Shallow, warm water where a cat’s shoal draft is an advantage, steady trade winds, and charter fleets full of modern cruising cats. Florida is made for multihulls. Learn or charter: here’s how it works.
Two very different “catamarans”
The word covers two boats that barely resemble each other:
- Cruising catamarans: big 38–50 ft twin-hulled boats with cabins in each hull, a bridgedeck saloon, and the stability of a floating condo. This is what people charter in the Keys and what “learn to sail a cat” usually means for adults. Shoal draft (often under 4 ft) lets them tuck into thin water a keelboat can’t reach.
- Beach cats: small, fast, tippy boats like the Hobie 16 you launch off the sand. A blast, and a great way to learn feel and speed, but a different sport from cruising.
Why a cat, and why not
For: level sailing (no heeling, easier on nervous crew and dinner plates), lots of deck and cabin space, shoal draft, twin engines that make close-quarters handling forgiving. Against: they cost more to charter and dock, they don’t point as high upwind as a good monohull, and the motion is a quick side-to-side rather than a monohull’s roll. Most first-time charterers who try a cruising cat don’t want to go back.
Learning on a multihull
The sailing fundamentals are the same, but docking, sail handling, and the feel of two hulls differ enough that instruction helps. A couple of routes:
- ASA has a dedicated multihull track. ASA 114 (Cruising Catamaran) builds on the basic keelboat/cruising courses for people who want to charter or own a cat.
- Some Florida schools teach on multihulls or offer catamaran endorsements. Offshore Sailing School, teaching from Sarasota and St. Petersburg, runs a two-day catamaran endorsement on a liveaboard multihull alongside its monohull courses. Browse the full Florida sailing schools directory and check each school’s fleet; the boats a school teaches on are listed on its page.
Chartering a cruising cat
Cruising cats fill much of the bareboat and crewed charter fleet in the Florida Keys, where shoal draft and stability suit the reef-and-flats cruising. To bareboat one yourself, expect the charter company to want ASA 104 (Bareboat Cruising) plus a resume, and often a catamaran-specific checkout or ASA 114 for the bigger boats (see bareboat charter requirements). Not certified? A crewed catamaran charter gets you the same boat with a captain aboard.
Where to do it
The Keys and Southwest Florida (Fort Myers, Sanibel, and Captiva) are the heart of cruising-cat country, with the shoal water and island-hopping that play to a multihull’s strengths. Start with the charter directory to find a cat, or a school to learn on one first.
Last reviewed July 2026.