Hi Gang,
I came to multihulls after sailing monohulls for 25 years and winning ten US Nationals in three different classes. In the 1960s and 70s I lived on a freshwater lake where most of the sailing was done in my area and I was sailing monohulls, dinghys, at that time. I saw the beach cats when they first came out. I watched them turn over and stick their masts in the bottom of the lake. I watched them turnover and blow the length of the lake with a guy and his girlfriend hanging on a rope trying to right the boat with no success. I watched them try to tack and get in irons on a windy day and have to back the jib and make the boat back around moving backwards to complete the tack. I watched them pitchpole when they would attempt to go fast on a reach. During this time period two persons drowned on the lake where I lived from pitchpoled boats. I have scar tissue from these times. I can still hear the sherriff's helicopter going up and down the lake waiting on the body to float to the surface and the rotor making that whak, whak, whak sound all day long.
When I began to think seriously about designing a beach cat, I promised myself that I would design a boat that would be as pitchpole resistant as possible and the boat would be rightable by the person sailing the boat and it would tack well enough to excersize classical tactics sailing to windward.
Evidently it took a monohull sailor to be concerned about these things, these boat design safety issues, and basic sailing characteristics. Even to this day no other production beach cat comes with a built in righting system.
Safe Sailing,
Bill