Key takeaways
- A sailing catamaran is two hulls with a wide deck bridging them, which buys space and stability that a single-hulled boat of the same length cannot offer.
- Trampoline netting slung between the bows is where most people end up: suspended over moving water, in full sun, with nothing underneath but sea.
- Use of the sun beds is included and allocated on a first come, first served basis, which in practice rewards boarding early rather than arriving on the hour.
- A boat where everyone wants to swim at once needs more than one way in. Three separate ladders is the difference between a queue and no queue.
Why a catamaran and not a boat with one hull
The difference is not aesthetic. A monohull carries its volume in one deep body and rolls around a single axis, which is what makes a small boat at anchor in a swell so tiring. A catamaran spreads its buoyancy across two hulls set well apart, and resisting roll is exactly what that geometry does.
For a day trip that spends hours at anchor in open bays, that stability is the whole argument. People who have written off boat excursions after one uncomfortable afternoon on a rolling deck are usually describing a monohull, and are often surprised by how flat a catamaran sits doing the same job.
The second consequence is deck area. The bridge between two hulls gives you a wide, flat, largely unobstructed platform, which is why a catamaran of a given length carries far more people comfortably than a conventional boat of the same size.
The nets, which nobody expects to like as much as they do
Between the two bows, forward of the deck, a catamaran carries trampoline netting. Structurally it is there to save weight and let waves pass through rather than slam into a solid surface. In practice it is the most popular place on the boat.
Lying on netting suspended a metre or so above moving water is a specific pleasure that is hard to explain and immediately obvious once you have done it. You feel the sea through the mesh, the spray comes up through it under sail, and you are looking straight down into the water rather than at it from a railing.
It is also the part of the boat that fills first. If the nets are what you came for, board early and go forward, because they do not stay empty once people work out what they are.
Trampoline netting between the bows, with the water moving underneath it
Sun beds, shade and where to sit
Use of the sun beds is part of the trip, allocated on a first come first served basis. There is no reservation system and none is promised, so the practical advice is simply to arrive in good time rather than at the last possible minute.
The more important consideration is shade, of which there is very little. A sailing catamaran is an open boat, and a six-hour day on Maltese water in summer is a serious quantity of sun. The covered areas that exist are small and popular, and they are not a plan.
The plan is a hat, sunglasses and repeated sunscreen, all of which you bring. This is the single most common piece of practical advice in traveller accounts of days like this one, and it is boring precisely because it is right.
The bar and the deck
There is a bar on board. Drinks are not included in the trip and are bought there. Outside food and drink are not permitted, which is the standard arrangement on a boat running its own bar and galley, and it is stated in the conditions in advance.
The deck is where the day happens: music playing, people moving between the shade and the sun, the crew working around everybody. It is sold as a lively boat and the deck is where that character lives.
There is no stop on land at any point in the trip, so the deck is also the only place you will be all day apart from the water. Six hours is long enough for that to matter, and it is why the amount of usable space on a catamaran is worth as much as anything on the itinerary.
2 hulls
Two hulls set well apart are what stop a boat rolling at anchor, which is why a catamaran sits flat in a bay where a single-hulled boat would not.
Getting in and out of the water
Three separate ladders is a detail that reads as trivia in an inclusions list and turns out to shape the day. At every swim stop, a large proportion of the boat wants to be in the sea within about ninety seconds of the engine stopping, and the constraint is always the ladders.
With one ladder, that becomes an orderly queue on a hot deck. With three, people simply get in. It also matters more on the way out than the way in, because climbing a ladder wet with a swell running is slower than jumping off.
The crew manage the water at every stop, which is the other half of it. On a boat carrying a full complement of swimmers in open water, having people whose job is watching the sea rather than serving the bar is not a small thing.
Under sail, and under engine
It is a sailing catamaran, and on a day with usable wind you will sail at least part of the route. That changes the boat completely: quieter, heeled very slightly, moving with the water rather than through it, and considerably better to be on.
On a still day, or when the schedule needs it, the engines do the work. Nobody should book a trip like this expecting a sailing lesson: the sails are part of the experience when conditions allow and not the point of the day.
What is guaranteed is the platform. Whether under sail or under power, what you have for six hours is a wide stable deck, three ways into the sea, and a crew who spend their season doing exactly this.
