Shadow Catamaran

Shadow catamaran

The Shadow was designed by Yves Loday and Reg White and launched in 2002. It followed on from the very successful Spitfire and shares some of the design ideas and dinghy like handling.

The spinnaker is relatively small and flat, and is set where a jib would usually be – avoiding the weight, windage and complexity of a pole. Instead of a chute on the pole, the Shadow’s chute is located at the front beam, with a sock under the trampoline. As the sail is small, just a few pulls is all it takes to hoist or the kite.

The Shadow hulls use a layer of Kevlar® in the outer skin of the laminate. This makes the hulls very durable, with even the first boats built still looking great after several seasons sailing. The dinghy has a righting line permanently installed under the trampoline and makes righting the boat faster and easier. It gets tidied away with shock-cord when not in use.

The boat can be sailed competitively by sailors of a wide range of weights: between about 65 and 90 Kg. Although it’s a single hander, the boat can be very comfortably sailed two-up for fun.

The Shadow, like the Spitfire, is a strict One Design class, where the true test is between the skill of the sailors, not the boat or the budget. The fundamental objective of the Class Rules is that this concept is maintained. However, the class rules do allow some flexibility in a few areas, and for some items, like blocks and ropes to be replaced with equivalent items of any make.