WHEN Britain's most popular sailing waters are your cruising ground chances are you will meet up with one or more of the country's most interesting craft.

Such was the case when I took my own boat up the Solent to the Beaulieu River this season and found myself moored at Bucklers Hard - next to Big Cat.

There was a striking touch of the exotic about this very different craft and I was soon to learn why from her owner, Chris Dunn, who turned out to be a former Bournemouth College student.

She is a Polynesian Catamaran, so called because the principles of her design are drawn from those of the canoes built by the natives of the Polynesian Islands up to 1,000 years ago.

Think of a dug-out canoe and you think of a fairly crude craft. But the Polynesians built such beautifully designed and crafted boats that when 18th-century explorer Captain James Cook visited their waters they were able to sail rings round his own ship.

A modern-day designer, James Wharram, became such an admirer of the original craft he has adapted their lines to create a distinctive new breed of multihulls.

One of this class, Cookie, has more than proved her seaworthiness by being sailed round the world by owner Roy McDougall, who exhibited her at the Southampton Boat Show two years ago, where she went virtually unnoticed

I was surprised to discover that probably more than 1,000 of the Polynesian Cats are now owned in Britain. But Big Cat, the largest at 63ft and rigged as a gaff schooner, is the only one of her type operating around our shores.

Entrepreneur Chris is so smitten with her that he has built his Big Cat Charters company around the eye-catching boat, offering her for corporate hospitality and for families and groups of friends to hire for weekends or short cruises.

Her ample accommodation includes berths for up to 12 people, a dining area below seating six to eight, a large central helming position and sunbathing areas fore and aft.

Chris found her in a boatyard on the Danube in Austria where another Polynesian Catamaran enthusiast had built her, but then ran out of funds for the engines, masts and sails. Chris carried out a few modifications before setting off up the Danube on the long journey to the Hamble, where Big Cat is now based.

"She is a very special boat," he said.

* More details of Big Cat Charters on 020 8847 2269.