Sailing Graceful - Why we chose a catamaran

We asked the children, “Do you want to continue sailing, or do you want to find a place to buy a house?” And they spoke, “We want to continue sailing, but on a catamaran!” And we listened! Why a Privilege? Joe did lots of research on various boats, and Privilege was at the top of our list. They are very wellbuilt boats and are a bit between a performance catamaran and the charter kind. We spoke with friends who were sailing on Privilege, Lagoon, Leopard, Fountaine Pajot, and a couple of other great brands. It was more important for us to speak with the actual families living aboard, rather than visit empty and shiny display models at boat shows. The owners were happy to share what repairs they had completed, what went wrong on passages, what broke easily and what they liked the best about their boats. Following discussions with friends and reading, we came up with something of a list of features that were important to us. Due to her aerodynamic shape, we don’t need much wind to move, we can sail with wind speed of 8-10 knots, and at 15-20 knots, we’re making a speed of around 7-8 knots. We have sailed faster, but we are not racing. Since this is an older model, our Privilege has two helms, so that it can be comfortably steered on either tack. The helms are all the way at the back of the boat. That means the cockpit is huge! We can actually fit an entire tent in it, and there are seats all the way around, making it well-protected, for peace of mind.

Graceful has four cabins, each with a double bed, making it super comfortable for the kids and a bit tight for Joe and me, but we manage. The two forward cabins have their own individual bathrooms, and there are two additional bathrooms in the hulls. The bedrooms are not terribly spacious, but we have lots of cabinets for storage in the hulls. Each cabin has its own closet and plenty of storage space. We love the galley - this is located in the port hull. There are small windows above the stove, where Joe attached a fan to take all the heat away and out the window!