Stiletto 27 - 25 Years Later :: Catamaran Sailboats at TheBeachcats.com

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Big Beachcats: Stiletto 27 - 25 Years Later

Added by damonAdmin on Apr 10, 2004 - 03:21 PM

Every once in a while we will run an article on the "super sized" beachcats that are out there. These performance oriented catamarans fill a unique niche in our sport. This article first appeared in Yachting Magazine, August, 1979.

THERE ARE, to be honest, few really new production boats, vessels of such original conception that they demand a different yardstick by which to judge them. In recent years, the first Hobie cat and the J-24 are two examples of new concepts that have succeeded, but there are far more failures--hoats with a single, brilliant idea that are lacking elsewhere, boats whose builders have just enough funds to go off half-cocked, boats that are exciting but not quite thrilling enough to cause cautious buyers to break from convention.

And if the person who builds a genuinely different boat faces these odds to begin with, the creator of a new concept in multihulls has an even greater problem making the leap to credibility, just because it's a multihull. Given this state of affairs, the early success of the 27-foot Stiletto is remarkable: Not only is it a boat that breaks ground in several directions at once, but it's a catamaran as well.

Stiletto's pivoting mast shows clearly in this photo taken from the masthead. Genoa is sheeted to forward crossbar while optional drifter is made fast to a bridle.

Carefully inspected, Stiletto's specifications begin to suggest her attributes. On an overall length of 26'10", she has a long, 24' waterline and a sailing beam of 13'10" (it compresses to eight feet for highway trailing). Her basic sail area --fully-battened main and 106 sq.ft. lapper-- is 336 sq. ft., and her displacement, ready to sail, is 1,100 lb. She has a huge hardbottomed primary cockpit aft of the mast, an optional trampoline forward, and elementary cabins in each of her hulls.

Boats with this kind of accommodation, weighing a tad over half a ton, are typically 20-foot monohulls, like the classic O'Day Mariner. Even small cruising multihulls, such as the 24' Hirondelle cat, weigh a good deal more. Aside from the ill-fated Warrior 29 catamaran, nothing comes close to this sail area-displacement ratio except for out-and-out racers.

Stiletto has an unusual single centerboard that varies her draft from a maximum of four feet to a minimum of nine inches; with her kickup rudders, she is easily beachable. There is a seven-foot berth that's about two-and-a-half feet wide in the forward end of each hull. plus a portable toilet in the port hull and a very basic galley to starboard. One can rig a boom tent over the cockpit or a real tent over the trampoline, for a most unusual camping experience.

But accommodation is clearly secondary in the minds of Stiletto's designers and builders In a warm climate she'll do well for camper-cruising, but her real raison d'etre, by which she stands or falls, is her sailing ability. We set up a sailing trial based on the marina at Captiva Island. the plush resort on Florida's West Coat that's a headquarters for Steve Colgate's Offshore Sailing School. Stiletto arrived at the island on a trailer, pulled behind a Datsun sports car, for the first demonstration put on by her enterprising young builders, John Cloud and Larry Tibbe.

It was John and Larry's contention that two people could take the trailered Stiletto and have her in the water, ready to go, in 45 minutes. The ensuing production was worth watching. staged at a primitive launching ramp (Captiva's is not quite wide enough to take Stiletto's full 13'10" beam) in the boondocks beyond the resort. Our audience consisted of a few hairy, paint-smeared crackers who stood about drinking warm beer and guffawing at each other.

In the event, John and Larry made it just under the wire. The compressed boat, still on the trailer, is expanded on its telescoping frame. Next the rigid cockpit (normally carried upside-down on the trailer) is dropped into place, and then the mast is stepped and set up, using the running rigging as block and tackle to raise the stick. Clearly, John and Larry's familiarity, with the operation made the 45-minute time limit possible for two; equally clearly, three accomplished people could shave 10 minutes off their time.

Once assembled, Stiletto is actually easier to launch than many monohuils, as her hulls overhang the sides of the trailer and her lightness makes her bob free easily. While the minimal displacement makes her responsive to the slightest ripple or puff, her long waterline and great beam keep her from feeling` skittish underfoot. The amount of space in the hard-bottomed cockpit is impressive, even without the fabric trampoline forward.

The wind being light, we decided to begin with the working sails and drifter in a double-headsail rig. The drifter sets on a bridle that runs between the two stem fittings while the jib and genoa are tacked farther aft between the hulls. For additional flexibility in sail trim, the drifter's tack location can be moved anywhere between the hulls, allowing one to fly the sail way off to one side, out of the way of everything else.

