What is holding back the F-14 cat from taking off (as well as catamaran sailing in general)? IMHO is the obsession with racing.
When I bought my first cat in 1975...a Hobie 14...racing was the last thing on my mind...I wanted to get out on the water...go as fast as I could, play in the surf and have fun. The boat was simply a tool to have fun.
I didn't obsess with tuning the rig...I didn't loose sleep at the thought of someone building a faster cat next week which would make my resale value go down...I wasn't concerned that some rich guy would "buy the race" because he could afford a boat built out of exotic materials...or whether the next guy had a carbon mast, carbon beams, glassed in beams, canted hulls, a taller mast or wider beam....I just went out and had fun free sailing...
All the above obsessions (and more) have sucked the fun out of sailing. Go back thru these forums and read the rabid discussions about length, beam, weight, mast height, hull materials, foils etc. Look at them from the perspective of a newbie looking in from the outside...there are a lot more people attracted at the prospect of having fun than there are "winning" a race.
