See

http://home.planet.nl/~dwars000/id58.htm

Someone needs to let them know they bolted the hulls on upside down :P

heard the same thing about my Fox...."looks like an upside down prindle"

well, it looks sweet.....will there be one in louisiana this week????....how much is it "all up and ready to sail"....I bet it is pricey

If you have to ask about the price then you are not really interested.

I've heard $15,500 w/o sails.

I wish sometimes I wasn't 6'5" and 225lbs.....

well, that and that I'd have 15K to spend on a new boat

I know what you mean. I'm a little bigger than that, and get a little tired of all the boats designed for the inhabitants of Munchkin Land.

Seriously, what single handed boat can handle the most weight?

I'll nominate mine. My Mystere 6.0 is usually sailed solo but it can handle two men along with about 150 pounds of additional gear, in big seas.

GARY

Hi Damon,
You are right,boats are getting smaller, narrower and less free board, at the same length. That is one way to build a lighter weight boat, redude the surface area at the same length. The only problem with that is it reduces the weight carrying ability of the boat. But hold on,there are some big boy boats out there. You just haven't heard about them in Tennessee. Check out the website Aquarius-Sails.com
There you will see 21ft and 22ft long beach boats that will carry your weight and an equal size crew very nicely.
Bill

Bill, I think Damon has heard of the SC line. If he follows this website, theres no possible way he couldn't

Bill, I'm well aware of your big boats, very impressive. But not exactly the big single-hander I was talking about. By the way, I would have answered sooner but my mule, Bessy, was a little balky this morning and it's a long walk into town, where they have electricity.

What would a true "sumo sailor" cat look like? My thoughts would be:

• 18 ft. x 8.6
• Total boat weight = 300 pounds
• Minimum single crew weight = 220 pounds (carry up to 20 pounds to make weight)
• Appropriate rig to make it as fast as the FxOne and Inter 17.

The big guys could easily handle a 300 lb. boat on land and when righting. I single-hand my TheMightyHobie18 a lot, but it would sure be nice to have a lighter boat to drag around, that would still be competitive.

I wouldn't want a wide boat unless it used some kind of extremely easy folding mechanism. Have you ever experimented with something like the system on the Shark, B-Lion, or Viva?

Now you're talkin', Damon! Well if the weight of the Mystere, Prindle, ARC-Supercat, and Hobies have got you down, then I suggest the M20 and the T5.7.

The Marstrom 20 is about 9 feet wide, I think. Maybe you could trailer it around without being too intrusive. A bit pricey, but it seems to me to be the ultimate single hander for a large man.

More practical would be a Taipan 5.7. Now we know that the T4.9 is a hot boat and our own Rick White seems to prefer it. But I'll bet that he'd say, especially since he has one for sale, that he'd want to be on the larger 5.7 if he was a much heavier guy.

I think that if I lived near Rick, that that Taipan 5.7 would probably have been in my posession years ago.

The thought of a 'less than 300 pound' boat of this size is dreamy. Tossing it around, on and off the trailer would be a cinch. Brings thoughts to me of a guy that was seen in my neighborhood who used to get under his Hobie 17 on the launch ramp, lift it on his shoulders, and rotate it 180º before setting it in the water.

GARY

Damon,
I hope your mule gets better real soon.
Have you ever seen a telescoping SC20. It takes 10 minutes to go from 8ft wide to 12ft wide; putting the mast up and down is the same. The boat sails great uinrig and single handed. You might be able to trade some of those Tennessee country boys some moonshine for a real good deal on a boat.
Bill
PS I'm from Tennessee myself.

My first single handed boat was an Nacra 5.8, I could right it my self and it sailed great single handed.

I've never seen one of these in person, how do you deal with the trampoline? I'm familiar with the Hobie 21 and it was a real pain to expand, you end up unlacing the tramp every time. I couldn't find any info about the SC20 on your website, how many of these were made? How much does it weigh?


By the way, your website is Aquarius-Sail.com not Aquarius-Sails.com . I'd reccomdend registering the Aquarius-Sails.com domain and pointing it.

How do you tell how much weight a boat can carry (other than just relying on what the maker tells you).

For example, when a boat is designed for a certain weight how does that relate to total hull volume (displacement), i.e. should a boat designed to carry 200kg have a hull diplacement of 400kg?

