42' crowthers catamaran Hawaii to Seattle

[MC2019]

What a trip. I got a lead on this back in March about an owner who just bought this get sitting on a mooring ball on molakai. Contacted him and he said he was looking at 10 delivery skippers already. He went through my credentials and qualifications, and asked around up in Seattle about me. Quickly I moved to the top of the list. Drafted 3 crew, 2 from Portland and one from Hawaii.

The cat was originally built jointly by Crowthers and Karuthers (cat sail maker) over in New Zealand. It won many big ocean races along eastern sea board, then was bought as a cruising boat and did 15,000 miles in French Polynesia. Its light and fast with a 56 foot rotating carbon fiber mast, and 10 foot carbon dagger boards in each amma.

3163 miles in 20 days and we sailed the whole time, except for 20 hrs of motoring.

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42′ cat hawaii to seattle | GO-SAIL.ORG

[smj]

I'm pretty sure that's the Green Flash, a Crowther built by Dave Calvert and Osborn in Florida.

[MC2019]

Yes the very one. Great boat although she was showing her age and amount of miles she had done. You have anything else you can post to this thread like her race record or something, history?

Originally Posted by smj

I'm pretty sure that's the Green Flash, a Crowther built by Dave Calvert and Osborn in Florida.

[Factor]

Yep, Crowther didn't build boats, well not as a production or semi production builder, Loch Crowther was a designer. That one has a modified cabin. The design itself was the base for the early Catanas.

[MC2019]

Good information thanks. Guy that took it cruising put a full carbon fiber dodger on it. As we were coming back from Hawaii we were booking through the waves and the dodger started to crack away from the ama's.

Originally Posted by Factor

Yep, Crowther didn't build boats, well not as a production or semi production builder, Loch Crowther was a designer. That one has a modified cabin. The design itself was the base for the early Catanas.

[admiralslater]

Originally Posted by mackconsult

Good information thanks. Guy that took it cruising put a full carbon fiber dodger on it. As we were coming back from Hawaii we were booking through the waves and the dodger started to crack away from the ama's.

That is a nice looking boat. It doesn't surprise me that the dodger is cracking a bit. A boat like Green Flash was proabley built knowing that a certain amount of flexing would occur. So any rigid structure between the hulls will eventual separate. That is why cats like the edel and the Blue 2 and yes the most flexible cats in the world (Warham,s) all hang any superstructure of the beams.
Are the cross beams tubes

[ejlindahl]

I'd looked at that boat a couple years ago when it was for sale. I never pulled the trigger. Now I see it newly moored at a house across the lake from me! I've meet the presumed new owner a few times, most recently at one of our Northwest Multihull club meetings. I may see if I can get a ride on it sometime to see what I missed out on.

[MC2019]

Yeah his name is Jim. I am heading up today to race around san juans in the N100 double handed on a farrier 28r.

Originally Posted by ejlindahl

I'd looked at that boat a couple years ago when it was for sale. I never pulled the trigger. Now I see it newly moored at a house across the lake from me! I've meet the presumed new owner a few times, most recently at one of our Northwest Multihull club meetings. I may see if I can get a ride on it sometime to see what I missed out on.

[HappyMdRSailor]

Neat Stuff !!!

Thanks for posting!!!

[davecalvert]

Wow, yes, Green Flash. Great to see this photo! Thanks for posting. This was my dream boat in 2000. We started Osborn Boats in Stuart Florida to build these. I had the hull and deck molds but, we re tooled the deck to include the "Blister" for queen size berths each side. We had Pete Melvin do the engineering, Bill Roberts the foils, Forespar the Carbon rig, Jeff and Bruce Osborn put the shop and crew together, and I did the extra designing, sail plan and sails. The objective behind this boat was, a catamaran to beat the F 31s across the finish line and cruise a family, or two couples, for a month. In 8 years of racing, we only were beat by a F 31 across the line once. Our top speed was 25 kt with the spinnaker up in the SORC 2000, just before the Carbon mast broke in the middle. Forespar replace the Carbon rotating spar and we never had a problem with this again. We would race for over 100 miles flying a hull with screacher up in Miami to Nassau and Ft. Lauderdale to Key West races. My wife and I would cruise the Bahamas once a year with friends. It was never intended for crossing oceans!
We will be shipping some new Carbon sails, to the new owner, Jim Miller, next week. Hope he has as much fun with it as we did!

[multihullnz]

Very interesting trip report!
I have the last boat personally owned by Loch Crowther, Deguello. She's a 48ft foam and kevlar cat built in '89. Basically a stretched 40' Catana. We were very fortunate to run into a few of Loch's friends in FP that had sailed/raced Deguello often when Crowther owned her. All reported how wonderfully she sailed. Crowther was, in my opinion, way ahead of his time. After 6000nm, we have found her to be very sea kindly and able to gobble up the miles while sailing conservatively and comfortably.
Green Flash is a bit more of a racer by the looks of her. I'm sure the new owner will have lots of fun racing her around the PNW. Watch out for deadheads!
We sailed into Oahu a couple of weeks ago from Tahiti, 2550nm-12 days. Next leg is to San Francisco in May/June. Heres hoping for a southerly Pacific high location! Let me know if you're ready go again.

[admiralslater]

Originally Posted by mackconsult

Yes the very one. Great boat although she was showing her age and amount of miles she had done. You have anything else you can post to this thread like her race record or something, history?

Boy it must be a thrill to sail something with that pedigree .Congratulations . And it is great to get the info from 'the horses mouth"

[UpOnStands]

does this constitute rode hard?

[ejlindahl]

Hi Mack,

Are you racing on Dougie's 28r, Ali Kai?. I've crewed with him and he's a good sailor and thats a fast, turbo-ed, f-boat. I'm planning on contacting Jim when I get back in town to conjure up a ride on Green Flash. Hopefully he'll remember my kind offer to test drive my F31 when he was looking at them

Nice to hear the pedigree from Dave. Some of that was on the CL listing a few years back.

[MC2019]

Yes sir, race with him often. We cleaned house this weekend with a tri-fecta

Let me know if you ever need crew on that F31

Originally Posted by ejlindahl

Hi Mack,

Are you racing on Dougie's 28r, Ali Kai?. I've crewed with him and he's a good sailor and thats a fast, turbo-ed, f-boat. I'm planning on contacting Jim when I get back in town to conjure up a ride on Green Flash. Hopefully he'll remember my kind offer to test drive my F31 when he was looking at them

Nice to hear the pedigree from Dave. Some of that was on the CL listing a few years back.