There are a lot of people who seem to express their "dreams" when it comes to "unrestricted" (apart from hull length, mast height etc) for a formula 14! When you really get down to the practical limitations for a design for a 14' cat, you soon work out that to put "a 150 odd sq ft jib, with a 150 odd, sq ft main, on a set of production hulls that like the Hobie 14, already carry more sail area as standard, than the hulls are able to accomadate efficiently ( the key word here is "efficiently"), that to carry more sail just makes the cat harder to sail, and in most cases, slower around a triangular course. To be able to "carry" sail, the first consideration is the bouancy, and positioning of that bouancy, of the hulls. They have to be as least resistant as possible to "drag" created by any sudden forces of forward motion that exert downward, as well as forward acceleration to the cat. If they aren't, then the bows "trip" (commonly known as pitch polling). They have to support one or two crew, not only inboard, but out on trapeze, and still resist "tripping" Remember you are sailing a catamaran, not a partially submerged submarine. The wider the hulls are placed apart on a cat (passed their ideal width for their length) and provided that the fore and aft position of the mast step remains the same, more and more insability and "tripping pressure is applied to the bows of the cat, so instead of creating a more stable platform, the reverse is generally the case. Wider placed hulls mean that you can resist the side way, lifting forces of the sails (and the lift of the hulls) more, but the fore and aft instability more than negates any advantage that you may get from that, and besides, we have comprehensive sail shape controls to control the "hull lifting" forces and convert them into forward motion ( that's what sailing is all about, converting wind generated "lift" into forward motion - regardless of which way the apparent wind is coming from). There is a global formula for assessing the efficiency, stability, and potentual performance of any sailing craft, and if any of the dimensions of that craft fall outside that formula, then it loses efficiency. As a very rough example, imagine a transperent sphere (ball for the less educated ha ha), place the cat that you want to check the potentual of, inside that glode. What you want to be looking for is that all the extremities of that cat will be just in contact with the inside of that globe, if the head of the mast is, but the hulls are not, then there will be instability greater than the potentual obtainable, etc, etc. What I am saying is that, when it comes to sailing fast, the old addage, "you can't beat cubic inches" commonly referring to cars, just doesn't apply to boats, just adding more sail often reduces the performance of a cat, its not what is added but how it is added, and it has to be added within the potentual performance perameters of that cat (if you want to "suck it and see", just step the rig of a Hobie 16 onto a Hobie 14 and you will soon see whether or not it works).
Yours
Darryl J Barrett