Following up on SA's front story today about the Lightspeed, it seems to me that there has been a resurgence of interest in larger (25+ foot) performance cats recently.

For example, the R33, this new Lightspeed, the Dragonfly, the VO40 Extremes, and then even larger that cross into the cruiser world but still retain the catamaran performance, the sig45 and the Gunboats.

I wonder what the market saturation point is for all these "beach cat big boys". Seems that the big cats haven't suffered any setbacks by the accusations of instability directed towards the R33.

FWIW, despite all the bad press, the R33 isn't any more unstable than the rest of the cats. You just need to keep a hand on the mainsheet. I don't know any "high performance" cats that won't capsize if you don't depower in the puffs. It's a matter of sail area to weight. They claim the R33 beam of 14' is too narrow, however look at the ORMA 60's. They are 60' long with a 60' beam, and they are constantly capsizing them. Those are pros sailing them!

I just spent two days intentionally capsizing the R33 while testing the masthead float system. They called in the expert (they don't call me Crash Krantz for nothin'). We pulled it over with a power boat at first, doing it in a controlled manner, and then we sailed it over at speed. It happens much slower than any beach cat that I've flipped. Once it was over, it floated high and dry on it side, taking on less than 10 gals each time we righted it. The new singlehanded righting ssytem still has some bugs in it, but I'm confident we're on the right path. Once we get it worked out, I look forward to posting the video. In fact, once I get it compressed down and formatted, I 'll probably go ahead and post the video showing us going over at full speed. It's pretty cool.

As far as the number of bigger performance oriented catamarans coming out on the market...I think a few (rich) monohull sailors are beginning to convert to cats.

Mike - can't wait to see the video!

Evertthing capsizes one way or another...Multihulls flip over, cartwell, pitchpole and sleds will roll 360, lean over-fill up and sink. The reason you see pics of the ones that filled up is because they are on the bottom and the press doesn't go there often enough.

As far as big cats [for me] its a matter of how you right them. My ARC22 can be righted from the boat. I don't how you would right a 36' Sundowner or Macgregor or V40 or Afterburner??? The big cats are great to sail on but the water doesn't seem to care if you are right side up or not.

thom

I for one am glad to see it (the resurgance in big cats) finally! Have you seen what a big new mono costs these days? You can get a big cat, three times faster, easier to sail with half the crew (you don't need rail meat) that will go into shallow water for about the same money. I think as we see more big cats out on the water, the leaners will get tired of being passed (seen the Gunboat video?) and eventually go "keel free".

Also, chicks dig cats! My wife hated my leaner, loves the wide, non-leaning platform of a cat. My kids love the tramps and you can let them trap out off the extra halyards!

On the R33 thing...it does look narrow to me, I thought the correct ratio for a racing cat was 50%, that is, beam should be about 50% of length. Since you have to "demount" the beams to trailer it, couldn't it have been built with 17' beams too? You know the narrower it is the quicker you must be on the mainsheet/traveler and some mono sailors will jump on it, be slow do dump and flip it.

I just read the new Sailing World article about the R33, Multihull Boat of the Year, (congratulations) and when they test drove it they said, "Nobody but the R33 guy touches the mainsheet..." Well, at least someone on board was smart, but if it was 17' wide (why isn't it?), wouldn't that be a bit more stable?

And as for thos ORMA Tri's that are upside down...they are racing them, short handed, in extreme conditions. Look at all the keel problems the fastest mono's are having.

Compromise: In Sailing World they said that the 14' beam was so it could fit into a normal slip. Marketing of your product to the masses.

Yeah, I know, still it would be better if wider...The mono boys may buy them but the real cat sailors may not, for that reason. How much trouble would it be to get a "custom" one built 17 feet wide?

Timbo

You can get the R33 with 17' beams it just is not as fast as the one with the 14' beams. Randy has been doing a lot of testing and the 14' flies a hull faster and then has less weted surface. If the wind is blowing then the 17' beams would be better, but most gains are made in light air. Randy is working on racks to put on the 14' beam to help with the bigger winds. It is a great boat and laid out great.
Have you sailed on one yet?

No, not yet, but I'd love to sometime.

I've sail the various R33 configurations (14'beam/48'mast, 18'beam/54'mast, 16.6beam/48'mast) in a variety of wind and sea conditions. In my opinion, crew weight and their position on the boat is more critical than beam width.

For the "bigger winds", epsails has a beautiful Main#2 for the R33.

In Switzerland too big cats gain more favour the last two years. With the fleet of Decision 35 and the new M2 (27-28feets) we have on the Leman Lake interesting regatta.

For information, Ventilo (www.ventilo.ch) is building M2 for about USD 100'000.- with is not so much knowing that you need to be in three minimum or sometimes 4, it represent a cost per person of USD 25'000.- Really reasonable compared to our 18/20 feet.

Many people that were sailing in 20' went in the M2.

Interesting and nice to see... but on the other hands... when they have just one or two hours to kill and re allone they do not go sailing, which we do with smaller cats.

Jr

If you like wide beams try the Aquarius RC27 and RC30. Talk about your tamed down racer...

Also its my understanding that when you increase the width the wall thickness of the beams must increase which increases weight not to mention the increase in stress loads everywhere.

thom

As the beam gets narrower, the tendency to pitchpole becomes less because it will fly a hull as it gets overpowered before it drives a bow in. Personally, I would much rather contend with excessive hull flying than a potential pitchpole on a 33' long cat. I have sailed on a Reynolds with Krantz and it's an awesome ride.

Is Mike going to bring one to Pallatka/Jacksonville for the Mug Race? It would be a great opportunity to show the boat to Mono sailors and put it up against the RC30 and RC27.

I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't make it under the bridges. Even the RC30's that run the race run a shorter rig to get under them.

I've been under the bridges, they are very high at the middle span, do the SC's really need shorter rigs?

Yeah - I believe they run RC27 rigs on the 30s to get the clearance.

Jeez, you would think they would just fly a hull and go under, sideways...

Except for that big lull you usually get under a bridge...doh!