SailFlorida!

Home › Guides › Catamaran sailing in Florida

Catamaran sailing in Florida

Where to learn catamaran sailing in Florida and how it differs from a monohull: cruising cats vs. beach cats, the schools that teach ASA 114, which companies rent a cruising cat bareboat, and where the crewed and day-sail cats are.

Shallow, warm water where a cat’s shoal draft is an advantage, steady trade winds, and a charter fleet with a catamaran at nearly every dock. 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 “learn to sail a cat” usually means for adults, and what the crewed charter fleet sails. 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. They rent by the hour from beach stands around the state; see renting a Hobie cat in Florida.

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. Two routes:

  • ASA 114 (Cruising Catamaran) builds on the basic keelboat and cruising courses for people who want to charter or own a cat. Seventeen of the 40 Florida schools in the directory list it, as of October 2026, from Pensacola Beach to Key West; the ASA 114 filter shows them, and each school’s page lists the boats it teaches on.
  • A catamaran endorsement outside ASA. Offshore Sailing School, teaching from Sarasota and St. Petersburg on the NauticEd pathway, adds two liveaboard days on a multihull to its courses, on a Fountaine Pajot Lucia 40 and a Bali 4.2.

Chartering a cruising cat

As of October 2026, two of the 22 Florida companies that rent a boat you skipper yourself rent a cruising catamaran, and neither names a certificate:

  • Calypso Sailing in Key Largo, Leopards from 44 to 58 feet, asks for sailing experience on a catamaran of comparable size, then runs a mandatory orientation aboard and takes a float plan. Trips run the Keys and on to the Bahamas.
  • Fun In The Sun in Fort Lauderdale, a Lagoon 45 and a Bali Catspace 40, issues a boating résumé form that asks for three sailing references. Seven-day charters to the Keys and the Abacos.

So the thing to bring is a résumé with catamaran time on it. ASA 114 is the fastest way to put that time there, and it reads well on the form, but nobody in Florida is asking for the card. The bareboat charter requirements guide covers the résumé and the checkout sail. A captain can be hired at both companies.

Not ready to skipper one? Thirty-one of the 72 listed charter companies put a catamaran to work, as of October 2026, nearly all of them with a captain: crewed charters by the boat, from an afternoon to a week with cabins, and day sails by the seat on the big passenger cats.

Where to do it

Where the catamarans are, by the directory as of October 2026:

The water that plays to a multihull’s strengths, shoal and island-studded, is the Keys, Florida Bay, the Ten Thousand Islands and Pine Island Sound. Start with the charter directory to find a cat, or a school to learn on one first.

Last reviewed October 2026.

← All guides