Dave Lennard wrote:
"There were a lot of problems. rudder system does not kick up, parts on the boat just broke, dagger boards leaked, bad U.S. dealer, boat just sailed bad, rear beam hit water(too low),no floatation in hulls (one boat in Tybee 500 and a boat in the Alter Cup almost sank), hulls had ugly seams and leaked. It would be a good lake boat with flat and deep water and light winds.
One sailor spent like 40,000 in upgrades(gun boat)and still got beat by an N 20 costing 14,500."
Dave, I have to take issue with some of your statements.
1. Bad dealer - The dealer probably did more to help people who bought the boat than any other dealer of beach cats I've seen in this country. Dave, WF did not make money on this venture. He wasn't in it for the money. He loved the boat and the class. I still get really pissed at people who character assasinate WF. I've never seen anyone who would do more to help people at events.
2. Daggerboards leaked - so have Marstrom rudders and centerboards on Tornados. It was an easy issue to fix.
3. Just sailed bad - Well, we sure beat plenty of I-20's boat for boat in a lot of buoy racing we did. Seems I remember doing this at Catfight in 2002 (ask Mike Hill and Kirk Newkirk) and Rehoboth in 2003 (ask Mark Schneider). From my viewpoint, it sailed quite well and when we evolved it to the higher aspect chute, it became quite manageable in breeze. If we came out on the Gunboat HT at an open class event, you would be really impressed!
4. Hull leaked - We sailed the same HT for 2 years hard and it typically leaked no more than a quart at worst. That's fairly typical for most production boats. I never saw any hull leakage any worse than anything I've seen with products made by HC and PC.
I didn't like the hull seam but that was the construction technique chosen by BIM (their A-cats also have the seam). It was easy enough to sand fair but it made no real impact on performance.
Peter Johnstone did NOT spend $40K upgrading the Gunboat HT. He had about $25K in the boat including the money he paid for it. Let me say something about the performance of that boat. WF and I sailed the 2004 ICCT. We had only 12 days of sailing time together the whole year (we planned more but circumstances out of our control prevented it). We competed against three Olympic class teams who had over 60 days of racing and training that summer. I am absolutely convinced that the improvements Peter made to the Gunboat allowed us to compete head to head with Johnny and Charlie who were on a stock Jav 2. They beat us 4-1 in the defender series but the racing was extremely close. I was very pleased at how well we performed.
No offense Dave but your comments were not accurate.
Bob Hodges
