If you are interested in the some of the design philosophies of Bill Roberts you can do a search on the open forum here under his name. Also go to
http://www.aquarius-sail.com/. (The boat builder of his designs).
There is much information on the individual products, and also a ARC/Supercat owners forum, to which he frequently responds...Between the posts he has made on this forum and the Aquarius Site you can get a wealth of information on his approach to solving some of the reoccurring common problem in small cat design...
Topics such as:
Why he uses full volume, elliptical shaped bows to dramatically reduce the propensity to pitch pole. A problem that is common with cats having flat fore decks, or cats with insufficient bow volume and flat fore deck such as a Hobie 14 and 16.
His "Shared lift Concept" to help counter act the effects of sailing with a spinnaker on the helm.
Why he believes wider than trailer able width (8'-6" in the US) is desirable to break the performance barrier that has keep the 8’-6” wide beach cat from going on to the next performance level.
His "Self Tacking Jib" system. To help the boat respond faster with more efficiency and less effort.
His use of a mast section with sufficient volume (buoyancy) to keep his cats from going "turtle" in most circumstances.
A unique righting system that uses side stay extensions to allow the boats own weight to help right itself in the event of a capsize. This feature allows his 17' design to be righted by a single 160 lb person instead of the 300 lb crew weight it would normally require to right a 8' wide boardless beach cat.
These are just a few of the common problems he has addressed. He is an aeronautical engineer with a lifetime of experience. He is also an awesome sailor, which is easily supported by his winning record.
For example this past year he and his son Eric won a major distance race (Dec 2003 Steeplechase) with a worn 1981 Supercat 20 (one of his first production cat designs) which was 100 lbs over its minimum allowable racing weight (usually a racer wants to be “dead on” the minimum boat weight, and most would see it as a waste of time to race in a boat with such a severe weight handicap). He did this against some of the best sailors sailing some of the latest and greatest boats, winning by a wide margin, Winning both first to finish and on corrected time.…
He then went out a few weeks later with a “boardless” ARC 17 (also one of his designs)and won the overall open class in a major Buoy Race (Jan 2004 Tradewinds Midwinter Open Cat Nationals) against well respected racing cats of current design with dagerboards (dagerboards are regarded as a major advantage in sailing up wind), including the Taipan 4.9 and a Hobie 20.
He is an amazing person to talk to…he has the ability to cut thru all the hype and get right to the core or the problem. While many other designers treat the symptom, Mr. Roberts puts his energy into curing the underlying problem, which causes the symptom. For reasons I do not understand, much of the catamaran community has chosen to ignore his race proven advancements, and still struggle with fundamental design issues that Bill Roberts resolved decades ago…
A study of his Catamaran design history pretty much covers everything you said you were looking for in identifying and correcting problems in the beach cat design.
Good luck on your project...
Bob
