Images of my new St Francis 50 Cat

is it possible to steer from the inside helm position? as the seats look too low to see out of the window, no obvious wheel? and engine controls .. sort of mounted high up on the dash?
 
A lovely looking boat Paul. One thing though, from my experience of sailing a Leopard 40 also built in SA (Robinson & Caine I think), I found the idea of securing the mainsheet tackle to the hardtop bimini an absolute disaster! It depends on how it's been built and I can't tell that from your pix. On the leopard 40 at least, the bimini is attached to the supports by bolts and nuts which are concealed inside the bimini moulding with no method of access. We encountered blustery conditions on the Med leg of the delivery trip (Split - St Lucia) and the vibrations and general crashy crashy motion shook these concealed bolts loose, with the result the bimini wanted to go walkabouts! We caught the problem soon enough (it's not an area that might be regularly inspected underway) and set up spanish windlass arrangements all over the bimini to keep it securely lashed down. On arrival in Gibraltar I met up with 2 identical boats (also being delivered), one was a mess and had already almost lost the bimini, the other was in the same state as ours!

If we'd lost the bimini, as well as losing mainsheet control, the damage it was capable of inflicting as it flies around only attached to the end of the boom before detaching completely, would have been enormous.

If your mainsheet/bimini attachment is the same as the Leopard 40 (and these hardtop biminis now quite commonly support the mainsheet tackle), then I'd suggest researching how the bimini is attached to the bimini supports and if it's bolted to it, as it has to be really, check that the bolts are 100% accessible and can easily be inspected even if this means cutting inspection holes on the underside of the bimini mouldings in the area of the nuts.

This is not at all a criticism of your boat which looks absolutely wonderful, I'm only trying to be helpful in order to pre-empt a potential disaster - your mainsheet/bimini structure may be of a completely differently design to the Leopard 40.

Cheers, Brian.
 
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