hi mike,

thanks for the reminder about cat2fold. it really is a slick idea, and i had not seen those long videos the first time i heard about it.

you might recall that a few months ago i started a thread on pantographing, argueing specifically that when sailing off the wind the weight of the ww hull was best positioned a bit aft instead of directly tranverse. at the time i let folks convince me that the moving parts and extra weight were too disadvantageous.

you however now have me thinking about it again, as it could serve the dual purpose of better performance on the water, and a means to trailer off the water.

consider a 40 ft harry proa (more on this specific length later), with a 20 ft beam. pantographed to 60 degrees, the beam would be halved to 10 ft and the hulls would be displaced 17 ft fore to aft. given a 30 ft ww hull, the total pantographed length would be 52 ft.

one could imagine, twice a year, hiring a flat bed 18-wheeler to transport the boat to a backyard, or even to florida, for the winter, when collapsed to a 10x52 ft footprint.

here's another folding idea: do it farrier style, with the lw hull being treated as the ama. folding would happen on the water and the mast would be stored on the ww hull when collapsed, as follows:

when rigged and floating, one would first use a gin pole to demount the mast, lay it on the beams, and roll it to the ww hull. then undo the beam bolts near the ww hull, lifting the beams directly upwards such that the lw hull rotates 90 degrees around the longitudinal axis and fits snugly underneath the cockpit of the ww hull. motor into the dock and trailer up the ramp. reverse to launch.

does ian have a patent on this mechanism? 20 ft wide beams would be 20 ft tall on the road. how much of a problem is that?

why 40 feet LOA? because it fits in a container. rob could make all the KSS flat panels in australia and ship them stacked flat worldwide, for super cheap because dozens of boats could fit in a single container. he could include in said shipment all the jigs needed to fold and glue them together.

i believe we have three people in the market on the american east coast (mike, gardner, me). shipping could hence be a third, and from a builder you trust.

have you ever considered joint ownership. how many days would you sail a harry proa per year? were i to buy one, i'd have two boats, and a wife who doesn't like to sail. would make much more sense to share a harry with someone else.

lastly, rob, your website is slooow.

also, the mast heights are missing from all the specs. they're about LOA for a schooner rig, right? and a bit longer for unarig?