Building a knockdown multihull for use outside of the mainstream boat routes is a whole different ball game than the usual social boating that takes place around the docks on the weekends in the areas I've been. International, national, state and local laws governoring the water ways and coast lines could easily fill a dictionary sized book and are so contradictory and complicated that some lawyers specialize in sea law, and law enforcement routinely makes mistakes in enforcing the laws. (Sometimes much to the financial advantage of the boater).

With decades of this situation behind me and experiences of my father and friends before me, my whole approach to boating is shaped around complying where possible and skirting the laws where required. Thus the seeming contradictions and strange, seeming irrational decisions in some cases. It should also be pointed out that this story is built around the laws in Florida waters and can expect to be different elsewhere. Find local boaters (like at local restaurants and hangouts) that you can trust to bring you up to speed on your specific area. Visiting an area several times ahead of bring your boat and asking around (more than one opinion) can save a lot of grief. I always scout new areas for a while first before committing to bring my boat there.

Once your knockdown multihull is transported to its destination and assembled, it must be tied or anchored somewhere. Few docks welcome wide boats -- the docking biz is built around long, narrow boats and you rent space by the foot. So to avoid the costly storage and all the problems that go with it, you must anchor in open water. This in itself is a skill that many hobbyist fail to master, as many boats anchored in open water are routinely torn loose anytime there's high winds, hurricanes, or in one case here in Sarasota bay during my stay, hit by a tornado.

First I should point out that multihulls as a group ride out high winds much better than "popular" monohull designs with their heavy outboards perched in the rear, and second, successful anchoring is a fine art that's very difficult to learn in a book or magazine. Bottom conditions for example dictate different approaches. The wrecked 50+ foot trimaran in the photos section illustrates the price of using New England or Great Lakes anchoring techniques on a sandy Florida Bay bottom. And vise versa. Any of us living in the bay would have easily avoided this unfortunate fate. I'll give you some anchoring tips for sandy areas like mine later on.

So you anchor your boat in open water where other "transients" have anchored. Yes, you are now a transient in the eyes of the law and government agencies like the license/tag agencies and Social Security, etc. You don't have a street address and Post Office Boxes may or may not qualify you as a resident. I don't think anyone here in Sarasota would dispute that an illegal alien can get benefits easier at SS than a veteran living in a boat 20 yards off shore. After all, the alien is represented by large local legal firms that specialize in that field and boaters are not. This is not a concern as long as you have a legal residence somewhere else. On the other hand, there are also multimillionaire "transients" living on boats out of choice, so this isn't bad company at all, just different than shore life.

With your boat anchored in open water, you must have a way of getting from shore to the boat. That might be an inflatable (costly and short lived in Florida waters liberally sprinkled with sharp rocks, barnacles, and glass), canoes or kayaks (car top) or small dingy's usually built of a single sheet of cheap (good one side only) plywood plus scrap. Average cost is $30-$40 and mine weighs about 40 pounds. I've provided some examples here. No one steals one of these because its unique in design and easy to identify, and is of little $$$$ value so it can't be stolen and sold easy. It fits in a small van (as mine did) or the bed of a pickup truck (and surely some SUVs as they are only about 3 feet wide) and takes up little space if its put in first and then the rest of your camping/boat stuff loaded in on top of it.

If left at the anchorage for any length of time while you're out in the boat or back home, you can simply load it with rocks and sink it. With an anchor line out or tied to something to indicate its not a drifter, boaters respect it and its protected (underwater) from waves, etc. I never heard of one of these boats being stolen or seriously damaged/vandalized in any way.

Logically this is a project that should be built at home before you need it, but can also be built or repaired on a multihull thanks to their width/deck area. My multihull workboat, made from abandoned hulls found on the bottom of the bay was used on several occasions for this purpose. (Mine and friends) You see it sitting offshore behind my one plywood sheet dingy. After two years in the water, I ground the barnacles off, made a couple of minor repairs and glassed it over again. Note that its V-bottom and stands on its transom for easy storage in my U-store storage facility.

So where do you put the dingy when you go ashore? Well, as long as the dingy is left off shore, local enforcement won't bother it. In some of these photos a "No Mooring" sign is literally only a few feet behind me as I take the pictures. The question here is where is the actual "shore line"? That would be the point the water reaches at a normal high tide. So you often see dingys and larger sailboats sitting on the sand and their bottoms being scrapped, repaired and painted. (see photos of my dingy here and elsewhere). This strip of beach between high and low tide is sometimes referred to as the "King's Way",. as (I'm told) an English king once claimed that strip as his own for his subjects to use. (Not private property to be bought and sold). The point is that this is often disputed territory that local officials and marine enforcement agencys generally have little or no jurisdiction over.

