Taking a Step Into the Dark Side

Greg Slyngstad, owner of the Seattle-based J/125 Hamachi that won her division in last month’s Pacific Cup, and was on the cover of this month’s Latitude 38, confirms that he’s having an all-carbon, Paul Bieker-designed 53-ft catamaran built at Gold Coast Yachts in St. Croix. Gold Coast has built something like 100 large cats, most of them for the day-charter trade. This will be their first all-carbon effort.

Slyngstad, who grew up in Campbell and is one of the most active racers on the West Coast, describes his new boat as a "super-fast cruising cat." At 53 feet and just 12,000 pounds, she should be a screamer. Check out her step / inverted bow. We’ve never seen anything quite like it. "The idea behind it is to reduce windage and panel size," Slyngstad told us during a telephone conversation this morning.

"Once the boat is launched, the plan is to keep her in the Caribbean for at least a couple of years. My wife and I have done a lot of sailing in the Caribbean and we love it and events like the St. Martin Heineken Regatta and Voiles de St. Barth. So we’ll be doing both of those and other events for a few years, as well as fast cruising with friends."

The current schedule calls for the boat to be launched in March or April next year. The Heineken takes place in early March, while the Voiles de St. Barth is in April. Slyngstad says it would be nice to be able to do both of those events, but he’s had enough experience with boats to know that a whole lot of things would have to come together perfectly for that to happen. We wish him luck with the launch date, and the exciting new cat.