Just to clarify, John Pierce IS canting the rig on the Stealth 18HT. I don't know how his mechanism works but he thinks he can generate up to 120 lbs of vertical lift / reduced displacement (if I have it right that is equivalent to a 20% reduction in overall weight w/ a 285# boat and a 315# crew).

I emailed John recently and he sent back the following: "...we think the canting rig system is good, in theory it should reduce the displacement of the boat by about 120lbs in double trapezing conditions. All my thinking with developing our boat is geared towards double trapezing conditions and up."

We will see how it works around the buoys and in distance racing. I expect John to race in Italy at the end of the month at the unofficial 18HT Worlds, and he may race in Newport in July - we're still working on him.

Other designers and builders are working on different approaches. There are discussions of a boat w/ curved/jibing daggers, and Guillaume Verdier, principal designer of Parlier's new ORMA cat has an 18HT w/ stepped hulls that should be in sail testing by now.

http://naval.architect.free.fr/multi/tomcat.htm

This is exiting stuff for the 18HT class!

Hunt
18HT USA-14