Here's a commercial version of the catamaran intended for fishing, etc. The problem with small cats has been in using heavy, high horsepower outboards between the hulls because of the high water levels generated between those hulls at speed, especially in rough water. To solve this problem, some have used small pods to support and protect the outboard (see photos elsewhere). On this commercial boat, a slight "V" shaped shield has been built beyond the rear deck to redirect the water flowing between the hulls and prevent the outboard from being drenched at speed or in choppy water.

Its not uncommon to add hulls to a monohull to get stability. This custom or homebuilt boat was obviously built as a trimaran but the outer hulls are supported in a manner common to attaching outriggers to a larger hull. Sometimes the hulls are retractable or removable to make the boat easier to move. I would assume, based on the design, that these outer hulls unbolt though I couldn't get close enough to verify that.

My first impression was that this was a terrible idea -- tying a small monohull permanently to the rear of an 18 foot sailing cat to try to get the best of both worlds. But close examination shows that despite the obvious fact the hulls have been in the water for quite a while (barnacles, missing hull paint) the merger was done very professionally and shows no sign of deterioration (cracking, etc.) as the close up photo shows.

In my area of the world the average boater and fisherman is under increasing attack. The waterways here in Southwest Florida are seen as private property of the politicians and their business friends which have steadily reduced access and boat storage, and increased prices on what limited storage is left. The recent spat of hurricanes has accelerated the trend both because of the destruction of old "Grandfathered in" docks and sites, and because it provides convenient excuses to restrict new affordable boat storage. At the same time authorities have launched an offense covered in detail by our local papers concerning storing boats at home. Boats and trailers must be stored out of sight from the road while authorities increasingly restrict the building of fences, utility buildings, or other means of hiding those boats from view. Of course if you live in a rental home or apartment, no options exist.

Even if you can overcome the above home storage problems, your troubles are just beginning. Launch sites for trailered boats are increasingly crowded, with long waits and security problems concerning your trailer and tow vehicle while you are out in your boat for any length of time (overnight for example). Vandlism is rampant and little is done to control it -- or the open drug trade I witnessed when I lived on the bay. In the large downtown Sarasota Marina area, police were literally nonexistent after sundown. Go figure.

One of the brilliant "solutions" to the above is more boat "condos" where boats are stacked in their own little cubbyholes 6-8-10 high. This restricts your use in numerous ways -- starting with the need to call many hours ahead to get your boat moved to the water. Costs run many hundreds of dollars a month depending on boat size and protection from high winds and hurricanes is marginal. And of course the storage facility is not responsible for that boat damage. This type of storage is available only for monohulls, so where do the multihulls go? No one has figured that out yet.

CASUAL BOATING IS DEAD IN THE 21st CENTURY

The type of boating, fishing, exploring, and treasure hunting our fathers enjoyed is dead today for more reasons than you could stuff in a book. This demands a different kind of boat and boater, something that's been glaringly apparent to many of us for a long time. Its bizarre that at a time our borders are wide open to anyone, so many restrictions and obstacles are placed in the way of those who might want to use the water for recreational purposes. Serious adventures that involve overnight and/or long distance travel to out of the way areas is starting to take on a style that might rival that of Commandos sneaking into occupied Europe in World War Two. Then suppose you find something -- a ship or old plane wreck, buried treasure, or ancient ruins. Well that's another modern horror story I'll get into later.

THE KNOCK DOWN MULTIHULL

This has been the main theme on this site and the Marine Yahoo group so it needs no detailed explanation. The ability to add hulls as needed for a specific purposes, and then be disassembled and transported by car top, van, or truck to new location and/or back to storage is an advantage few can really appreciate until you've done it. . And no trailer required. This may take several trips to transport the boat, motors, sails, and equipment but these individual parts can be stored/concealed in a private garage or rented Public U-storage units. Multihulls, regardless of size can be built to fit available storage that may present itself in a distant place. The photos show my own "portable" operation including the facilities for making repairs that are demanded in hard use situations.

This opens up boating in areas far from where you live, as its far faster and cheaper to move and store the boat and equipment closer to the place its to be used. You can drive at least 3-4 times as fast to a secluded site in a wheeled vehicle as you can going there by boat every weekend, which changes the whole playing field. Even travelling to a choice area hundred miles from home can then be made in just a few hours of comfortable driving, as opposed to an all day boat trip just one way.