Hello everyone,

Damon and I have gotten together to establish this forum to target the new market segment of inflatable sailboats in the US.

I own Red Beard Sailing. We sell inflatable sailboats by MiniCat as well as other portable sailboats. I have copied our About Us page below so as to not fish for traffic. If you would like to check out our offerings, the link to our website is below.

To tell you about us, I need to start with when I was first introduced to sailing. My grandfather owned a Bristol 29 sailboat named “Bohemian”. That was the boat I grew up on. I spent many summer weeks out on that boat and my love of sailing started there. My grandfather grew too old to maintain the boat and I was too young to know what I was doing (and lost interest sailing). When my grandfather passed away, I decided to sell the boat and distance myself from sailing altogether.

A few years later, My wife KC and I decided to give sailing a go again and we purchased a Pearson 26 and sailed that for a whole year. We had many repairs to do on the Pearson, including replacing spongy decks and an antiquated outboard. If you add the repairs to the cost of the slip (one of the cheapest slips in the Chesapeake at $2000 a year) it became a bit overwhelming and I decided to sell the Pearson.

Like all sailors, I stumbled upon a great project, an Iroquois 30 catamaran. That project lasted all of 6 months before I sold it to a very nice couple who are now sailing full time in Key West, FL.

I took about 8 months (it felt like an eternity) off from boats until I decided I wanted to start a business, and what better industry than my passion of sailing. We purchased a poorly maintained Hobie 16 and decided we were going to start a used Hobie parts company. After realizing that storage was going to be a big problem, we decided to look around the industry and see what other options there were.

After some deep digging on the internet we found MiniCat. I was blown away by this boat. A sailing catamaran that I could stuff into my hall closet and on top of my car for transport. What more could you ask for? We reached out to MiniCat and solidified our role as their United States distributor and began making waves (pun intended) when we listed these boats on our website. A few months after starting Red Beard Sailing I donated a kidney to my father which put me out of commission for the remainder of the 2015 sailing season. Despite the 8 weeks of heavy duty TV watching, we sold a few boats.

In February of 2016 we became X-Cat's and Takacat's United States distributor. We are very honored to be selected to represent all three brands as they are all brands that have revolutionized their respective segments of the recreational maritime industry.

This forum is the next chapter of our story and we are so lucky to be here and hope to grow the sailing community and this forum.