Although there's not a winch on the boat, the various combinations of Harken blocks make Stiletto easy and nearly effortless to handle, except as one approaches really hairy conditions. On a beam or broad reach, with the genoa or the 265-sq.-ft. drifter rigged to a forward bridle. the boat skims along with little or no fuss and considerably faster than normal hull speed for a monohull.

Harden up to a close reach or a beat. and with the wind over 10 knots you can have a breathtaking ride We had her out on a relatively sheltered hody of water along the Intracoastal. between Captiva and the mainland. It was blowing 10-15 with a light chop,- and Stiletto took off like . . . well, like herself: There is no great feeling of acceleration, just a zoom, and there you are. We could broad reach easily at 10 knots or so, and hardcn up to a close reach. As we did so, Stiletto changed her whole personality: A fine mist of spray streamed back over the windward bow, the rudders threw off a respectable roostertail, and the cocked-up outboard dropped lust enough to provide its own wake. Estimates, with which I am not about to argue, put us around 20 m..p.h., and the boat has been clocked at 25. She did not come unglued, although I dare say one could have done it simply by strapping in the main.

We were charging along in about six feet of water when there was a dull crack from beneath. and the longer half of the centerboard bobbed up in our wake. Rigged like the rudder blades to kick up on impact, the inch-thick laminated mahogany airfoil had succumbed to a combination of torque and an internal fault. The boat seemed to handle quite respectably without any centerboard at all, using only her narrow, deep rudder as fins. (Since then, a new. stronger centerboard has been adopted.)

Off the wind, of course. no board is really necessary in open water, and in fact one can increase speed appreciably on a long passage by pulling up the centerboard and one rudder completely, and steering with just the immersed tip of the other. For close-quarters handling under power or sail, however, it's a good idea to have all three appendages fully dropped, to keep the hull's windage from taking over.

Later, with a new board, we tried maneuvering. Like all cats, she jibes with insolent ease, and one can easily pick up some bad habits that will have a monohull staggering badly. Tacking is a bit different: Like most lightweight, modern catamarans, Stiletto tacks abruptly: in a light breeze or a steep chop, she loses way quickly and has a tendency to stall. In irons, she picks up sternway immediately. Put the helm over, and she'll slide around to a close reach with no trouble.

Once the timing of a tack is mastered, however, she can be slapped from port to starboard fast and confidently, by keeping her moving and in the groove as long as possible. On a beat, she appeared to sail comparably close-hauled to a well-designed cruising sailboat, and in light airs, only slightly faster. This is, of course, a trap and every multihull sailor knows better than to pinch with a monohull when he can drop off five degrees and steam past her.

Under power, pushed by an outboard in the six-hp. range, Stiletto is easily driven and very maneuverable indeed, once one has become used to the feel of something at once so light and so beamy. I could imagine that she might be something of a handful in a crowded marina with a stiff breeze blowing, when the only course of action is to drive her right up to the pier and then kill the engine.

One of the principal reasons behind Stiletto's performance is her construction. The basis is aircraft-type Nomex honeycomb core about a quarter-inch thick. This extremely light and strong material is laminated with a fiberglass cloth that has been preimpregnated with resin. The pre-preg is stored in large refrigerators, holding the catalyzed resin in suspension. Removed from the cooling chamber, the cloth is quickly applied over the Nomex and then the combination is cooked until it has set. The result is an impressive degree of control (and thus uniformity) in construction, and a far easier material for the building crew to deal with John Cloud keeps samples and heating records of each batch of laminate. so that if there are any problems they can be tracked and corrected.

The level of finish throughout each Stiletto is impressive. Not only are the hulls remarkably fair and the equipment well planned and installed, but the whole product shows an attention to detail characteristic of the best traditional yacht builders.

Although Stiletto can certainly make a case for herself among people who already own a multihull it seems to me that her potential appeal is considerably broader. For much of the country, her cruising accommodations are pretty basic except for the young and hardy, but she is quite suitable for the warm-weather weekending that so many people enjoy. Still, her real strength is a combination of scorching performanceshe has already proven herself a boat to beat in a number of distance and day races-trailability, and the ego-building boost of owning an unusual, obviously sophisticated performance boat without having to develop stomach muscles like the ridges on an oldfashioned washboard or the biceps of a light-heavyweight boxer.

And all for $13,985 with sails Force Engineering. 5329 Ashton Ct., Sarasota, Fla., 33583.

Reprinted from YACHTING, October 1979

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