Hi Sarah,

Here is a link to a page with some shots of the M18:

M18

I think your expectations for Hobie style (& scale) support from the highly specialized, smaller scale Marstrom company is a bit unrealistic. The number of people working at Marstom must be no more than 20-30 tops, but may be more like 5 or 6. The people working there are very likely to be highly motivated catamaran racers and so will be "distracted" when major events are going on...like the Tornado World Championships. Remember it is now spring there in Sweden and everyone is anxious to get back on the water (yes, it's a BIG deal when you've been hibernating for many months in the cold ).

Sometimes places like Marstrom don't do the "business management" particularly well...they are usually engineering type people with different priorities (like designing/building the most advanced production beach catamarans on the market). There are other small companies around that act as dealers/distributors for Marstrom products. Here in the USA, there's a place in Florida called "Fun in the Sun" run by Jill Nickersen that imports/distributes Marstrom products (Tornado's mainly, but I'm sure she's also done a few M20's and could do the M18). Not sure if there is a similar arrangement somewhere on your side of the world. But I do know of a few places in Europe that distribute Marstrom products. You might have better "customer support" contacting them for your M18 questions:

Landenberger Sailing ---located in Germany; send him and email about his Marstrom distribution...he also is a sail maker and can fit you with custom sails.

Cat Sailing Sportswear & Equipement ---another German site that sells Marstrom stuff. I have ordered Tornado parts from them. They do not specifically list the M18 but I'm sure they can hook you up if you ask about it.

Good luck!

Mike.