The Very Best Racer, 'Cruiser, Day Sailor' Ever Built

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Bill Roberts
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Joined: November 17th, 2003, 9:13 pm
Location: Stuart, Florida

The Very Best Racer, 'Cruiser, Day Sailor' Ever Built

Post by Bill Roberts »

Here are pictures that show the RC30 used in a manner that most people have not imagined. The large topside area, 16 ft by 20 ft, provides comfortable room for friends and family. The boat is rigged in a very simple manner. There are no winches with high tension lines crossing the trampoline dividing the tramp into sections. Mechanical advantage pulley systems for jib sheets and main traveler control run in a tunnel below the tramp. The topside of the tramp is simple and clean. Kids love it. They like to lay face down on the tramp and watch the water go by. There are no "don't touch that or don't go there"areas on the tramp. .Everyone on the boat gets a 360 degree panoramic view and a cool breeze in their face.
If you want some shade, there is a Bimini top, 14 ft by 9 ft that can be installed on either or both tramps. Two Avibank pins hold the Bimini top in place. It takes about 5 minutes to put the top on or take it off. When installed it also can be folded forward and down onto the tramp in a neat compact package.
You can take a weekend cruise on this boat. The factory provides a custom made waterproof storage container that stores across the boat along the main beam. It has zipper compartments for dry storage of clothes and food and cooking stove and porta-pottie and snorkel gear etc. At your destination, set the tent up on the boat or on the beach. The tent is 10 ft by 10 ft with 7 ft head room with a vinyl floor and bug proof netting over doors and windows. Cost is $99 with five minute set up time. Compare this to a cramped on board cabin with poor ventilation. Go for a long walk on the beach at sunset. Have a campfire. HAVE FUN. Go places you could never go before on a heavy and slow boat, or any other boat. This boat will sail at 10 to 15 knots all day long with two people sitting on the high side. Sail to places you could never reach before.
Take a crowd sailing. Here you go. This picture was made one year after the Mug Race at Jacksonville. Front and rear tramps are full of happy sailors. Seven adults aboard and Rich Brew brings his wife and family. Everybody wants to steer a little so let'em all try it.
What about trapeze? Forget about the trapeze.This boat is a cruiser. Traps not needed or wanted. Enjoy the pictures. See people having fun just enjoying the smooth ride on this special boat where there is always a breeze.
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Last edited by Bill Roberts on November 13th, 2016, 12:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Bill Roberts
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Joined: November 17th, 2003, 9:13 pm
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Re: The Very Best Racer, 'Cruiser, Day Sailor' Ever Built

Post by Bill Roberts »

Here's the other side of the versatile RC27 RC30 catamaran. "The Racer". Take the Bimini Top off and put the 'racing crew' on and this boat has an "attitude". The "attitude" is it wants to be the first boat across the finish line and usually with enough margin to win on corrected time also. This boat holds the low elapsed time record in almost every distance race it sails in. In the Miami To Key Largo Race, the RC27 and RC 30 are the only boats to ever break two hours in this 50+ year old race. The RC27 holds the record at an hour and 44 minutes covering 42 miles. The RC boats have won over Formula 40 boats in this race. These Formula 40 boats were one to two million dollar boats designed and built by the best in the world.
One year on Lake Geneva in Switzerland an RC 27 won the prestigious Bol de Or Race. Peter Muskins and his team "with an attitude" won this race, first boat to finish. Boats from all over the world attend this race. Conners brought the Start and Strips Americas Cup Catamaran to this race one year. There are always several one off multi million dollar boats in this race. The year Muskins won the race, the headline in the morning paper after the race read "David Has Slayed Goliath". A 27 ft boat from the US has beaten all the multi million dollar boats from around the world. Some of them all carbon and 40 to 50 ft long. Over the next year six RC27s were sold in Switzerland including my own.
Below are pictures of the RC27/RC30 racing, sailing to windward and downwind with a chute. Enjoy.

