Hi Mary,
You might have reason to worry about the forum turning into a technical debate site! I appreciate the others tolerating some occasional nerdishness. Seems like a high percentage of catsailors have some kind of engineering training. Anyway, if the last poster wants to know about yacht design more power to him! One more guy who can help keep the commerical boat marketeers honest. Some good books that even I can read and understand: Skeene's elements of yacht design (Kinney); Sailing Yacht Design (Douglas Phillips Birt); Yacht Design (Mead and Jan Gougeon); The Science of Yachts Wind and Water (H. F. Kay); The Common Sense of Yacht Design (L. Francis Hereoff).

Kevin Cook