However, I have my doubts that U.S. sailors are going to want to build boats.
This kills me and is it really true? Seems a lot of us are interested in tinkering with our boats. Granted tinkering with and building one are two completely different things, I must admit this F12 at least seems much less daunting than homebuilding a F16 or the like and hopefully at a price that wont cause divorce.
Sorry. I should have added, "some people on this forum excepted."
My father built a plywood boat for me when I was about 14, but it was not a sailboat, even though we were a sailing family. It was a 14-foot, planing outboard motorboat. I had more fun with that boat than I have ever had with any other boat, bar none, in my entire life. During my mid-teen years my friends and I spent our summers on that boat -- waterskiing and fishing and exploring, completely free of adult supervision. I raced on the Lightning with my father on Sundays, but the rest of the week was mine.
I know, more heresy. In the mid 1950's that was probably my version of a PWC, except that it could carry more people.
And I know y'all are going to say that if I had had a catamaran sailboat, that would have satisfied me. I doubt it. The Great Lakes in the summer are notorious for light and fluky winds -- bad for sailing but great for waterskiing.
The key is keeping kids on the water, any way you can, and apparently my father was brilliant at doing that, since both of his daughters are still sailing more than a half century later.
And the main reason we are sailing catamarans to this day is because we spent our early years (8-16) on monohulls. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
P.S. I also apologize for again interrupting the boatbuilding segment of this thread.
