round vision when sitting inside (we go "inside" not "down below" on catamarans)

Sunday night was spent at one of our favourite anchorages, up the Lynher river, with obligatory BBQ. Then home again on Monday in time for dinghy racing in the evening. If only all sailing was like that!

As always, no audio on this short video.

More on the Sagitta catamaran here

https://sailingcatamarans.com/index.php/designs-2/3-25ft-to-30ft-catamarans-designs/171-sagitta

There is something seriously wrong with the weather. We just had a 3 day holiday weekend - yet it was hot, a light breeze blowing and not a cloud in the sky!...

13/05/2026

I've had a lot of fun sailing in the last couple of days. Monday started with a practice/tuning sail with my new crew for the Round the Island race (you may recall we won our class on Sagitta in 2023).

We were also joined by "Aussie Alan", who I've known for years - I sailed with him on his catamaran Rush from the Canaries to Panama about 20 years ago. A sail that was "enlivened" by sailing past one of the UK's aircraft carriers.

Then Monday evening I was racing my Solution dinghy at my club. See a video here from some months ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKkdzSNBbm0

Tuesday morning started with a sail on my Chat 18 catamaran, just a short trip, as I needed to be back on it's mooring in time to race on Doug's highly modified Cross 38 trimaran. So highly modified, it's now hard to tell which is original and which is pure Doug/Beth.

Again we were joined by Alan and also, unexpectedly, by David Harding from Yachting Monthly/PBO who wrote my recent Chat 18 and Sagitta boat tests.

Despite five experienced crew, racing on Trying is hard work, we sailed pretty much the same course as we use for the dinghies. No time to rest and only occasional opportunities for photos.

We had a great sail though, top gps speed over 13 knots, finishing only just behind a big Dazcat and a very well sailed F26. So an easy winner on handicap.

So four VERY different boats in two days! More of the same to come I hope. Roll on summer.

05/05/2026

Time for some more owner news:

First, a nicely made Quattro 14 beach cat hull being built in Brazil

More on the Quattro 14 here www.sailingcatamarans.com/index.php/designs-2/46-beach-cats-and-dinghies/6-quattro-14

Next, some of you will have seen this Strike 15 trimaran "For Sale" posts in various groups.

More on the Strike 15 here www.sailingcatamarans.com/index.php/designs-2/27-trimarans-under-25/223-strike-15-trimaran

I've often posted photos of Brian's Gypsy 28 build. He's just moved house, so needed to move his Gypsy, this is how he did it (I still don't know why the trucks front wheels didn't come off the ground)

More on Gypsy here www.sailingcatamarans.com/index.php/designs-2/3-25ft-to-30ft-catamarans-designs/176-gypsy

A grp production Elf 26 was recently sold to Zanzibar - looks like a great place to cruise!

More on Elf here www.sailingcatamarans.com/index.php/designs-2/3-25ft-to-30ft-catamarans-designs/476-elf-25

Further up the size range Jeff has been sailing his Vardo 34 round the world for a number of years. This is his blog

www.facebook.com/MoJoCatamaran

As you can see, he's nearly got back to his home port in Florida. We saw his boat being built in St Augustine on one of our ICW trips.

More on the Vardo here www.sailingcatamarans.com/index.php/designs-2/5-catamarans-over-40ft/225-vardo

That's it for now, but there will be more later as the season progresses.

02/05/2026

Stop press, more later. 30ft Sagitta catamaran wins the first leg of the Falmouth triangle race. 14 multihulls, 24 monohulls. Yes it rained! of course, it's an English bank holiday!

Thanks as always to my crew, Shane, Peter, Ali

15/04/2026

I much prefer steering boats under about 35ft with a tiller rather than a wheel. You can sit on the windward side and have a great view of the sails and approaching wind or waves. You get a much more direct feel for the rudder loads, which helps trim and speed. It's a much simpler system than a wheel, with very little to go wrong.

On a wide beam boat, like a catamaran, you sensibly need two tiller extensions or they are massively long, thus making them heavy and awkward to use. Having said that, it takes a while to get used to dropping one and picking up the other when tacking. A dinghy size is normally plenty strong enough, as this photo of my 30ft Sagitta shows, when sailing at around 7 knots.

Sagitta is 20ft wide, so definitely needs two extensions. It is also now 35 years old and has had a hard life. So parts are beginning to fail. Including the telescopic tiller extensions. Mind you the telescoping hasn't worked for years, the sliding parts have been fixed tight at about 5ft6in (1.65m) length. Even so eventually one snapped in half, so time for two new ones!

