Hi Seeker,
I appreciate your good wishes. I hope they come true. Only time will tell.
Don't jump to the conclusion that all boardless beach cats can carry chutes. Most boardless beach cats have non symmetrical hulls for the full length of the hull. Some others have a skeg well aft on a symmetrical hull. Either one of these hull designs have the CLR well aft on the boat. This leads to severe lee helm with the chute up. The ARC beach cat hull design has a deep vee hull shape forward to generate lift in the forward section of the hull and then the hull shape transitions to a round bottom at the transom. This means the rudder has to be oversized because it acts as the other half of the laterial resistance,LR or centerboard area, and rudder blade at the same time. So on the ARC17 the lift , the laterial resistance, is made up of a deep vee fore foot on the front end and an oversize rudder/centerboard on the aft end. The center of effort with the chute up will never go far enough forward to get in front of the bows on this boardless beach cat hull design.
The pictures showing the bows being driven down to and under the water (skipper and crew sitting forward) were taken to show the foregiveness of this hull design and high crown foredeck. A design with low bows and flat decks would have 'pitchpoled a long time ago'.
The ARC17 sails to windward best with the waterline half way up the bows. Don't forget on an ARC boardless boat, those rudders are working hard for you sailing to windward generating lift. A little less than half the lift comes from the bows. The rudders are much higher in aspect ratio than the fore foot of the forward hull, therefore the rudders make less drag than the hull for a required pound of sideforce.
In racing the boardless ARC17, it will struggle to windward but it will really scoot downwind.
Bill