Wouter,
you could be right about the Nacra 5.0 or 500. I'm inclined to favor the 5.2 though. Still I think I will have to just give the boats a test sail and see which one has the right "feel" to it. To me buying aboat is also about emotional response, and I may be looking for problems that are simply not there in real life.


MarkP,
thanks for posting the photos, very nice. Good to know a spinnaker can be added successfully.

Andinista,
You are right, I do care a lot about performance and tuning. To me it is hard to know whether an entry level cat will keep me busy for long enough to not get bored or frustrated as I did on most monohulls (the bigger, the worse). Cats are different beasts than monohulls, so maybe a Nacra 4.5 would be all I need for the next five or six years. But then again, maybe not. Adding a spinnaker to a smaller cat sounds like a recipe for excitement though.

Dermot,
Perhaps I lack your level of self confidence. I doubt the wind will ever capsize me on any halfway decent boat. My own bungling is another story though! So I may just buy a water bag and a righting pole after all...

All,
I think I need to go and actually try some boats before buying anything. I'll try the N5.2 first to see if that works for me, if that proves too daunting (or I can't find one that isn't bent, soft or full of holes) I'll try to find a decent albeit more expensive N4.5 - 5.0 or a cheap Dart 18 and give those a spin.
Of course, if any of the other, more hard to come by, suggested boats turn up around here I may give them a test sail too.
Next step to me is to get a cheap dry suit so I can actually go and try some of these cats before the season is over AGAIN...

Thank you everyone for your excellent advice and your personal opinions. I really appreciate the effort! If we ever meet IRL; I owe you all a beer!