Whats it weigh all up?

Width is 8'6"?

Is the mast carbon or aluminum?

Sorry for being lazy and not looking this up.

Bill

We ain't comparing Hyundai's and Ferrari's. We're comparing Hyundai's to Hyundai's. Its a slight variation, not a whole new frickin' breed of animal. I said it before, I don't know much about boat building. As far as I know you're laying a pliable material into a mold, whether its got a curve or not, I don't see the difference, but I would like too.





Okay if you say so, plenty of things are bolted together that hold up just dandy under some very extreme loads. But I still would like to know why. I like to learn things, and just saying "no" wrapped up in your ****/kunt like attitude isn't enough info for me. What Jake was getting at is that a giant block of material can get expensive, especially when most of it is going into the recycling bin. Furthermore if it is really big then there are issues of finding people that can deal with it, which if you're in a niche market you get to charge pretty much what you want and tell people to go screw themselves with a smile while they pay you knowing they'll be back because there just isn't any other options. Like I said, if a billet aluminum race car chassis can be machined and assembled and hold up to what a track and a whole mess of hp can throw at it, I don't see why something simple like this can't be done that way as well. Or, perhaps its something that hasn't been explored yet in this application and should be? There's always a better mousetrap to be built, or a better way to build it(whether it improves the product or the production), regardless of what you manufacture.




Never said anything different. I'm just curious why you say the boards are soooo inexpensive, yet say production is soooo costly. That business model doesn't hold up for too long.





Give it time and it probably will be, right now its still in the voodoo magic category. Sailing has been around for how many thousands of years? How long did it take to just be able to go to weather? How far has it come in the past 50-25-10-5 years? I'm in the camp where I'd like to see the A-cats, F18's, and F16's (or whatever) take advantage of everything they can in both material and design.

Funny how wider than 8'-6" beam is suddenly acceptable...somewhere behind the scenes, Bill Roberts is probably saying something like "Welcome to the party...I have been trying to tell you this for the last 40 years"...

Having sailed a gazillion miles (give or take a couple) on A-cats, F-18's, N-20's, and the infamous 18HT. I think I'm somewhat qualified to compare the various platforms and the difficulty it takes to extract maximum performance.
The F20c is no more difficult to get up to speed than any of the others. There are some nuances that you need to be aware of, fore/aft weight placement and board height are significant adjustments. However the boat provides lots of feedback to help you make those corrections. Anyone that has spent enough time most other cats will recognize this, and pick up on it right away.

Just my .02 cents worth...

Sorry Jake, I wont make fun of the graphics any more today.

two more questions - how tall is the mast? Is it $30k all up?

I like it. Except for the ugly graphics - (ooops forgot my promise)

And nice video Macca, made me want one. The sailing one, not the one in the dark showing off one hull, that sucked.

I don't have enough time on the boat in heavy air to comment just yet. However, Macca should chime in with some real time experience in those conditions and comparisons.

The extra width is also needed for the curved boards since the lift forces on the curved boards decrease righting moment via the leward board.

Eh? The leeward board is pushing the hull up, thus increasing RM!!!

Eh? The leeward board is pushing the hull up, thus increasing RM!!!

Those interested in the construction process of curved boards should go look at the DNA A-cat web site. While NACRA may be using an entirely different process, it does give one possible way of building state of the art pre-preg curved carbon boards using autoclave technology. Their molds are made of high temperature composites and appear to be much less complex than those which have been speculated about, on this thread, and others touching on the subject.

DNA is refreshing transparent about their building process. Rather than dodging questions and shrouding their design/construction in ambiguity and mystery, they lay it all out on the table for everyone to see and give their reasoning behind their design decisions.