Roam is a 2001 Catana 472 designed by Christophe Barreau and built by Catana in Canet-en-Roussillon, France. The 472 is a higher-spec version of the legendary 471. Approximately 90 471s were built of which 12 were finished as 472s. Roam was built as 471 hull #35 and finished as 472 hull #09.
Her length on deck is a little over 46 feet with a waterline of 45 feet. The longeron brings her overall length to a little over 51 feet. She is just over 25 feet wide which means she will fit into many marine travel lifts. With her daggerboards fully up she draws less than three feet of water. Her custom carbon-fiber mast towers more than 70 feet above the water.
Why a Catana 472?
For us the right boat needed to be:
- Comfortable to live on for long periods
- Fun to sail
- Manageable for the two of us
- Reasonably fast while carrying a typical cruising load
- Built and equipped to comfortably and safely cross oceans
- At a price point that made sense for us
- Not a “project boat” requiring an extensive refit
With the 471/2 Barreau achieved a near-perfect balance between performance, comfort, livability, and load-carrying ability.
Catamarans are known for being comfortable live-aboard boats. Guests and crew are well separated in the hulls. The cockpit creates a giant “patio” conducive to easy outdoor living. Cats don’t lean or heel when sailing and they don’t roll around at anchor making housekeeping and cooking much safer and easier.
However, most cats are built for the charter market and they simply don’t sail well. They are optimized for volume, space, and convenience because that is what charter guests want and what charter companies want to offer. These boats make fine “island hoppers” and are usually motored from one mooring to the next. The sailing performance and construction for crossing oceans simply aren’t needed in charter boats the way they are in ocean-going cats.
History
We are Roam’s fifth owners. She was launched in 2001 in France, sailed the Mediterranean, crossed the Atlantic, and cruised the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and the US east coast. Eventually, she transited the Panama Canal and sailed north to Pacific Mexico. New owners brought her to the Pacific Northwest before she returned to Mexico where she has been actively cruising for the past four years in the Sea of Cortez and the Mexican mainland.
Friends of friends connected us with her previous owners who were shifting gears in life and were beginning to think about selling their boat. The rest is history!
Construction
Catana’s design and construction techniques were ahead of their time when Roam was built. She was laid up with two outer hull molds and one deck mold that was vacuum bagged using vinyl ester resin and cored with PVC closed cell foam with unidirectional cloth for outer laminate & Twaron aramid cloth for inner laminate over the entire hull. This results in a very strong, lightweight structure that won’t rot if water gets in. This makes the boat essentially unsinkable. Most catamarans (and most boats generally) are built with less expensive balsa-cored hulls and polyester resin which is subject to rot and blistering from water intrusion.
The daggerboard trunks were over-engineered to be seven times stronger than the daggerboards. All of the structural bulkheads were cored with a Nida-Core honeycomb core with carbon fiber on both sides. Roam’s main bulkheads were reinforced with carbon fiber based on engineering advice from Catana making her one of the strongest 471/2s out sailing today.
The boat is rigged with a carbon mast and boom and originally used synthetic, Kevlar rigging for the cap shrouds (later changed to stainless wire). Roam, like many 472s also has a carbon fiber longeron which serves as a robust bowsprit for flying reaching and downwind sails.
Catana created a digital switching system to reduce wire weight in the boat. Something that is common now but quite cutting-edge back in the early 2000s. Roam’s electrical system accommodates both 120-volt, 60-hertz, and 220-volt, 50-hertz sources and devices. She can plug in anywhere in the world.
Catana no longer builds performance cruising catamarans like the 472. The last one, a Catana 53 was built in 2023. Instead, they focus their production and marketing on the Bali line of catamarans aimed at the charter market. It makes sense. The charter market is roughly 95% of the entire catamaran market. It also means this generation of performance Catanas remain in high demand.
Refits and Upgrades
All boats require maintenance and upgrades. The extent to which these refits are done is largely a function of how the boat was used as well as its future plans.
Roam is no exception. The boat was extensively upgraded and refit over the years including carbon reinforced main bulkheads, new Yanmar 4JH57 engines, SD60 sail drives, new North sails, Victron LifePo electrical system, a new Northern Lights 5KW generator, a new CruiseRO SM30 water maker to name a few.
The big cost drivers when considering used catamarans are the rigging, sails, engines, electrical system (solar, batteries, and charging), and hull finish. With the exception of the need to replace her standing rigging, all of Roam’s major systems have been updated or replaced within the last three years.
Why the name Roam?
Roam (roʊm)
1: to go from place to place without purpose or direction
2: to travel purposefully unhindered through a wide area
3: to use a cellular phone outside one’s local calling area
Merriam Webster
Fits perfectly!
More Information
Sail Magazine’s article on Catana 472, El Gato
