What the heck is this?

Looks kinda cool. I've never heard of a: "16 ft Stratos free style catamaran sailboat" though.



Looks like a bit of a tail dragger.

Easier to slow down on a screaming downwind leg

I think it might be a Freestyle 474

You are right ! its a Freestyle 474..(I have one) and its a great 1 or two up boat.

Who makes them?

Don't know, but a couple of nice galleries of one here .

Love this one -




Might have been the first F16 <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />.

Do you know where the shots were taken,looks like somewhere in the NW

I believe it's Vancouver - Jericho Sailing Centre.

Cool boat, cool spi and cool to se the helm trapping with spi up. Any chance of getting the owner on to the F16 forum (or the open forum)

Since you have one, what do you know about it? Do you know who designed it, who built it, and whether they are still being built somewhere? What year was yours built?

Don't just leave us hanging.

Poking around race results on the Jericho site I see two or three names I recognize from here, so someone will probably know who he is.

It would be very interesting to hear their experiences on trapezing under spi, or when not to. Some words on the masthead spi would also be good reading.

Freestyle 474. Company (Trac)is out of business, I think. That is similar to boat I had many years ago (my first cat!). I still have used, decent boards-not great, a dacron Main, and rudders, if anyone wants them, drop me a line, will sell cheap.

The original boat did not have a spi to my knowledge. It was a fun sail, to my recollection, but going about was difficult. For its time, it was quite light at about 285 lbs fully rigged, and was similar to an ACAT single handed concept. Very fast on a reach, pretty lame beating upwind. I learned cats on this boat!

Doesn't look anything like a Trac.
Definitely looks more like a little Supercat.
I like it!

That sure is a beautiful shot of English Bay in Vancouver.

The guy sailing the boat no longer does, he built himself a swift solo, there are now 3 or4 of them at Jericho. I don't know who owns the boat now, but I'll ask him next time he's in my store. The previous owner put the spin on it (though not this masthead one which I think is a 49er spin) and did race it portsmouth with 18sq, Jav and I20s when you could do such things at Hobie regattas.

That's what I thought. I found it on Criagslist. The lister wants $1k for it. I may go take a look. Although I need a second boat like I need my arm to fall off. Not too bad of a PN# either at 78.3

Does anyone know if the Trac Frestyle was really made by AMF the same guys that make bowling balls? M. Egan raced one of those for a while. Said it had a killer rating. Maybe he'll show up and enlighten us??

Looks like he sailing in Vancouver, British Columbia

found this..

Freestyle 474
length:15'06
width:8'00
sail area:152
displacement: 260
manufacturer:Freestyle Catamaransob

I believe a few were imported into Australia by NACRA in the mid 80s.. mainly NACRA and solcat parts..

There was a thread in 02 on freestyle 474 masts

AMF owned Harley Davidson for a while. I thought that was kinda funny.

Solo-Trapping with the spin up? I've done it several times on a friends I17-R.

There used to be 2 active Freestyles on Lake Travis, in the early 90s. Both were unirig, no trapeze. If they had had better sails they would have *killed* all the other boats on handicap (78.3) . They were very light, narrow entry, round exit hull shape, with NACRA-like boards.

That is definitely a 474 Freestyle. It is a great 15 foot beachcat.

Mine still has some original logo on it. It says was manugfactured by Boston Whaler in 1979.

The pic of the guy and the red spinnaker lives in Vancouver, BC.

The boat eventually snapped in half at the front beam, flying that masthead spinnaker.

He may have been OK had he installed a spreader at the bows.

Not doing so did provide a mast for me to get my boat going again after we folded the mast, flying a hull with four adults on it.

Needless to say, that wasn't what the boat was designed for.

Tom

Wish I knew, it is a late 80's boat I picked for family (free) to use at their lake home in N.Calif. I don't think they are being manufactured any longer.. another case of too early and too little in the way of marketing.

I could be completly wrong, so if I appologize. not sure about this boat. but I think the TRAC 18 built by AMF was designed by Hubbard. Again if I'm wrong don't jump me too much I was intoxicated during the conversation.

The guy posted another ad with a better picture this time.



From the CL pic it looks like its in decent shape. Just wish I had $1k to blow on another boat right now.

I do like the orange too!

I love the way that the spinnaker shadow in this image creates an illusion that the sailor is flying along on a trimaran!

That is art!



Don't see it? Try blocking out all of the image that is above the decks. Just look at the hulls and below. See three bows?? What a gorgeous photo!

GARY

Tom, you are The Man! The Freestyle Man.

There's a Catalina Trip on June 27; come join us again!

GARY

Here's an article to show some of the history about it. http://www.canadianyachting.ca/boat-reviews/79-sail/3519-freestyle-474

Whew... posting a 38 year old article to a 10 year old forum post... We may now be the equivalent of the penny farthing forums?

A stark comparison to the days when you couldn't refresh your browser fast enough to keep up with the formula v. one design debates.

I miss those days. The trash talk, the arguments, Drill baby drill.

I think we've just burned out the topics.

Hi Karl!

Did everyone migrate to Facebook? I still don't have a Facebook account, and from what I hear at work, I don't want one!

A lot of fleets are on Facebook. Both CRAM and CRAW have Facebook pages as outward advertisement, and Facebook groups for their forum like discussion. From what I've seen most fleet at least have a group to communicate in. Facebook isn't to bad when you subscribe to enough sailing content that it drowns our the everyday nonsense of our friends, which sometimes isn't too bad when a majority of your friends are sailors.

Hi Karl!

Where have you two Karl's been?

Hey Mr. Broger, I just flew over MSP on my way to Narita yesterday (I'm in Narita as I type this) and the ground was covered with all this white stuff, what the heck is that?

Disappointment and anger on the ground....

My old man used to do the Narita trip on the whale

And Delta just got done parking all the Whales, they are buying the new Airbus A350 to replace the Whale but it only seats about 290, v 400on the Whale.

Yeah, kind of sad. It was a legend of an airplane growing up.