The Core Sound Series

Versatile Performance or Family Day Sailer!

Featuring the Core Sound 17, Winner of the 2006 Everglades Challenge and course record holder!

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Fred and Frank in the Everglades Challenge Race 2006 in their Core Sound 17, The Green Heron

Now when you hear of a boat winning a race and a lot of hoopla being made about it, the first question that comes to mind is "What other boats were they racing against?" Fair question, but first a little background about the race course itself. The Everglades challenge is conducted in four different classes that separate out manually propelled kayaks, sail assisted kayaks and dedicated sailboats. It is a 300 mile race in shoal waters and open seas that tests boats abilities, seamanship and endurance. You start with your craft on a beach and you must manually get your boat down to the water without any outside assistance other than your own crew and any mechanical aids you can take along with you for the rest of the race.

During the course of the race you will have light to non existent airs in which you will be forced to paddle or row if you want to make headway, there will be low bridges you will be forced to ship the masts to get under, there will be opportunities to shave some time off the course if you hit the pass at the right state of tide and your draft is shoal enough or spend time on the hard waiting for the tide to change if you misjudge. and there will be open water with long fetches where a wind will cause significant wave action to contend with. A real true comparison race that gives real world testing of just how a boat will perform when you are cruising it.

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Notice how upright the boat is sailing and such great speed. Notice how the crew has no need to hike out to keep her upright.

So what sort of Competition did the crew of the "Green Heron" core sound 17 design face? Among other worthy competitors were a Hobie Cat and a G cat, Both of those also coming in faster than previous course record. Third place winner was a Canoe Yawl. The crew of that boat is currently building a CS 20 to race next year!

Wait a minute you protest, You mean to tell me that a Monohull was able to sail faster than a G CAT?!!

Just like our World War II fighter Aces found out in both the European and Pacific theaters, the key to winning a dogfight was partly based on not fighting your opponents fight. Know the capabilities of your craft and your opponents and use your advantages.

And the CS has plenty of advantages. While only having a Length of waterline of 15' 3" The CS team was able to plane and surf in speeds of up to 11 knots for extended bursts and settling back down to the 9-10 knot range in certain wind conditions. Now at this time, the two cats were definitely in the lead, however the planing performance of the CS kept her from giving up too much ground to them, and was very clearly in the lead against all of the other monohulls.

Everything changed though when the wind clocked 90 degrees to the east. The seastate was still sending a wave train from the northwest and a new wave train started kicking in from the Northeast. Now imagine the fun of sailing a boat that relies on a very spread out hull form that covers a lot of watery real estate with it's foot print and is rather light. The cats decided to stay put as it was just way too miserable for them to be out in those conditions with their boats characteristics.

While the CS crew did get subject to some waterspray during that bit of sail, the narrower hull form under the press of sail was far more bearable than it would have been on a Catamaran. Also of note, a Catamaran will excel when reaching with smooth seas. While this is exhilarating and in perfect it would be all the time, the wind a sea state does not always provide that in my sailing waters and I suspect it doesn't in your's either. On a dead run, the Cat's performance will be no better than a Monohull's, and even close hauled their advantage is not nearly as great as advertised. And certainly if you find yourself single handing the boat and need to paddle to shore, 2 nice ash or spruce oars that are stored alongside the centerboard trunk and into watertight oar storage into the forward bulkhead so they are fully out of the way are easily deployed and maneuvers the boat easily is much preferred over using canoe paddles on either of the cats two hulls.

The Core Sound design offers some cutting edge features

As a point if comparison, the Norseboat 17.5 is widely extolled for it's excellent rowing ability given it's hull form with the nice tuck of the afterplane of the boat. The CS17's transom is largely out of the water when rowing as you are sitting in the middle of the boat so very little turbulence robs rowing power. The CS 17 and the Norseboat 17.5 rowed against each other in the Everglades challenge 2005 and the Norseboat 17.5did not show any advantage under oars over the CS 17.

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