AN IMPORTANT NOTE: The Super Cat/ARC/RC product line of Beach Cats is the only line of Beach Cats to complete the product line with boats of excellence in all sizes under the direction of Tom Haberman. The SC15 is the best 15 ft beach cat ever. It is an excellent teaching/learning cat because it sails well, It is light weight and fast and safe and is rightable by one person and can easily carry two adults. Also it tacks well and is very pitchpole resistant due to its hull design. These characteristics of excellence carry through the entire product line of the 17 and the 19 and the original 20 and 20 tall rig. Then came the ARC 22 and the RC 27 and 30 and Tom Haberman. These larger boats are the only beach cats over 20 ft that continue to go to faster and faster with size. US Sailing PNs keep going down as these boats become longer. Hobie built a 21 and it was a pig. Stlietto built a 23 and it was another pig. The H16 is no longer in production and by today's standards, it is a pig.
Now, the 27 and 30 are the end of the road for beach cats. If Tom Haberman, or anyone else, built a 33 ft beach cat for example, major parts, like hulls, would be too heavy for two persons to carry from trailer to assembly area. Hull weight, for example, increases with the cube of hull length. As a hull becomes longer, it also becomes wider and taller. The 50 ft mast would be too heavy for people to raise manually and would require the help of a Motor Powered Crane, a T Rex. All of the sudden the boat parts become too heavy, they went past a limit, the physical strength limit for two or three normal adults to handle and assemble the boat. The sheet loads require wenches and suddenly the boat becomes a totally different animal. Tom does a great job of keeping the boats light weight and strong but he is not magic. So, the RC27/30 is it, folks. It is at the "People Limit" and so there won't be an RC33 or 35 Beach Cat ever.
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Bruiser
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Boat Make/Model: RC 27

Re: The Very Best Racer, 'Cruiser, Day Sailor' Ever Built

Post by Bruiser »

Great boats indeed. I have had nothing but great times on the 27. I want to reinforce what you said Bill, regarding your statement that these are the biggest cats you can design that are within what people are capable of handling. The logistics of a bigger catamaran gets really silly all the way from handling on the water to putting together on shore. These are at the limit of what would be considered reasonable and relatively easy. There are so many well thought out areas on these boats that it is still way ahead of its time. To think that we launch this boat on regular cat trax with just a longer pole for the beam, is still amazing to me.

These boats go through the water so easily. A little breeze generates a lot of speed. When you are sailing along you think you are doing maybe 7 or 8, and then you look at the knot meter and you are going double that speed. Because of the way it slices through the water, the boat is not creating a sense of effort needed to go that fast. It just silently slides along on a thrilling ride. Every other boat feels like it is really pushing the envelope of disaster when you start going really fast. These boats are just fun.

Thanks for creating these machines.

Rich Brew
Bill Roberts
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Joined: November 17th, 2003, 9:13 pm
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Re: The Very Best Racer, 'Cruiser, Day Sailor' Ever Built

Post by Bill Roberts »

Hi Rich,
Thanks for your comments on the boat.
Story: Two of my RC27 owners in Switzerland sold their boats when the Formula 40 thing fell apart. They dreamed of a 40 ft RC27 and that would be better still. So they got their 40 ft catamarans and thought all would be great. With their RC27s they sometimes went sailing by themselves on a light wind day. It only took a few minutes to rig or unrig the boat by themselves and it was very easy to sail by themselves.
Now they thought they would try this by themselves on their new F40 cat. The first thing they ran into was that the head of the main was very heavy, 50 pounds. It was very difficult to get the main started up the mast and pull the halyard at the same time. Immediately the halyard was too hard to pull so the halyard went on a wench. Now the wench was too far away from the base of the mast for one person to feed the sail into the track and crank the wench at the same time. The first effort to go sailing by themselves was a failure. Next time they tried it with two persons, they had a feeder and a crank turner. Things went a little better this time. When the sail was about half way up, the crank turner was exhausted so he and the sail feeder swapped jobs. They finally got the sail up after a 30 minute effort and both were soaked with sweat. They decided not to put the jib up and went for a brief sail. Back at the dock it was a big job to get the 200 pound sail down and flaked neatly on the tramp. The next time they went sailing, they took three people, all very experienced sailors. This time they were able to put both the main and jib up after about an hours work at the dock. Now all three sweaty and tired go sailing. They had a good sail and it was hard work again back at the dock. Now the owner was realizing that to go sailing on his big RC27, Formula40, was a very big job and he always had to take two or three experienced sailors with him. Frequently this turned out to be difficult to do, to coordinate two or three persons with himself to have the same time available with good sailing and good weather to go sailing. All of the sudden the Formula40, big RC27, was not such a great idea after all and the owner wished he had his RC27 back.
The physical size and weight of the RC27/30's components are the most unique characteristic of the boat. The fact that the RC has the same Portsmouth Number as a Formula 40 doesn't hurt the boat's reputation in racing circles. Who ever heard of a 30 ft boat having the same performance as a 40 ft all out racing boat and the 30 ft boat cost one tenth as much as the 40 ft boat.

