We now have 6 months sailing under our belts, and we have learned an awful lot about how the boat handles different conditions, and also a few things we plan to change going forward (but thats another update).

So what have we learned? The bottom line is that the boat is fantastic across a wide range of conditions: beautifully balanced, easily controllable, and none of the bad habits that many earlier generation multihulls exhibit.

Hats off to VPLP for designing a boat that is incredibly well balanced, and to Marstrom for executing flawless foils. The result is that there is literally fingertip control in all conditions. How many boats can you let go of the helm at 15 kts and they keep on tracking? Surprisingly for this size boat, the mainsail responds to cunningham much like on a small cat (or a windsurfer). Crank on the cunningham, bend the mast, and the main just flattens out, this allows us to fly a hull in ~ 10 knots with a fuller main, but carry full sailplan up to 20+ before reefing with a race crew (we sailed the entire Key West race with full main and full jib, plus the large A-sail once we were in VMG mode).

One of the key features are oversized rudders. These allow us to maintain control when other boats would be getting into trouble, and to make maneuvers quickly and safely.

Our initial experience was in our typical summer conditions in Newport, RI: afternoon sea breezes of anywhere from 8-10 up to 14-15 knots, and relatively flat water. The boat is a real joy to sail in these conditions -- she is great fun in 6-8 while pretty much everyone else is glued to the water, fully powered up in ~10-12 and just ripping around, and takes 14-15 with just a bit of cunningham. Downwind she sails at ~ 1.5x windspeed (we were clocked on one of our first sails at 22.5 with about 14 of breeze) [See Video].

As we moved into the fall, we experienced more and more wind, and learned that the boat LOVES breeze. In the upper-teens to ~ 20s we sail with a very flat main with a bit of twist, drop both travelers just a bit, and let her rip in the low to mid teens. Downwind we are seeing mid 20s, but this may be more the limitations of our sail inventory than of the boat (i.e., we don't go faster, we just sail deeper and deeper angles). We will continue to experiment to find the right inventory of reaching and downwind sails.

One of the key design features is the long fine bows, combined with high freeboard. The theory is that a vertical distribution of reserve buoyancy allows the boat to keep going through waves, rather than slowing way down (which would bring the apparent wind aft, increase the pitching force of the sailplan, and cause the bows to nosedive). The theory was nice, butt frankly it was a relief to see it in action throughout the Key West Race -- the entire lee hull would punch into a wave, the boat would slow just a bit and the bows would go down just a bit, then the reserve buoyancy would kick in and the bows would come up and the boat accelerate down the far side of the wave. [see the helicopter sequence from the race in the gallery]

A word on tacking and jibing -- its a synch! Seriously, the boat tacks quickly and easilly even without the jib, and jibing is no more difficult than on my old Melges 24. I know cats have a reputation for not tacking but it just ain't so with this boat. But don't take our word - This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it !