| I'm not going to get into the debate
about whether it's better
to be sitting on top of an overturned multihull or inside a rubber
raft. It's entirely a matter of subjective risk assessment.
The minivan has been replaced by the SUV as the suburban vehicle of
choice for hauling the kids around, despite the fact that it's much
more likely to flip over. Why? Because it makes people feel safe despite clear and
plentiful evidence to the contrary. In the sailing world, the
evidence is
far less abundant or decisive. What little evidence there is
shows that non-racing multihulls flip about as often as non-racing
monohulls sink (which is almost never), while racing multihulls flip
about as often as racing monohulls sink or otherwise suffer so much
damage that they have to be abandoned. Neither seems to me to be
"better," you just pick which possibility you prefer. Boat U.S. released "Why Sailing Boats Sink and 5 Tips to Prevent Yours" and reports this: Sinking at the Dock: Below waterline fitting 44% Stuffing box leak 33% Keel and centerboard 7% Rain 7% Head back-siphoning 3% Above waterline fitting 3% City Water hookup 3% Sinking Underway: Struck submerged object 40% Prop shaft or strut 16% Below waterline fitting 16% Grounding 8% Stuffing box leak 8% Storm/knockdowns 8% Above waterline fitting 4% It's good to know that none of the items in the first list is applicable to multihulls and most of the second list isn't either since the boat has positive bouyancy. I've already stuck a rock hard enough to rip a chunk out of the daggerboard with no effect on the hull, and I don't have an inboard, so that covers over half the possibilities. I suppose Mureadritta's owners should take solace in the fact that their tragedy was the most common cause of sinking.
I later found out that the designer of this boat believed that
it wouldn't have sunk at all, despite being holed,
because like a multihull it was foam-cored. Imagine how high it
would have floated without all that lead attached! Even a Corsair that was smashed to pieces on the rocks of the
Farallones ended up on the beach 300 miles away a few weeks
later, looking like a dead crab. Sure wouldn't have been a
pleasant journey, but it beats
drowning or floating in a rubber raft.  The tide is slowly turning in
favor of multihulls. Around the 1960s,
fiberglass wasn't considered a suitable building material for an
offshore yacht. Just a few decades ago, serious cruisers wouldn't
consider leaving port without a full keel to protect the rudder.
I predict the
monohull bias will be considered just as quaint as these precautions in
a few more years.
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