The 18 Square Meter-class catamaran is built to a box rule limiting hull length to 18 feet, beam to WIDE (I think it's 11 feet) and sail area (including mast) to 18 square meters, or about 193 sq. feet. A few very early ones were built with Nacra 5.2 hulls, but when the 5.5 became available, its 18-ft hulls were closer to the max allowed than the 5.2's 17-ft. ones.
The majority of Squares in this country (and I would imagine the world) are Nacras. They were (are?) available from the factory, and no end of modifications have been made to them. The great beam makes transporting them difficult; you need either a tilt trailer or to disassemble the boat and haul it on a narrow(er) trailer. There seems to be a revival of them here in Texas right now; I know of half a dozen that are either raced regularly or in the process of being restored. Also, there's a guy in the Houston area that built one from scratch which is scary-fast in light air, and when he goes to the trapeze, forget it-nobody can touch him upwind and only the spin boats have a prayer downwind. He always corrects out anyway.
Good luck...I'd love to have a Square (when I grow up, maybe I'll have TWO boats: a Square for buoy racing and my P-19 for distance racing!)
sail fast