Here's a parallel deal, RC30 vs F40: Here's an imaginary 15 ft cat. It is 25% smaller than one of today's 20 ft cats. The 20 ft cat is a very high performance cat designed by the best designers in the world like the F40. The 15 ft cat has the same performance as the 20 ft cat. The 15 ft cat costs one tenth as much as the 20 ft cat. Do you think the 15 ft cat would sell, would the class grow and be popular? What do you think?
DanBerger
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Boat Make/Model: SC 15 w/ spin!, SC 19
Location: Norfolk, VA

Re: The Very Best Racer, 'Cruiser, Day Sailor' Ever Built

Post by DanBerger »

yay!! Go Supercat 15!!

If I hadn't already built pretty much what an "ARC 15" would be (under the close direction of Tom) I would be first in line to get one if they started making them.

However, from what I've experienced, 15 feet isn't the magic number, it is 16 feet. The popular boats are the Hobie 16, Prindle 16 and Nacra 5.0. I am very competitive with my 15 against those boats. I think it would be hard to justify having an ARC 16 and 17, there just isn't enough difference. I think that is is just some kind of thresh hold where people think a 15 is too small and a 16 it the perfect size. So, What I'm saying is that just calling it a 15 might turn people off. Most people think anything smaller than a Hobie 16 is a kids boat. Breaking from Supercat tradition, I bet an ARC 4.5 would sound more marketable.

Also, the new 15 would have to come with a jib and a self-tacking one at that. Other selling points are that it is only about 300 pounds, easily moved on the beach and on/off the trailer by one person. One person can step the mast, too!
Bill Roberts
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Joined: November 17th, 2003, 9:13 pm
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Re: The Very Best Racer, 'Cruiser, Day Sailor' Ever Built

Post by Bill Roberts »

Hi Dan,
I'm glad you like your SC15. It is a very underrated boat. The 15 was our "learner boat for beginning sailors". Therefore the race results data turned in to U S Sailing in not from top caliber sailors. Therefore a good sailor should not have any trouble winning races on corrected time. Gradually the PN will come down.
I don't think 16 is a magic number. Actually a H16 is 16.5 ft long, same as a NACRA 5.0. I think the beach cat sailing world would be very different if Steve Edmonds and I had come out with the SC17 as our first boat. The SC17 would have put H16 and P16 in the shade and that would have slowed their growth and SC 17 shot up like a rocket. Performance with rigging/sailing ease was the driver back then.This, the 17, is another boat with a PN that it is easy to sail better than because the class doesn't have top sailors that go to regattas.
I think a major error in event holding, Boston Whaler was in the picture at first US Nationals Regatta now, was that Whaler told Steve Edmonds and myself to "do not be seen at the Nationals Regatta". We could have been there to help people and answer questions but not race and done a lot of good.
Boston Whaler said "we run a lot of fishing tournaments and we know how to do these things". "Bill, you and Steve stay away". The first Nationals was held and a lot of questions were asked and not answered. The Boston Whaler salesmen did not know much about beach cats or how to sail them. That regatta should have been a spark plug for class growth but instead it came off flat and no SC sailing factory expert was found to glue the class together in its early days. Hobie cat class had Hobie Alter. The Prindle cat class had Randy Smyth. The Super Cat classes had no one.
Dan, the SC15 always was a one and a two person boat and the jib was an option. The SC15 is the same hull as the SC17 with two feet cut off the back end and beams relocated. It was a requirement that the SC15 be able to carry two persons, have the displacement to carry two persons, Therefore the 15 hull had to have very close to the same displacement as the 17 to be able to suppport the same pay load. Therefore the 15 hull is the 17 hull with 2 ft cut off the aft end and a little re lofting of the aft end hull lines up to the higher water line and transom.
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