PROJECT WINDRIGGER - December 1997 installment

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As stated below, those who have never sailed before have enjoyed their sail on Windriggercat. The main reasons for this are: comfortable centre-cockpit accomodation, sails that can jibe without hitting the passengers, dual rudder-tillers so that a learner can sit in one hull and steer whilst I sit in the other hull controlling both sails and with quick access to the other tiller.

I have sailed it with 4-7 year-old children on-board without producing any anxiety from their parents. So there could be a profitable market-niche for the cat, but I need some positive customer-demand feedback to confirm this.

PROJECT WINDRIGGER - EXCERPTS FROM THE BUSINESS PLAN

To help finance ongoing R & D, the project was formulated to generate income from Windrigger Mk I, in the form of the first product - Windrigger 550 Fun Sailer, designed to be sailed by two adults.

CUSTOMERS

Sailboarders were selected as the most-likely customers for this product, for the following reasons:

Sailboarding is not compatible with family life because its a solitary activity and a sailboarder either leaves his family on-shore or at home. Ultimately he gives up sailboarding and searches for a sailing boat which may attract his family to sailing. This leads him to the conclusions that keelboats have the required safety but require deep-water moorings, trailer-sailers do not require moorings but can capsize, multihulls which are relatively safe are too big for trailering, and all of these are too expensive for a family.

The Fun Sailer would be an attractive option for sailboarders because it has been developed to satisfy the needs of the family man - and they could use their sailboard sailrigs on it.

With its big-beam and low centre-of-effort sailrig, Windriggercat (see photo) would be another option - particularly for families with young children.

PRODUCTS

Windrigger products would comprise: plans and building instructions for construction by amateurs; and key components such as: hull templates; nose-blocks for the hull and outrigger; hardware for supporting the sailboard sailrig; bridgedeck joints and folding mechanisms; and rudder assemblies - all that can be freighted worldwide at an acceptable cost.

SIZE OF THE POTENTIAL MARKET

The selling price for Fun Sailer would be $100 for the plans and building instructions and $600 for the key components. Considering there are at least 4 million sailboarders in the world and 5% of them buy these products, the potential market size amounts to $20M for plans and building instructions and $120M for key components.

People who have never sailed before, have enjoyed sailing Windriggercat, leading to the conclusion that the non-sailing public could be a much greater source of customers in view of the fact that at present only 0.5% of the public are active yachtsmen.

THE WAY AHEAD

The following actions are required to transform the prototypes into saleable products:

Please contact me if you are interested in becoming involved this activity.

Windrigger folded for trailing
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