I wished that we had installed one on our Solcat.

Though wet, compared to many other recent designs, they are great boats.

We sure had fun with our's.

Anyway, the Solcat's design has a very long hull section that is forward of the mast and aft of the bow.

That long section does not "well resist" the "squeezing" of the bows, that results when the bridle is strained due to sail, mast and main sheet loads.

The hulls must resist this squeezing, with only the integrity of the hulls themselves.

The Solcat used the "cutting edge" technology (of the time) of foam core laid up between the outer and inner fiberglass skin of the hull.

Over time, many Solcat hulls have softened or become partially delaminated, due to the elements and the passage of time.

The result is that many Solcat's have met their demise by the catastrophic breaking of their hulls, just forward of the front beam.

This kind of demise, may be forestalled by simply installing a "third beam", as is the case with your's.

I also have seen some who have installed a bridle spreader just above the forestay tangs.

Both approaches solve the "hull-squeeze problem" and add life-expectancy" to the hulls and the boat.

Personally, I like the bridle spreader because it is carried higher above the water.

That is an advantage to the "low slung" design of the Solcat, which makes it a wetter boat than some, created by all the bow spray coming back onto the tramp area.

Great boats and lots of fun to sail.

If we had installed a third beam or a bridle spreader, we probably would still be sailing and enjoying our's.

As it turned out, we didn't know and didn't install a spreader.

The result was the boat broke as described above.

That's the bad news.

The good news is we enjoyed the boat and it gave its all.

Even after breaking in half, you couldn't sink that boat, due to the foam sandwich construction of the hulls' skin.

After dragging the various pieces and parts back to shore and finally home, we said a few kind and reassuring words and then cut the hull into very small pieces with a circular saw and put it into a casket (dumpster) for a proper burial in a boat cemetery (the local landfill).

However, prior to burial, we did "harvest" some essential organs and such and then transplanted some of them to help other's live yet longer, while also enhancing the quality of life these other boat's enjoyed in their aging years.

In that sense, parts of our Solcat live on.

Tom