Folks,
I'm not saying this will replace the Optimist.
Everyone see this type of thing differently.
What I will do is explain how I came to this point.
I must apologise if this post is too long. I try to keep them short so as not to take up too
much of other peoples time but in this case thought I should explain how I got to where I am
with this concept.

I presided as Sailing Master and Head of the sailing school at a local sailing club for a number
of years and observed the folowwing when introducing young children to sailing.

In the beginning of my teenier we were using Hobie Hawks as training craft for the beginners.
As far as I can make out they are very similar to the Optimist mentioned, both in size and
sail area.

We would run adds at the beginning of each sailing season and get a very good roll up of prospective
young sailors but would quickly lose most of the students with only a couple staying on for the
season.

Finally my own children were old enough to learn the art so I took them along. It was not long
before I was having problems getting them to go along, I was going to give up when someone
donated a 12 ft windrush Surfcat to the club.
Once my own kids had a sail on the surfcat they were hooked.

As you could imagine this had me quite intrigued. So I discussed the matter with both
of them. They told me the same story. They did not feel safe in the Hobie Hawks because they were so tippy and in addition to this they were slow and boring. Depending on conditions they felt scared or bored.

So we got a couple more Surfcats and as we did we found the kids fighting over them and returning every week provided they got a cat to sail.

Despite popular belief they did not run into each other.

We set courses for the very young beginners in water they could walk. So if they had
any problems they could just walk to shore. Once they felt comfortable they we would
move them out into the centre of the lake and finally into the senior afternoon racing.

Anyhow the result of all this meant I got my sons a cat each.
This created another problem. Every time I went sailing I had to rig 3 cats as they were too small to rig their own.

This is where I came up with the idea of a super fast cat to rig.

When you compare the Specs of the Surfcat to my design they both run the same beam but my design is lighter , has a shorter mast and has less sail area.

The pics posted to date are renderings of a computer model. Florin heard what I was working on and approached me to help where he could . The pictures are a product of his excellent skills in applying rendering to the computer model. He has really brought the concept to life.

Now while from my own experience I believe something like this could make a difference.
There is no universal fix and we each have to do what we can to turn things around until something starts working.
Some things work for some people but we need to find out something that will work for most people.

I'm hoping that my efforts will help in catching those fish that used to get away.