Hi Greg

Thanks for the compliments.

The mast simply slots into a larger tube welded to the cross beam. The mast is reinforced with extra fibre glass in the bottom 1 metre section. This is enough to strengthen the mast without loosing the shape of the sail.

You are dead right, the way I have the mast attached to the cross beam is a very high torque area and I plan to improve this by using shrouds that attach to the mast directly under the boom. I have thought of a simple clip I can use to easly attach the shrouds so it won't affect rigging time much.

As for the shape of the hulls, I wouldn't want to change the under water profile much as it seems to work well. I have small rocker in the front and no rocker aft of the centre line. The hard chines help reduce leway as I don't want to introduce centre plates, dagger boards or skegs,thus cutting out unnecessary drag. It will never be good round a triangular course because of the leaway when headed into wind, but thats not the point of it, its more for blasting up and down on a reach.

I would however introduce some curvature into the top of the hulls. This would give a stronger shape if built out of stressed ply, and I could also build in a little more buoyancy in the bows.