

On my way out to the island of Brändö with the sail for the cat in my car, so hopefully the first try is not so far. It will also soon be time to summarize the building, and it seems that we are well within the goals set for the class. I have spent some 150 hours of work on the boat but that includes making everything at home. Of all the boats I have made this is the one where thanks to Scarecrow it has been possible to build everything at home.
For the costs all included even the beer it stays at 1100 Euros, the things bought to the price accessible to everyone in Finland. I will get back to the final weight of the cat later, it’s should be quite on the mark. Hope to find a little bit faster connection to be able to upload pics the next week.


Cool color scheme Gato, and the boat really looks larger than 12 feet. Good looking boats, both of them!
On the last picture the trampoline looks a bit saggy? I prefer a tight trampoline, but have not seen a homebuilding option to get it as tight as on a Marstrøm Tornado.
Looking forward to hearing much more about both boats, the masts, handling, your thoughts etc!

I still think your idea of doing a camping trip on small (F12) cats (possibly with a fleet of young people/kids) is nothing short of inspired.
I much long to hear your evaluation of paddling these small boats and other abilities like easy launching and beaching.
Wouter

The F12 cats are all right for doing camping, even if the Pixie is better, more room to store things. As for paddling it's going surprisingly well, 3 knots without effort using a sea kayak paddel. As for the beaching and launching, well no problems, there is not much weight to carry, you even don't have to emty the stores.

We have been sailing the DS 12 under various conditions, everything from 0 to 25 knots of wind and as far as I can tell the boat is behaving well. It feels completely safe and easy to handle, no surprises there. I have still not managed to get some kids to sail it, so I can still not say how they feel about it.
As for the performance, (crew weight 75kgs) it doesn’t need much wind to get it up to 7,5-8,5 knots. The max speed logged with the GPS (no current) around 12 knots with only the main sail. We made a raid of 60 nautical miles with the “nice lady” on a Pixie 14 and it was a close race the Pixie a little bit faster (only main up).
It would be fun to have a V-shaped
old fassion
F12 made, as the F12 is underpowered I think it could put up a good race...
Is the Pixie noticeably wider then the F12 ?
If the F12 design c.q. specs is to be adjusted for such trips what would you change ?
Hull length platform width or trampoline size ? Etc ?
Wouter





Please, tell us more!
What about the boat speed? Was he faster than the Lasers visible in the background? Did he feel the boat overpowered or that a trapeze would be necessary? Any opinions?
Also, tell us about the kid: his age, previous multihull and dinghy experience, comments...
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