Those who invoke the name of Mark Lavin (invain or not) should remember the words of T2X who said: "The reason that canopies exist on boats today is because Mark Lavin, Dick Fullam, and others had to give their lives to convince the "raw boned manly men."

Brownie and T2x are correct in their analysis of the accidents at Key West.

FYI - Effective 2005 for all new cats, bottom escape hatches will be manditory in OSS. Existing boats do not have to retrofit but it is highly recommended.

George

With the "new" single canopy designs the bottom hatch works. The problem is with the older style boats with the dual canopy system and clearence inside the boat.

Mr V, are you going to Biloxi?

I wish!!

I didn't mean cut down boats like CitreShine where they had to put the canopies over the sponsons. In our boat we were both over the tunnel, however there was not enough room, verticly between the canopies, where we could get there and climb out.

Yes, bottom hatch is the only way to go. The new race boat that was being built was a single canopy with a bottom hatch. Too bad it was never run :(

Now that we have exhaustively covered water depth and escape hatches (both on cat and v-bottoms) let's cover another subject:

Canopies.

Let's start the discussion off with a show of hands:

Which of you racers races with a lid?

Pls raise your hand, state make of boat.

Thank you!

lids and 240 cu ft of full time air.

George,

I knew you would have to agree with this and showed this by your post. Thank You for adding in on this post.

DPT

Lid here, and Typhoon finally have a roof over their heads.