by L. Francis Herreshoff
This 27 ft. long racing catamaran was designed for those who seek high speed on the water under sail.
"Several readers of THE RUDDER have asked for the design of a sailing machine, and most of them have requested that it be cheap to construct. Now it is good fun to design a sailing machine, but to plan one which is simple and cheap to construct is really a most difficult matter. If this were not so there would have been many in the past, but so far none has been produced which was really fast, simple and cheap. In fact, the successful catamaran of the past has cost as much or more than the usual sailboat of the same sail area although they were often of one-quarter or less the weight of the sailboat. Much of the expense of the catamaran heretofore has gone into building a structure that would support a central sail plan between the two hulls. This has always proved complicated and expensive, so that in the design of the Sailski a radically different scheme or arrangement has been adopted. The principal feature is that the sail plan is supported in all directions by a tripod which has the base of its legs near neutral axes, so when the hulls pitch, the rig and framework will not be strained. Therefore it is believed that the design of the "Sailski" is a very simple solution of a complex problem."--L. Francis Herreshoff
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