the sailing world? It just doesn't make sense, but then prejudice rarely does.

It's hard to imagine such arbitrary rejection for a piece of engineering that is essentially so simple and practical, so well suited to "off-the-beach'' and "pure fun'' sailing and so highly efficient that its performance provides a level of exhilaration unmatched by any other type of sailboat.

It is no coincidence that Nathaniel Herreshoff, perhaps the most gifted yacht designer of all time, was quick to seize upon the commonsense of catamaran design.

As early as 1870 he designed and built himself a 30-foot catamaran which was so successful in racing that Herreshoff was reputedly debarred from racing it.

The inevitable hostility for the new, the "avante-garde'', set in from that moment and is still with us today.

It is reported that Herreshoff loved the boat and spent much of his recreational time sailing in it. He even did some extended cruising, and overnighted by rigging a tarpaulin tent over the beamy craft.

He loved the open aspect of the boat, and found her performance and handling characteristics unsurpassed. This is all the more ironic when one considers that the name Herreshoff is synonymous with classic yachts.

Who knows, had it not been for the prejudice of the status quo of the 1870s and on up to the present, the catamaran might well be a classic today.

But things have been changing .. even the very fine Woodenboat magazine, the bible of the classical purists, has always been very broad-minded in its content: multi-hulls are featured regularly, and the magazine has written glowing reports of the Tornado catamaran, describing it as a "real thoroughbred''. "Captain Nat's'' son, L. Francis Herreshoff, following in his father's footsteps, wrote one of the great classics of his field entitled The Commonsense of Yacht Design. The title is revealing, and indeed it is the "commonsense'' of the catamaran that endeared it to the foremost brain of nineteenth century yacht design.

In his book Faster! Faster! , David Pelly has given us one of the more interesting and profound definitions of what a sailboat is. He writes: "All sailing boats are `interface vehicles' which in plain English means that they exists at the margin between air and water and exploit the difference in density and kinetic energy between the two media.

He is using the definition in connection with his discussion of sailboards,, but it can be usefully applied to all sailboats. If we consider this perspective of what a sailboat is, we begin to see, as Herreshoff did, just how the characteristics of a catamaran lend themselves so admirably to this "exploitation" of the two media. These characteristics are: Light weight Small wetted surface without sacrificing: High stability (maximum width for minimum drag) which permits: A large, tall sailplan which is exceptionally powerful due to its high aspect ratio, and fully-battened/large roach profile.

So efficient is the catamaran that it creates its own "apparent'' wind, producing a snowball effect in its own power generation. In this way the most efficient C cats are able to sail at speeds up to twice the speed of the wind! Now that's efficient! Yes, it was only natural that a designer of Herreshoff's genius should gravitate towards the catamaran principle.

SAME STORY APPEARED IN MID-OCEAN NEWS TV GUIDE 7.11.1997 SAILING SLG