thanks for your concerns, but more so the way you voiced them, your personal approach rather than the usual 'better than thou' is much appreciated. this was a huge concern to us, following the standard procedure our requirements were:
- a boat no more than 10-12yrs old.
- must be local (Aust)
- no timber below waterline
- between 38'-45' so as to be manageable
single handed.
we looked at few cats that all had major issues, unfortunately due to
budget we couldn't find anything close to being suitable. on paper BB is everything you should steer clear of but once we delved a little deeper these fears were put aside.
Phil, who we brought her off hadn't spent the past 14yrs just sailing her, he had actually gone over the original hulls, fixed up anything suspect before re-glassing them. then extended the hulls approx 400mm (deeper below waterline) and had mini keels with a flat bottom designed and installed. essentially anything below waterline is made from fibreglass/kevlar, no timber and is all built as separate 400mm watertight sections the entire length of the
hull. theoretically it'll take sink her
to be honest I didn't understand exactly what he had done till I met him and he showed me the design. I guess in theory you could say it has a baldheaded
hull below waterline that is attached to yet completely separate the original hull..... though I don't know anything about
boats design, in my eyes it is exactly what I would design in regards to redundancy.
not sure if that makes sense. he also set it out so that he could
single hand it, he only sort crew for longer passages to make it easier. at least I have a wife and three
kids to take on this role