Wow... The world spins in circles.

Right before the crash of cat sailing in the US... The major boat show, The Annapolis boat show had displays from Prindle 16 Nacra 5.0 Dart 18, Hobie 16 and the Isotope. I went with the intention of buying a Prindle 16, Since every rental Hobie 16 that I had sailed had so much weather helm that I was convinced that is how they normally sailed. Dart offered sailing demo's and nobody else was doing that.. (and I thought it was the best looking boat.) So... off to sandy point park for the demo... The Nacra dealer (now a good friend) shows up with a 5.0 to poach the prospects from the Dart dealer. The Dart dealer is a little guy with short man's complex and he winds up screaming at the Nacra guy, (6 foot and 200 lbs). He was poaching his leads and to the customers, he was making the point that the 5.0 violated his patent on the skeg design and the boat would be soon out of production... Oh and the Dart was the ISAF approved boat.. (who the hell were they?) yada yada yada... I wound up sailing both boats and bought the Dart... Bottom line... it was lighter then the Nacra 5.0 and seemed more responsive to a non sailor. Both boats never caught on and the Nacra 5.0 proved to be a much faster boat then it's 16 foot length would have you believe.

It's fascinating that the 5.0 is now Nacra's access to performance boats. In the US... the only boat that really survives in the US market today is the Hobie 16... We see a couple of new ones in the hands of the racers every year. We had one German guy get a 5.0 and sail it for a few years and then take it back to Germany.