Hi James I am in Raleigh as well and just got a catamaran after racing on monohulls quite a bit. I still plan on racing monos but wanted something more convenient since traveling to New Bern and southern chesapeake gets tiring.

I looked at the F18s and think they are great but decided against because 1. I really couldn't afford it (especially if I wanted to race) and 2. I didn't want to scare my girlfriend too much. I decided on a nacra 5.0 that had been sitting in a barn for most of its life.

I won't pretend to know the cat racing scene but I do know that on lake Jordan and Kerr Lake they race Isotopes. However, they aren't really rough water boats if you plan on going to the coast often.

I would contact both Trey (he is in raleigh and his name on this site is NCSUTrey) and Dan (he is in Va Beach and his name on this site is DanBerger). They both always have or know of a few used boats. I almost purchased a decent Nacra 5.7 Dan told me about.