I will go on record as saying that that article is bunch of claptrap and BS !
It also hasn't been updated in years and suffers enormously from a measure of self aggrandizement that would blow your socks off. Alot of the claims made are simply false a few more are given without context and misleading as a result. A random selection :
Throughout the 1990s and now into the 21st. Century the products built and designed by the team of Aquarius Sail and Bill Roberts has raised the benchmark in high performance sailing.
The footprint of the SC and ARC products is so ludicrously small that raising ones eyebrows in amazement with require corrective surgery afterwards.
What a bunch of belony ! The classes that shaped the 90's and 00's are A-cat, F18, iF20, Tornado and some smaller classes like the Taipan 4.9. NONE OF THESE WERE INFLUENCED IN ANY WAY BY THE SC AND ARC DESIGNS ! Not even the snuffer design was, as that idea was stolen from the Nacra Inter-17 who stole the idea from the dinghies and modified it to suit a catamaran. Maybe the dinghies stole it from the flying Dutchmens who stole the original idea from Bill but the line of relationship is getting very stretched here, especially since the UK shearwater catamarans were sailing with a snuffer like setup as earlier as the late 1950's c.q. earlier 1960's. I actually believe no single designer can claim intellectual ownership of the snuffer system just as no-one can claim intellectual ownership of items like the spinnaker sail. These systems are the result of a very lengthy development path were multiple creative minds contributed valuably. Bill may hold a US patent on a particular implementation of this general idea, but US patent law is so open that I could claim patents on my left toe nail if I wanted to.
The superior performance of the 22 design has been demonstrated in both long distance and triangle racing venues since 1992.
First try to find any bouy race results for the ARC22 ! There aren't that many around.
For the remainder the, ARC 22 is the biggest (22ft) fish in a very small pond where all the other fish are by regulation 20 foot long or less. Even then the Inter-20 wins more distances races then the ARC22, mostly because the ARC22 is only brought out for the annual Miami-Key Largo race. No ARC22 has ever been scored outside in a distance race outside of the USA. 99.5 % of the all catsailors in the world could not even identify any supercat or ARC cat if they would see one in the flesh.
In 1980 Bill went to Holland and sailed the Round Texel Island Race. ... set the lowest elapsed time record for the race on a SuperCat 20. That record stood for several years, and has now been bettered by another SuperCat 20.
Try updating the page. This race record has been bettered several times already during the actual race, which has been significantlly longer then the 1980 record race course for at least 15 years. There is no other supercat, the cat that held the record is one and the same and the only supercat 20 in the netherlands; it was also highly modified by the owner who held the first record.
That same year the SuperCat product line attended Yachting Magazine's "One Of A Kind Regatta" at New Orleans. Here the SuperCat's dominated the races, ... Bob Bergsted sailed the SuperCat 17 even up with the Nacra 5.2, a "beach boat" pitted against what was considered to be an excellent "board boat." The SuperCat 20 was the only US designed and built boat to ever win this race.
What race ?
I never heard of it and I keep track of race results the world over.
Does it still exits, maybe that is the reason why the SC20 was the only US designed and built boat to win this race.
The SuperCat catamaran design included several unique patented features. One of these features was the elliptical hull shape to reduce the pitchpoling tendency of multihull sailboats.
You can only patent such a thing under US patent laws. In the rest of the world such a request would be disapproved as it would be to much in line with normal engineering reasoning. It is not a sufficient unique c.q. new feature that resulted from extensive and dedicated research where its research investment must be economically protected by law to safe guard return of investment.
This design feature has become an industry standard in multihulls of all sizes. Many of the big ocean racers, both cats and tri's utilize the elliptical hull shape. ... and the amas on most of the recently designed large ocean racing trimarans.
This is simply not true on every aspect given. The elliptical hullshape isn't an industry standard now and never was in the past. In fact I know of no beach catamaran brand that has even used elliptical hulls except the SC and ARC products.
The large tri's and cats never used elliptical hull shapes for their main float, even the new SODEBO and IDEC1 do not have pure elliptical hullshape crossections. None of the maxi cats or the designs like the Volvo-extreme-40's have ever used elliptical hull shapes, in fact their hulls are most different. Most of them are U shaped and several even have flat decks. Some ama's of the ORMA 60 tris had bow sections that could be regarded as elliptical. However, these quickly morphed out to a rounded triangular cross sectional shape. It is decidely uncertain whether their designers were influenced by the SC product or even heard of them at all. Currently the ama's reflect more u-shaped bow sections morphing into rounded triangular crossections.
In 1984 Bill started designing and developing the RC-27, a design which would set the standard for many boats well into the future. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s the RC-27 set numerous records in the US and Europe.
I'm quite sure none of the Volvo-extreme 40, french racing cats and tri's, F18's and a score of other designers were ever influenced by this RC-27. I can't even name a single record that is held or was held by the RC-27 catamaran. The only boat in NL was parked several years next to my sailing club but even there is never sailed. At the Round Texel is was usual for this boat to drop out halveway due to damage or other problems.
In the past discussions with Bill I found that he holds surprisingly weird opinions about hydro- and aerodynamics for a guy that worked on jet engines and is a mechanical engineer. I have always wondered what patents in relation to jet engine design he really holds.
Wouter
