The Cat House is proud to announce the upcoming launch of Nacra's new flagship, the NACRA F20 Carbon. This latest addition to the Nacra range is a new high performance 20 ft catamaran.

Peter Vink, head of the development team: “ The whole development team is very proud to share the first information about the new Nacra F20 Carbon. We have been working with the best-of-the best in the maritime industry to ensure that this is truly a “king of the beach” boat. It will be bigger, wider and faster than anything in-or outside its class”. Although nicknamed “Babyzilla” by the team, it will still be a boat that can be sailed by the local club racer and be able to win at it’s first outing at the clubface.

Peter Vink: ”We took all the best features and characteristics of our current F18 Infusion, which has won the last two F18 Worlds, and applied it to the new boat, as an example: the rudder system, beams and some other small bits and pieces, this way we have proven technology on the new F20 Carbon”.

The development was done by world renowned designers, Melvin & Morrelli for hulls, Niels Bunkenburg, A cat guru for the foils, Performance Sails for the rig & sails combined with the in-house knowledge at Nacra.

Development and testing has been underway for over 18 months,  2 boats were fitted with both straight daggers and with foils to allow the team to compare;  a third  boat, a Nacra 20 was fitted with the wide beams and the new rig. The 3 test platforms allowed the development team to test in the real world without revealing to much about this new boat, so they could adjust and fine-tune the design.

A variety in masts, mast hardware positioning and different sail cloth and shapes has been tested. The new hull shape which has been created, starting with a wave piercing bow forming a diamond shape hull stretching backwards into a “square-isch” transom, is of mayor importance due to the combination with the curved dagger board.  Although the basic shape was chosen, several adjustments were made driven by new technology [computer fluid dynamics] and knowledge which was gathered by Melvin & Morrelli while working on the Americas Cup project for BMW ORACLE.

Pete Melvin: "It is not a coincidence that the hull shape of the new F20 Carbon shows resemblance with the floats of the AC boat, we were able to take the knowledge we gained at the AC project and scale it down to the F20 Carbon. The most noticeable and distinctive feature is the chine that runs from the bow backwards on the hull allowing the water to flow away from the hull. Combining the chine and wave piercing bow with the upper deck shape reduces drag piercing trough the waves both upwards and downwards”.

Regular production will start any moment and the first boats will be ready to be delivered to the customers in the first months of 2010.