To my mind a boat sailing on a flat lake can carry more weight than a boat on a big sea.

Gareth

Damon…How about the new ARC 17?…You said you wanted something with 8’-6” beam about 18’ long…Well the ARC 17 has an 8’-6” beam and is just a foot short on length. It does have a lot more volume than any other 17’ cat that I am aware of probably as much as your Hobie 18…

I don’t know what the optimum crew weight is but I looked up in the PN table section and they had the old SC 17 at a crew weight of 280 lbs…Are you much bigger than that? When I had a SC 17 years ago, I sailed it in the ocean all the time with crew weight of 320, with great results…

Plus the new ARC 17 has 6” more beam and 23 sq/ft more sail than the retired SC 17, it has a self tacking jib so you wouldn't have to fool with that... I mean both the SC 17 and the new ARC 17 sloop are designed for a crew of two so it should handle you fine, it has a spinnaker available…they are talking a possible PN # of 65.9…It weighs in at 300 lbs just like you asked for...Throw on top of that the quality of construction that is second to none …what more can you ask for?

If I didn't know better I would think Bill designed this boat with you in mind for single handing.

Bob

well marc.....you post was taken very unfriendly...ever hear of window shopping....and who are you to say Im not interested...

Howdy all. The A-Class is actually a pretty reasonable boat for a big guy to sail. In e-mailing the sail makers, I have been told that the top 10 for the last Worlds ranged between 155 and 185 lbs, and that I could be competitive at 210. I have been getting in to the A-Class scene on a budget and have made myself a boat that has good buoyancy. That is one of the stipulations that the fast guys say that big guys should look for. I have had the Marstom boat suggested as an appropriate choice for my weight, so it would be a great choice for any big guy trying to get into the class and the A-Class website has some used ones listed for sale right now. THe Marstrom boat is the Gucci of sailboat construction too, is made out of the best materiels and is likely to never become soft like a glass boat.

In this class, you can have the mast and the sail tailored for your weight as well. I purchased my mast from Ben Hall at a discount, and before I really knew what to look for in a mast, and it is a little bendy for me in the fore/aft plane being suited for a 180 lb guy in my estimation. I am actually considering taking all the clear coating and intruding hardware off it and adding a couple of layers of Uni to the outside to stiffen it up so the sail does not flatten as soon as I sheet in. Once I get my rig stiff enough to keep sail shape as the wind pipes up, then I will be able to go give these guys with the big bucks a real good run, especially in big wind. I was out in 5 to 10 knots and could consistantly finish ahead of 2 Tornados with old style rigs (not Marstoms). And that was with a too soft mast with a sail made for a little guy!

You can get a mast made by Ben Hall that will be just the right stiffness for you, and a deeper cut mainsail, and have all the power you want for a boat that is 165 lbs and 7 ft 6.5 inches wide. When you buy a boat from a major manufacturer like a Hobie, or a Performance Catamaran boat, you often have to sail with their sail design which cannot be modified for the weight charachteristics that would allow you to go faster. The Taipan 4.9 in the f16 guise would be a pretty good choice for you to singlehand as well, as long as you can get the appropriate mast stiffness for your weight. You can get the sails anywhere you want with that boat so they can be tailored to the fullness you will need. To be honest, I am considering trying to get my weight down to 190 for the next season to give me a better chance of finishing well, and I have a new fuller sail already. Lighter weight does make a difference so I will do what I can, but that does not mean that these boats are not competitive at a higher weight. I may wind up being too light for my mast if I get too light, or the 2 layers of additional uni make the mast too stiff. What other class lets you tailor your hardware like that? Are you kind of adventuresome? Take a risk and build a boat hull design that you have been wondering why nobody has used. I can build a set of hulls for around $1,500 in materiels after my mold is done! What a great class for a tinkerer who likes to sail too! 5 gals of epoxy, 6 sheets of 1/4 inch foam, 200 yards of 4 oz uni carbon, a suitable mold, and 4 months of winter is all I need! If you think the 4 months of winter is too much, it would probably take about 2 weeks of time to actually build, but I have to play hockey, downhill and cross country ski, spend hours on my bike trainer, and swim 3 times a week too. Those spare 20 lbs are tough to get off!