It's out of the bag…!

Many of you have heard that we were working on a new secret sail design for the Corsair trimarans.

The first prototype sail was delivered to Doug Harkrider for testing and evaluation on his F-31R on July 16, 2001.

Our design goals were simple.

• Must conform to class rules.
• Must point higher than current jibs in 0 to 8-10 knots.
• Must have a higher VMG (velocity made good) than the jib in 0 to 8-10 knots.

The first sail achieved the following results in wind conditions of 4 to 6 knots, which was ideal for this evaluation.

• The F-31R tacked 15 degrees inside the jib
• The F-31R boat speed averaged 1.5 times higher than the speed with the jib.
• And it was easier to tack than the old design screecher.

….And yes, it does conform to class rules! In fact, it is 25% smaller than the current class screechers.

Okay, what is it?
It is an aerodynamically designed screecher using a system approach in the design. The design inputs included shape and airflow analysis from our already proven, fast mainsail. The new Blackcat Screecher does not interfere with the airflow like the larger screechers currently do. Instead, it aerodynamically complements the airflow to our main. We treated both the new screecher and the main each as a subsystem.

The Blackcat™ Screecher tacks to the same place as the old class screecher, using the same halyard and sheets to the jib track.