Pete,

You may want to do some investigating into the development work that has been done by my friend, Ed, with his Raptor.

Ed has a more powerful, custom sail, controllable water ballast at the flick of a switch and a whole host of other mods that make this one heck of a boat for any minimalist coastal adventure. If you get on over to www.boatdesign.net and do an advance search with the name of edvb, you'll find all sorts of stuff that he has posted there over the years.

Ed has removed his foil in favor of the water ballast system. After some testing last year, he says he gets 1.5 knots better speed out of the boat without the foil, though I'm sure he's improved on that figure since then. There's a vid clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHR7mg5LBz0

Pete,

  I've never liked the design for an Everglades Challenge and in several starts it has performed poorly. Dave

Great looking boat!! whoo hoo!!

Kap

I tried a Raptor several years ago in the bay by Long Beach NY.  The boat is fast and fun.  The foil works very nicely.  But with two feet on the rudders, main sheet in the right hand and the foil handle in the left, I felt rather busy.  I believe it is possible to set the foil to a fixed position.  When sailing on the foil, I would not be comfortable cleating the main.  The version I sailed had a narrow perch to sit on.  The boat had a nasty habit of sailing away when I fell off.  New models may have sides to thier seats. 

IMHO, a good EC or UFC boat must have the ability to take care the captain when he makes a mistake.  The Raptor is too much of a performance boat to do so.  Could one do well in an EC? IF there was an outstanding captain who had either fair weather all the way down, or no mental errors yes the Raptor could do an EC with an impressive time.  But for those who have done the EC, such weather only happens in our dreams.

Insane races like WT events aside, looking at the Raptor as a fun boat- she is a hoot!

Bill

Pete,

  I would have thought that Chris would have picked up on this. All hulls have a design waterline, the point where the hull moves most efficiently given a load. Let's say for argument that your hull weighs 60lbs, your gear 40 and you 160. Now lets add 2 floats and 2 crossbeams and sail at 40lbs. Your total load is now 200lbs, ideally the displacement of your hull is designed to be 200lbs to place it on DWL. If the displacement of 1 float is 201lbs then the entire boat will lift and the axis of rotation is the float not the main hull and you have maximum righting moment with minimal weight and that's a good thing. If the float displacement is less than the max vessel displacement(200 in our example) then the axis of rotation is the main hull, the lever arm is reduced, the float will bury if overdriven and righting moment is severely reduced. That's not the worst thing but limits your ability to carry sail. On the down side the beams also need to be able to carry the load which increases weight and on a paddling craft is to be avoided. There are other real world considerations but these are the basics. Dave

Geez, Dave, are you really 160?  Damn, I haven't seen that weight since I was in college.

As for a 100% ama... This size is OK for most inshore sailing with this type of boat. The skipper is actively involved with trim, steering and paying attention to sea state and wind conditions... or should be. There are conditions when a 100% ama is less than desirable.

Example: If one were to be heading into really cold, turbulent waters. Since this is the kind of situation where a capsize would immediately put you into a death dance, then 100% amas, in my opinion, are going to be undersized and asking for trouble. Sailing/paddling in more temperate waters would have a broader safety margin and bring the 100% design solution back to a proper comfort zone. One needs the right gear for the stuff they will be doing.

100% amas can also be insufficient in steep seas with big, gusty winds. Let's say you are sailing on a beam reach and you are just about to crest an 8 foot swell. As the boat gets to the crest, you take a large gust, knocking you over with your amas not making contact until the boat is severely heeled. At this point, the ama is being asked to resist not only the force of the wind on the sail, but also gravity, as the entire weight of the boat is upon the leeward float. Most likely, you will see the float go under water and you'll be teetering on the verge of getting tossed. Crafty sailing skills can avoid this kind of scenario, or it's time to reduce, or drop the sail and make your way with your paddle.

Of course, it's easy to say that all you need are bigger amas. While this is true, keep in mind that it may set you down the dreaded design spiral that, as Dave has mentioned, takes you wandering off into bigger akas, stronger mounting points and a newly acquired pile of weight that will be there when you choose to paddle. Only you can decide if that trade-off is appropriate for your applications.

A long time ago, when I was just getting into the design environment, I had a conversation with canoe and kayak design guru, John Winters. Both of us are sailors, as well as paddlers and eventually, the talk drifted around to the installation of sailing rigs on boats of this type. John listened patiently as I freely spewed about the virtues of being able to sail my freshly drawn sea kayak. A slight pause after my soft rant and then he said, "Eventually you will have to decide how this boat will escape being neither fish, nor fowl."

You guys out there in Watertribe land have to come to the same conclusion. Are you and your boat mostly about paddling, or are you two mostly about sailing. Feed your Jones appropriately and take the hit that is coming when you try to do the other guy's dance. Is this going to be a sailing craft that paddles OK, or is it a paddling craft that can be dressed in sailors clothing for an outing? Your layout for the boat, the gear you need, the hardware that needs to be installed... the whole tamale, needs to be slanted to the side of the equation that you prefer.