LETTERS
241 Seton Road
Port Townsend, WA 98368 Toll Free: 1800-745-3336 Email: info@edensaw.com MARINE PLY Okoume BS 1088 Okoume BS 6566 Hydrotek BS 1088 Aqudtek BS 6566 Douglas Fir Marine Teak and Holly Teak
VENEERS (Over 150 species of raw and paperbacked in stock.)
EXOTICS (To many species on hand to list here.)
LUMBER (Over 60 species in stock including the following) Honduran Mahogany Philippine Mahogany African Mahogany Western Red Cedar White Bending Oak Sitka Spruce Douglas Fir Ironbark Apitong Teak
ABET Laminati
TRICEL HONEYCOMB
Our Okoume products are available from the following distributors.
CALIFORNIA Sorensen Woodcraft 13307 Avenue 22-1/2 Chowchilla, CA 93610 Toll Free: 800-891-1808
CALIFORNIA Ships Store Inc. 14025 Panay Way Marina del Rey, CA 90292 310-823-5574
www.edensaw.com Page 66 •
12 • March, 2002
Having said that we think it's high time that White stop rest¬ ing on his laurels and do a complete rewrite. The text — and particularly the photos — are really showing their age. As far as we'rp concerned, there is no monohull-multihull debate. Everyone should sail both kinds of boats to decide which best suits their personal taste, the kind of sailing they plan to do, and their budget. If someone wants to do one-de¬ sign racing, offshore sailing upwind, carry a lot of gear, or has a smaller budget, monohulls have a lot to offer. But if a bigger family wants to go cruising, needs lots of room, and has a few extra bucks, a cruising cat might be the answer. In any event, chartering a cat is the perfect step toward helping you make an informed decision. While in Martinique, we suggest that you visit as many other cats as you can — there are hundreds of them — and try to snag some rides on different ones. Cats of the same length can be extremely different animals. What¬ ever you do, be sure to do some upwind sailing in big and sloppy seas. That's a cat's most unpleasant point of sail, and you'll want to know about it. We don't know of any particularly good articles to recom¬ mend on cats in general or specific cats, but we can explain our priorities in Just a few words: long and light with lots of bridgedeck clearance. It's possible to have a wonderful cruise with a shorter and heavier cat, butyou will be sacrificing some speed and corrfort, and there will be a good chance that you'll be passed by some similar-length monohulls. If you ultimately decide that you would like a cat for cruis¬ ing, you've got one thing going for you: unlike a few years ago, there are now quite a few of them around, so the prices on used ones have dropped significantly. \
IhlSTICK TO SAILING I love your rag — it’s still the only one 1 read cover to cover eveiy month. In your January 18 'Lectronic Latitude you guys made a comment about the global warming issue and how the Hollywood types might be wrong. But you only cited part of the story. Yes, parts of Antarctica are getting colder. But if you’d included other parts of the report, you would have noted that the Antarctic Peninsula has been warming at the same rate as the rest of the planet, and that there is concern about portions of the western Antarctic ice sheet due to this warm¬ ing. It might be best tf you folks stuck to reporting on sailing — the thing you do better than anyone else — and left sci¬ ence reporting to the scientific reviews. Renny De Assis , Pleasant Hill Renny — Our report was generally a paraphrasing of what was widely reported in the international press. There were later follow-ilp articles describing how the scientists had ei¬ ther done a bad job of describing what their research had found, and/or howJournalists weren't informed enough to understand them. The old lack of communication. We apologize if anyone was misled.
UllENVIRONMENTALLY DETRIMENTAL CHANGE I noticed an item in 'Lectronic recently about global warm¬ ing. I’m sure that you would find a near-unanimous agree¬ ment among scientists at U.S. universities that climate change and global warming have been significant over the last 100+ years. Elvery major U.S. university now has research teams, courses and public seminars about climate change — not whether it exists, but what is likely to happen because of it. Please look at www.ipc.ch to see the output of the inter¬ national science committee on climate change for a compila-
