okay thanks Jay. I will add another

I just can't imagine making a beach landing without rudders.

That's a lot less to break in the surf, that's for sure. Getting out is probably no picnic, especially if going forward makes it want to tack.

Mike

The photos are taken in Cap D'Agde South France about 20 years ago. In the biggest nudist village from Europe.

So, imagine the problems going out and landing again on the beach between, in summertime, 50.000 tourists on a beach of about 1 mile.

I've learned to steer without rudders overthere, that's for sure.
And my French is adequate with regard to shouting things.

And I have a loud voice. And Frenchmen respect sailors and there boats. I had a tekst on the side of the hulls:
"patinavoileapoile"" which was a jokingly corruption of: patin-a-voile a-poile.

Meaning : skate with sail in total nudity.

Remember the Spanish name for this cat is Patin a Vela which stands also for skate with sail.

I would like to add that despite my sturdy talk above, steering a patin-a-vela isn't so difficult as it seems to be.

Most of you do not realize that this cat has a very small beamsize. Original I believe it was 1.5 m, but I narrowed it even further down to 1.2 m.
That's because I replaced the original wooden beam-planks with two sawn-off old nacra beams (broken at the dolphin striker).
So, the cat was also transportable on a normal luggage trailer


flickr.com

You can imaging that manoeuvering between swimmers is now simpler.
(the same applies for righting the cat after a flip!).

Finally the very special hull shape makes the cat very sensitive for weight distribution (far more then on a normal cat).

Sitting and sailing is a peace of cake:

flickr.com

Am I seeing this correctly? No trampoline???

Mike

Yep, that's right Mike.

Only at the stern behind the rear-beam I made a very small cloth to sit on when jibing.

And I will tell you: no tramp is sensational to sail. You see and can feel the sea just under your legs.
It's an awesome experience and inspired me to sail with a open net tramp on my latest cat.

Before I forget: the open gap between the hulls on my Patin was even more acrobatic to cope with, because for the steering you had to walk (yes walk!) often over the hulls forwards or backwards!

Great article to read, but what a clutter of advertizing on that site. Less than 1% RAM for the article and +99% for the advertizing. When the end-of-the-world comes, it will be the fault of the Marketing Departments!