A catamaran (from Tamil kattu "to tie" and maram "wood, tree") is a type of boat or ship consisting of two hulls joined by a frame. Catamarans can be sail or engine powered. The catamaran was the invention of the paravas, a fishing community on the Southern coast of Tamil Nadu, India. Catamarans were used by the ancient Tamil Chola dynasty as early as the 5th century AD for moving their fleets to conquer such Southeast Asian regions as Burma, Indonesia and Malaysia. Catamarans are a relatively recent design of boat for both leisure and sport sailing, although they have been used for millennia in Oceania, where Polynesian catamarans and outrigger canoes allowed seafaring Polynesians to settle the world's most far-flung islands. Catamarans have been met by a degree of skepticism from some sailors accustomed to more traditional designs.

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January 1690

William Dampier, an unusual pirate

The English adventurer and buccaneer William Dampier, traveling around the world in the 1690s in search of business opportunities, once found himself on the Southeastern coast of India, in Tamil Nadu, on the Bay of Bengal. He was the first to write in English about a kind of vessel he observed there. It was little more than a raft made of logs. "On the coast of Coromandel," he wrote in 1697, "they call them Catamarans. These are but one log, or two, sometimes of a sort of light Wood ... so small, that they carry but one man, whose legs and breech are always in the water." While the name came from Tamil, the modern catamaran came from the South Pacific. English visitors applied the Tamil name catamaran to the swift, stable sail and paddle boats made out of two widely separated logs and used by Polynesian natives to get from one island to another.

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January 1890

Nathanael Herreshoff: The Wizard of Bristol

The design remained relatively unknown in the West for almost another 200 years, when an American, Nathanael Herreshoff, began to build catamaran boats of his own design. The Wizard of Bristol was an innovative and brilliant designer, sailor, and boatbuilder. Features common on boats today—sail tracks and slides, bulb keels, fin keels, and hollow aluminum masts—were all developed by Herreshoff. The speed and stability of these catamarans soon made them popular a pleasure craft, with their popularity really taking off in Europe, and was followed soon thereafter in America. Currently, most individually owned catamarans are built in France, South Africa, and Australia.

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January 1947

Manu Kai

In the twentieth century, the catamaran inspired an even more popular sailboat. In 1947, surfing legend, Woodbridge "Woody" Brown and Alfred Kumalae designed and built the first modern ocean-going catamaran, Manu Kai, in Hawaii. Their young assistant was Rudy Choy, who later founded the design firm Choy/Seaman/Kumalae (C/S/K, 1957) and became a fountainhead for the catamaran movement.

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January 1947

Shearwater catamarans

The Prout Brothers, Roland and Francis, experimented with catamarans in 1949 and converted their 1935 boat factory in Canvey, Essex (England) to catamaran production in 1954. Their Shearwater catamarans won races easily against the single hulled yachts.

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January 1967

The first Hobie Cat

Later, in California, a maker of surfboards, Hobie Alter produced (1967) the 250-pound Hobie Cat 14, and two years later the larger and even more successful Hobie 16. That boat remains in production, with more than 100,000 made in the past three decades.

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January 2000

Today's catamaran market

Presently the catamaran market is the fastest growing segment of the entire boating industry. Other important builders of catamarans are Austal and Incat both of Australia, best known for building large catamarans both as civilian ferries and as naval vessels.

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September 2013

Catamaya Sailing Cruises

Do you want to sail a beautiful and luxury 65 feet catamaran in the Mexican Caribbean? Then book a tour with us and let's discover paradise! Catamaya offers sailing, snorkeling, lobster or steak lunch, cocktails and lots of fun.

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Tiki-Toki

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Catamaya Sailing Cruises

September 2013

Do you want to sail a beautiful and luxury 65 feet catamaran in the Mexican Caribbean? Then book a tour with us and let's discover paradise! Catamaya...

Today's catamaran market

January 2000

Presently the catamaran market is the fastest growing segment of the entire boating industry. Other important builders of catamarans are Austal and...

The first Hobie Cat

January 1967

Later, in California, a maker of surfboards, Hobie Alter produced (1967) the 250-pound Hobie Cat 14, and two years later the larger and even more...

Shearwater catamarans

January 1947

The Prout Brothers, Roland and Francis, experimented with catamarans in 1949 and converted their 1935 boat factory in Canvey, Essex (England) to...

Manu Kai

January 1947

In the twentieth century, the catamaran inspired an even more popular sailboat. In 1947, surfing legend, Woodbridge "Woody" Brown and Alfred Kumalae...

Nathanael Herreshoff: The Wizard of Bristol

January 1890

The design remained relatively unknown in the West for almost another 200 years, when an American, Nathanael Herreshoff, began to build catamaran...

William Dampier, an unusual pirate

January 1690

The English adventurer and buccaneer William Dampier, traveling around the world in the 1690s in search of business opportunities, once found himself...

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