40 years of monohull "evolution"

[Bill Baum]

Christian (#39)- No, the 150+ catamarans in George Town harbor are not on moorings. They're privately owned cruising boats on anchor. We do wonder where they all go when the winter season ends, especially since about half of the owners are Canadian. Clearly many are full-timers, so they don't need slips or marinas. (We' been underway since January 3 and haven't touched a dock or mooring ball). I really am puzzled where the other cats go if they're not full timers.

Tonight we are at Hog Cay, in the Southern Ragged Islands of the Bahamas , just 40 miles North of Cuba. There are six boats here. We're the only monohull! Most of the five catamarans appear to be families with children. The cruising world is changing!

 

[southofvictor]

Everytime I'm ripping off downwind 15kts+ on my Melges 15 or my Nacra F18 I think man I wish sailboat designed just stopped in the 1980's that was peak fun.

Those boats are plenty fun, as are my friends’ 29’ers or lasers. I’d suggest they still have more in common with 80’s boat design than they do with today’s AC boats, especially in that they don’t require megawatts of power to make them sail. And as many have said above, any boat that’s designed well for it‘s purpose is usually impressive.

Even a foiling Moth that uses impressive engineering to make it work is all analog. No electrical power required.

 

[Christian Williams]

As a kid, Moths were the entry development class, and they all looked wonderfully different. You could build one of plywood in the garage. They were fun to sail, even as they made every concession to speed at expense of comfort.

I dont; think the foiling moths are comparable fun in any way. They have to be carried sideways into the water. They're really difficult to sail, ultra twitchy and requiring wind. Tacking is something to watch, as I guess the idea is to try to keep up on the foil, which requires gymnastics on the head of a pin.

A Laser leads you to a Rhodes 19 when the stomach muscles give out. I don't know where a foiling Moth leads anybody. Perhaps to the America's Cup?

 

[ConchyDug]

Lasers are feeder boats for foiling Moths, Lasers also have Grand Master(age 55-64), Great Grand Master(age 65-74), and Legend(age 75+) classes, maybe in 20yrs Moths will too. A lot of classes have the same age divisions, just last week the yacht club my wife is the sailing director of was hosting a Grand Master team racing event in Sonars and the clubs registered were NYYC, St Francis, Southern and a couple others I forget.

There are also several foiling boats beyond the Moth like the Wazp, 69F and the whole spectrum of foiling catamarans. Also don't forget that foil kiting, wing foiling, and kiteboarding are sailing and their growth is exploding. Yes most high level foil sailors work their way up to AC and SailGP, but they started in Optis or similar. Yes most have manual control or use an auto trim stick forward of the leading foil but it's the same principal as the AC and SailGP boats with digital input/output "flight control systems" which has an operator who is a pretty accomplished sailor. The cyclist are just charging an accumulator which is pretty much the same as the "grinders" on older boats. I mean last time I checked the AC boats still have telltales on the sails... The advanced VMG calculating software and start line guidance software is available in a toned down form in cell phone sized instruments like the Vakaros Atlas 2 for dinghies. The Melges 15 class rules just changed to utilize this tech to help manage large fleets like 90+ boats at the Midwinters this year, so less people are needed for race committee. So I'd say the tech trickles down and helps the sport overall.

And with the F18 and M15 comment, I mean there has been substantial progress in materials, boat handling techniques, sail handling, and sail design since the 80's. Like they were using sym kites on catamarans in the 80's launched from deck bags, fast forward to today we use single pull snuffers with asyms. Yes granted that isn't as profound a change as foiling has been but it's progress and helps make handling high performance boats easier. I bought my Ericson 38 when I was 31yrs old in 2016 that would've been impossible if someone didn't experiment with making cheap fiberglass boats decades before I was born.

Hundreds of cruising cats in the Caribbean? Cool that means in 20yrs there will be hundreds of cheaper used cruising cats available to purchase when I retire and have time to cruise.