I’ve been out of town working the last few days. Jake I was in South Carolina. I have Craig’s (team cyberspeed) Supercat 20 completed so we are launching tomorrow and I’m also taking my Gcat5.7 we are going out off of Singer Island. The weather girl is calling for 85 degrees and 10-15 knot wind.

Codblow - It was cool and I did look up the tri you mentioned it is a good idea and I may consider doing something like that in the states. I'm 54 and I’m starting to have some physical problems, degenerative spine disease. I have problems in my neck, shoulders, and fingers. I’m thinking of something that does not tear me as much as I’m not a young lad anymore. I started sailing/racing cats when I was 25 after I crashed a motorcycle at 95 mph “street racing”. I’ve had 4 surgeries on my shoulders over the years I have good days and bad days. So I have this serious crazy streak but as Jimmy Buffett says: “You treat your body like a temple and I treat mine like a tent”---got a lot of tent years.

Bvining and Jake – I’m torn between seats and ama helm. The design calls for foot steering and sheets leading to the ****. It also calls for a skeg type rudder in each hull. In south FL we need to have a kick up rudders. So I’m thinking of a way to combine it. The Naval Architect, Kurt Hughes, says it is designed for **** helm and there is not a need for ama hiking.

As a cat sailor we think different. Kurt says it will out point cats. The fastest speed we know is with a big reacher or spinnaker. So does a 17’ beam tri down wind balance enough to negate hiking? Is the beam wide enough for a beam reach? Last winter I meet with Randy Reynolds for a day on his boat and we talked designs, sails, hulls, and beams. Randy proved on his 33 that a narrow beam is faster then a wide beam. One would think the opposite but he had the data to prove different to my surprise.

Do I set up dual helm for the conditions? One for ama helm and for **** helm? Or just make it one or the other? Do I set up two wires or is just the crew on the wire enough? When the NACRA 5.2 first came out I bought hull number 325 it was a one-wire boat. The wire configuration and the portsmith number made the sol cat 18 a go to boat. Not because it was fast they had about a lap on you for a handy cap. These are the things I have to weigh out. Also what is the speed sensation sitting 6 inches above the water line compared to hiking out at what 6-8 foot level? Have you ever land yachted. You sit about 4 inched above the ground and I was clocked at 48 mph. Then when I flew a wheel it brought tears to my eyes. The wind was blowing in the 20’s. I only did it once in California about 20 years ago what a rush!

The good thing as the builder is that I will have time to tweek these things out and the first will be my “mule” to test. I hope that the boat is all that I hope it will be. I’d like to go into production of the boat. I’m also thinking of building an 18/20’ Hawaiian sailing canoe. My plan is to have 3 molds that would give a configuration of 5 boats. But that is a long-term plan.

Next week we will work on the website so I can put some more picture up.

Mike aka TheManShed