Don't get me wrong ROB. I Know that there will ALWAYS be a place for well designed, well built "home" constructed ply boats, and that place will vary dramatically in numbers throughout the different formula/class's of cats/boats, I know that there are a good percentage of ply hulled, home constructed cats sailing in the Taipans, and very succesfully. The same applies to the mosquitoes, the cobras, the paper tigers, the arrows, the arafura cadet, the stingray, even going back to the yvonne and a plethora of Cunningham designs, but these were all - even the Taipan (which sort of slid in when ply was still more in demand for home builders) - were concieved and developed when the only way to be really light and go fast was to build with ply. I remember quite physical arguments in the early 80's between sailors of ply boats adamant that "glass" boats were to heavy, to slow, to weak, and to expensive. Times do change though. It's not that I believe that ply is condemed to history, I don't. There will always be a good place for home construction in ply, but I do believe that in todays market, if a formula/class doesn't have the ready availability of commercial manufactured, competitive boats, and instead has to rely on the numbers of "home made boats, it cannot grow fast enough or large enough to sustain itself. That's what I mean when I say that it is a dream to think that a class/formula today can BASE itself on home made designs.
Darryl J Barrett