Hobie 18 + Tamanu hulls for a cruising oriented beachcat

[dstgean]

I posted here once to gather ideas about an overgrown beachcat based on Gary Dierking's Tamanu hulls. I was looking at combining the Hobie 18 gear with the Tamanu hulls for a voluminous cruiser with a sporty feel.

Ease of launch at the ramp is important, as the first time I put this boat together it took most of the day. I'm shooting for 1/2 hour or so. I have an '82 Hobie 18 with the solid glass hulls and a mast that has been converted to the compstick (sadly). I'm going to be combining the two in one of several possible ways and am looking for insight or constructive criticism about the options.

1. Narrow beam cat with an undersized rig ripped from my Ulua outrigger at 128 square feet. With this small rig I'd probably be inclined to have the boat fit in the garage at 7'10". Sail and rig are complete and strong enough for the duty although 128 squares seems meger.

2. Max trailerable width beam of 8'6" with a hard deck and the Hobie 18 rig. I was measuring the hulls today and with the additional width, the center to center neasurements on both sets of hulls is 81"--the H18 has narrower hulls but is an 8' boat while the Tamanu hulls are 14" on bottom and 20 on deck. I'd probably make some sort of hiking seat/backrest on the boat like the H18 and H21SC has. This version will need a couple reef points on the main in addition to being able to furl the jib.

3. A folding scheme to get the beam out to 11' or so along the lines of the Woods Wizard, Tennant Chevron?, Tomcat 6.2, etc. This is more complicated and must result in greater time at the ramp, but might make for the best cruising boat. After all, I still have a fully functional H18 to zip around on if I'm just daysailing.

Thoughts? I'd like to get after the process this winter and have a usable boat for this coming summer.

Some links for examples of what the conversion looked like in '09 for the Texas 200 using all the H18 parts including beams, tramp, rudders, and everything except the hulls check out http://wikiproa.pbworks.com/w/page/1...xas-200-report
and another version of this idea with some photos of the contenders http://wikiproa.pbworks.com/w/page/3...manu-cat-ideas

Thanks in advance for the input!

Sincerely,

Dan St. Gean

[dstgean]

Bump with a bit of additional information...

I dragged the hulls out to the lawn and did some basic measurements and realized with some additional beam over the H18's 8', the hull centerline distance could be kept EXACTLY the same. Additionally the 81" centerline measurement allows over a 5' wide tramp or hard deck. Naturally, at this beam the boat can be capsized as easily as a stock 18, but should also right about as easily--in fact the Tamanu hulls are lighter despite being 2' longer and lots bigger from a volume perspective.

The folder version at 11' would be lots more stable, but harder to right if ever capsized.

Thoughts?

Dan