I searched online and found that direct replacements now cost over GBP100 each!! So a rethink was needed. Suitable (un anodised) aluminium tubing for a fixed length extension worked out at GBP30 for both. Much more reasonable. But then I remembered that years ago we needed two extensions for a different catamaran and we used telescopic boat hooks with the hooks removed.

So I searched again and found a company selling 3-6ft telescopic boathooks for GBP15 each, delivered. So I bought them, they arrived two days later and, surprisingly, the hooks were separate as they are screwed into the tube. One less job to do.

So here they are, fitted to the boat. Hopefully they will last another 35 years!

The question remains though, how come marine grade telescopic boat hooks are only 20% of the cost of tiller extensions? After all, the design concept, amount of metal and manufacturing time must be the same.

07/04/2026

stop press news!

Boat Owners’ Antenna Buyer’s Guide, How to make a bridle for secure mooring, Designing and making your own sails, 48 launch checks for skipper and crew, Learn to whip a chafe guard, Couples’ boating tips, Chat 18 catamaran on test and more! Order the June 2026 issue online now Buy a single iss...

06/04/2026

So three of us, all singlehanded, decided to go for a cruise in company on Easter Sunday. Sadly the wind was more than forecast (easy 20knots).

So we decided to anchor on West Mud, near the entrance to the river Tamar, wait for the tide to go out, then walk ashore and have lunch in the local cafe. Which we did, then back to the boats as the tide returned and sailed home.

Sometimes there are advantages to small easily handled boats! And its unusual to find that my Chat 18 is considered a big boat by some!

More on the Chat 18 here

https://www.sailingcatamarans.com/index.php/designs-2/2-catamarans-under-25ft/475-chat-18-daysailing-catamaran

01/04/2026

So Mark, Joe and I sailed my Sagitta for the first time this year. A great sail in more wind than we expected. As always some tuning to do. Increase rigging tension, tighten some battens, fit new tiller extensions.

So it won't be long before we're ready for another season of racing and cruising

Thanks to Morag for the photo, she's often in the right place at the right time!

27/03/2026

We spent a few weeks in January touring SE Asia. At the end of our trip we were in Phuket, Thailand and by coincidence so too were Nigel and Suzanne on their Tamar 31 catamaran, Dark Horse. They are very experienced sailors and have a very nicely built boat. They kindly invited me for a sail and we had a great time sailing round the nearby islands.

You can see a short video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFubXpEmWjk (no audio)

I found Thailand to be very different to the Caribbean, which is effectively a lee shore after 2000 miles of trade winds and accompanying swells. Whereas off Phuket there was just a wind blown chop and much lighter winds.

It also didn't rain, in fact there were not even the "trade wind" clouds we were used to in the West Indies. The downside was that it got very hot and the rigid bimini was essential, even though it did somewhat reduce the view of the sails. One of the few modifications made on Dark Horse.

We think there are a lot of multihulls in the UK, but anchored in the bay in front of our hotel we counted 23 multihulls and 31 monohulls. And that number excludes the 30+ day charter cats operating out of the marina.

More on the Tamar 31 here https://sailingcatamarans.com/index.php/designs-2/5-catamarans-over-40ft/480-tamar-31

27/12/2025

One of the great advantages of living by the water is that we can keep a boat on the beach in front of our house. That means we can go sailing any time, providing the tide is in, it's not raining and, preferably, the wind is under 15 knots.

Luckily all of those factors lined up today, the only drawbacks being an early start and a 3C (37F) temperature, but when dressed up who cares! After-all people ski in the snow.

So I went for a post Christmas sail in my Chat 18 catamaran. It's a really simple boat: Drop off the 4 mooring lines, lower the rudders, motor clear of the other moorings and away from the shallows.

Hoist the mainsail and unroll the jib. 10 minutes, max, after climbing on board. Then a short sail up to the Saltash Bridge and back. I left the house at 9am and was back inside again by 11. 5 miles sailed, top speed 8 knots - a great sail!

No rest though. Tomorrow I'm working on my 30ft Sagitta catamaran, then Monday it's dinghy sailing with friends - we're practising for the first race of 2026, on New Years Day of course!

So this is probably the time to wish you all a great 2026 with lots of sailing (or boat building if you have yet to launch)

More on the Chat 18 here: https://sailingcatamarans.com/index.php/designs-2/2-catamarans-under-25ft/475-chat-18-daysailing-catamaran