Finding Dory - Webinar 10: "Sailing a catamaran across the ocean: Tips and tricks"

Sailing a catamaran in an open ocean is different from sailing a monohull. Specifically on an East-West transatlantic, with bigger waves and mostly down-wind sailing, "cats are different". They present both specific challenges and advantages versus sailing a monohull.

No surprise that many people in our "Finding Dory" group, now assembling about 160 boats and over 200 cruisers, asked for a webinar on the "tips and tricks" of sailing a cat in their upcoming transat passage.

For this upcoming webinar, we assembled a formidable panel of very experienced cruisers, each with an impressive ocean-sailing curriculum. Some sail "cruising cats", some sail "performance cats". Each also sailed monohulls before... So,... an ideal quorum of expertise for a panel...

And in this webinar, we will do things a bit differently: We won't have the "traditional" programme of "1 hour presentations", followed by "30 minutes of questions and answers"... We will only do "questions and answers", which will make this (I hope!) a very interactive, engaging and spontaneous webinar.

And even if you are not a catamaran sailor, it will be interesting also for (even the hardcore) monohull sailors, as sailing -for me- is all about the continuous process of learning, and sharing different experiences.

So, if you want to learn about how experienced catamaran sailors do their weather routing, choose their downwind sails, set up their sail plans, prepare their boat/crew, join in this webinar.

This will also be the last webinar for our "Finding Dory IV" flotilla, before we all start migrating "further South" and "further West". So we are motivated to make this webinar, "the cherry on the cake", our "swan song" :-) .

So, join our 10th free webinar on Monday Oct 27th at 19:00 Rome time (CET) - or 18:00 GMT - Note that Europe changes to Daylight Savings time the day before, hence the new CET time.

Our webinar will be held on “ZOOM” and consist of +- 90 minutes of open discussions between the audience and the panel.

Our webinars are free for all “Finding Dory” members. We will record the session and publish the link to the recording afterwards to all members of our community.

The instructions on how to join this webinar, are distributed to "Finding Dory" members only, rather than widely distributing the link via social media, mainly to avoid spammers to join in, and disturb our webinar.

So, if you want to participate in the webinars, first join the "Finding Dory" community. Via our flotilla's Whatsapp group, we will send you details for each webinar. Instructions on how to join the growing "Finding Dory" flotilla on Whatsapp, you can find in this Noforeignland blogpost.

About panelist Erich Baier:

Erich Baier is a retired electrical engineer, born and raised in Germany who spent most of his professional career at various locations in the USA.
Sailing wasn’t on his, nor his family’s, mind until they enjoyed a sailing vacation with close friends in the BVI in 1996. He got certified through the RYA to enjoy family charters until his early retirement in 2014.
Erich and his wife Sabine jumped into ocean sailing with passages between the US East Coast and the BVI, participating in the World ARC 2016 from St Lucia to Tahiti, delivering boats to/from the U.S. East Coast to the Caribbean, to build hands-on experience before purchasing their first own boat: In 2018 they ordered "S/V Seabbatical", a Morelli and Melvin designed HH OC50 catamaran, which was delivered to Barcelona in 2020. They sailed the Mediterranean on Seabbatical up to late 2024, and crossed the Atlantic East-West, in January 2025.
You can follow their voyage on Instagram and Noforeignland.

About panelist Fergus Dunipace:

Fergus is a RYA Ocean Yacht Master and cruising instructor.
Having lived on their own catamaran for eight years, sailing slowly from the Mediterranean to Australia, Fergus and his wife know a fair amount about the liveaboard lifestyle and crossing oceans. On returning to the UK in 2023, Fergus worked with various transatlantic and world rallies. This winter he will be crossing the Atlantic for the 4th time, from Las Palmas to Grenada on a Nautitech 46.
Fergus is a huge believer in the comfort and safety afforded by modern catamarans and the benefits of crossing oceans in them.

About panelist Ben Fletcher:

Ben hails from the landlocked state of Utah, USA. Ben embarked on his sailing journey in 2022 with no prior sailing experience but loads of YouTube education 🙂🙂🙂🙂. Determined to learn, he hired a captain in the Sea of Cortez, where he purchased his boat, for an intensive five-day training. From there, Ben and his family set sail on "S/V Best Life", their 2004 Leopard 47 catamaran, navigating the vast Pacific Ocean, Australia, Indonesia and SE Asia. Most recently they crossed the Indian Ocean, came up the Red Sea and sailed through the Suez Canal. They now spent this last season exploring the Mediterranean and are looking forward to crossing the Atlantic into the Caribbean this winter, as part of the "Finding Dory" flotilla.

About panelist/moderator Peter Casier:

I am an RYA Ocean Yachtmaster and instructor, mostly concentrating on mentoring new boat owners, and skippers/crew who have never done an ocean crossing before.
I mostly sail or race monohulls, but I did a training and regatta on a MOD70 trimaran and two years ago, I sailed as the first mate on a lovely Lagoon 450F, from South Portugal via the Canaries and Cape Verde to Grenada.
I will moderate the webinar discussions, and contribute in the panel with my combined monohull/multihull experience.


"Finding Dory", is a social community of cruisers who plan to cross the Atlantic (East-West) next winter (2025-2026 season). It is "free-to-join" adhoc group of yachties, bonded by one common goal: to cross the Atlantic safely. "Finding Dory" is organized in collaboration with "Noforeignland" (NFL). You can read about the background, purpose and setup of this group, and planned free webinars in this post on Noforeignland.