While admiring a molded wood Tornado at the Stature race, one of the racers said that sailing a 10' wide cat is such a great feel. It handles so much better than our 8.5' wide cats. Obviously the 8.5' beam is for trailerability rather than sailability.

So here's a question for all you engineers out there, how could you make a 10' wide, easily trailerable cat like, say a Nacra 20? If you used sliding beams, you would only need to slide 9" on each side; that doesn't seem so much to accomplish, yet no one has done it. It seems like technology should be able to solve this issue.

David
Hobie 20
781

Keep it simple with a trailer that will raise one hull so the horizontal plane is reduced to eight feet. There's another thread with a picture of a flip up trailer being towed by a Mini Cooper.

You would need to raise one hull by about 5 1/2 feet to get a 10 foot beam down to an 8 1/2 foot beam.

That's pretty much what the trailer/boat being pulled by the Mini looked like. IMHO flipping the boat up is a lot easier than expanding/collapsing the boat every time it's used.

Just get a Tornado tilting trailer. That's how they do it. The real engineering question is, what about the beams? I would like to see some carbon fiber 10' beams for the Inter 20. The problem is that the bed on the hull is flat and most carbon beams are round. What do the Tornado guys use for beams, flat or round on the bottom?

Actually, the sliding / expanding beams has been done before - about 20 years ago.

The original Hobie 21 had them.

Yes, and it weighed about 600 lbs...

That Mini and Tornado belong to Mike Dobbs. Very cool set up. He built the trailer himself.

Didn't the 21 have problems with the locking pins enlarging the holes in the crossbars?

As did the Supercat 20s.

How about a quick-release setup on the beam bolts? Maybe something similiar to bicycle hubs. You could reduce slop in the the joint by putting a dome or slot on the hull and a complementary dome or slot on the crossbeam. With a quick release cam fitting, you may be able to get a good tight fitting without all the hassle of regular bolts.

I don't have a patent on this, so if anyone wants to take the ball and run with it, be my guest.

David Ho
TheMightyHobie18 1067