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Pumpkin eater was the gun boat for a couple of years before D Flawless took over . The name is a classic as two Peters owned it (Peter ,Peter Pumpkin eater!) How long ago did you own it and how would you rate its performance compared to your new boat? Just interested to compare it to a modern racing cat. My first offshore multihull was also a Crowther, but not a racing design. (Page 12 in his catalogue)

‘Miranda HiFi’ ?

+1^ Nice reply to the other criticisms Airwick. This is one very cool cat and congratulations to the owners and designer for launching this state of the art bi- plane multi. A good reason for not having nets going right to the bows in a lightweight cruising cat is the windage they can create if caught in extreme conditions. I’ve heard of a couple of cats going over backwards here in Oz caught in thunderstorms , and as Airwick says, you don’t need to go forward in this design. The only drawback I can see in this setup would be retrieving the anchor once the bridle was disconnected, with such a long distance from the bows to anchor roller she sure is going to be hard to keep the bows from sailing off when it’s blowing. Apart from this ‘Saphira’ is my idea of the ultimate cruising boat!

If you call it 66, make sure it doesn’t end up being 99 !!

Very cool looking Tri, Lerouge designs very good looking boats. Are you thinking of trading Spirit in on her Jason?:-)

Hi Chris, Maybe you should edit your post as not many people would be interested in a rotting(??) wing mast. But seriously, what boat did it come from and why are you not using it anymore? Just interested.

+100% as pil said. With those leaky windows and still quite a lot of finishing work to do it sure is going to depreciate very quickly. I feel very sorry for the wife, there’s so much money and years of hard work that has gone into into this boat, very sad to see their dream turn into a nightmare.

Wow! ‘Z’ boards

We saw Mousetrap pull into Moorea when we were there last year. It really is an awesome sight to see and it will probably be the first catamaran superyacht to visit Oz where it plans to visit some time this year (also NZ) Hopefully they have the rig problems sorted by now.

Cool looking boat sidecar, a couple of questions. It looks like the jib is tacked on the ama but sheeted on the main hull, is this correct or am I viewing the photo wrong (and does this work)? Also in stronger winds does that thin carbon tube mast handle the loads as I thought carbon didn’t handle compression? I really like the idea of the pivoting centreboard. Keep up the good work, would be great to see a video.

Geoff and Lucy (RIP) Montague ran a pretty well organised boatyard in those days and were pretty much multihull pioneers having circumnavigated on a tri in the 70’s. Their spindrift ‘Skedaddle’ was nearing completion when I ordered my hulls back then, when launched it was the coolest looking cat (IMO) that I had ever seen. I got to sail on her from Noosa to Monty’s on her while I was building my boat (it was my first sail on an offshore multi even though I was in the process of building one!!??) On board also was the future owner of ‘Scott Free’ a new Crowther design which burnt to the waterline not long after launching (this itself is a interesting story full of political corruption and intrigue). Hey Russell, when did you do your time at Monty’s? And yes Peter, I’ve heard that Monty’s has become another boatyard of broken dreams and shady characters:-) Tane, why “L the crocodile”?

Hi Tane, no I’m not Ian but my Spindrift hulls were built by Monty’s (1981) Then trucked up to Noosa where I finished construction late 82. It was called ‘Nambawan’. Wasn’t ‘Dragonfly’ the Spindrift that broke up in the Indian Ocean? Cheers, Gerald.

Just watched race 4, some of the best racing I’ve ever watched. These guys have really got their act together compared to earlier venues, Plenty of wind and boatspeed and chop but no big stops, awesome viewing. Hope it happens next year now that they’re getting their heads around sailing these things.

The hullshape of that boat is a real shocker!, and I’m sorry to say the Spindrift hull shape is not much better. The lack of buoyancy in the ends of both designs lends itself to extreme hobby-horsing. I know of this as I built a Spindrift in the early 80’s and lived aboard and cruised it for 6 years (including 3yrs cruising PNG, Solomons and Vanuatu). Before the offshore cruise I fitted her with bulbous bows and bustles at the stern which improved it heaps but still a long way from good. Hull design has improved heaps since those early days of bridgedeck cats that I think it would be wise for you to look for something with more buoyancy in the ends. Another disadvantage of the Spindrift was the masthead rig, tacking her with small crew numbers was hard work with a 600sq ft genoa. After the Spindrift Crowther designed the Catana which had a much better hullshape and fractional rig, this design went on to be the French production cat. A few of these were home built in Australia and come up in the second hand market occasionally, they would fit the bill of what you’re after but I don’t know if any were homebuilt in the USA.

Love your experiments!!! I assume you will be hoisting a mainsail up each side of the ‘D’ mast making it a soft wing(?) this is something I hope to experiment with on my bi plane rigged cat as the existing masts are round and easily turned into a ‘D’. What type of foil(s) are you using using on the main hull ( I can see a case offset on the bottom of the hull so I’m assuming there may be two of them)? Are the foils on the floats permanently attached at that depth or is there any form of adjustment for depth or angle of attack? Sorry for all the questions but I’m totally intrigued!! Good luck with the launch and can’t wait to see it sailing. PS, I’m in the process of turning my 5mtr biplane catamaran tender into a foiler.