Innovation in Yachting Part B

"Mast aft rig, mast aft rig, mast aft rig..." Say that ten times as fast as you can and I think it starts to sound rude. Well, it turns out there is a whole internet world out there full of people writing, designing and building these mast aft rigs, which I previously didn't even have a name for. Obviously, I have been living in Plato's Cave, imagining the real world. In fact, thousands of words have been written about this subject, and numerous vessels actually built:

Here's one with a slightly different rig that looks like it's going along okay.

This could be the boat next door in sailing trim

All this and more can be found here: http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=623 , the scope, and effort of which simply proves the central theme of my previous blog entry.

I taught an Introduction to Yacht Design class years ago at Cal Extension. I tried holding it on Saturday mornings (obviously before my child was born); however, many of the sailors in the class objected to that hour (fruitlessly). They needed Saturday mornings to get ready for racing. I said that there were two kinds of people who were interested in boats, those who actually liked to go boating, and those who liked to stay inside and think about going, and the class was for the latter.