Why have Catamarans only become popular in recent times?
Catamaran’s do in fact have a long tradition. Catamarans served in the pacific for thousands of years for fishing and transporting people between the islands. But catamarans are not suitable to carry heavy cargo, and were all but forgotten since the era of cargo ships, because they were not seen as ‘proper boats’ in the western world. This conservative view was compounded when world-famous designer Nathaniel Herreshoff was banned in 1876 from the NY Yacht Club, when he showed up and won races with a revolutionary small sailing catamaran against the multi-million dollar yachts.
