Hi Mike,

The Hunter is essentially a larger version of the Black Pearl. It's a pretty big boat with a load capacity of 110 kg (242 lbs). I looked through my e-mails from Bjorn. I found this snippet:

"Hunter is just a Black Pearl with a little extra volume and load capacity for gear - and since this positions the hull a safe distance from the lower volume limit I do not judge it necessary to offer personal adjustments of the dimensions (but I´ll be happy to do it if wished). This means that a Black Pearl for a very large person will turn out very similar to a standard Hunter.

Perfomance-wise the Hunter is a tad faster than [normal]-sized BP (more waterline length and slightly more volume in the ends), it has approx the same stability initially but slightly more secondary (due to an inch more freeboard), it rolls approx the same (handrolling needs a little more push, since the aft deck is a tad higher), balance braces and leaned turns are a little easier due to the increased secondary stability and it is highly manoeverable and responsive and thus feels very safe in waves . But switching between Hunter and BP reveals that BP is a better dancer..."

My suggestion would be to talk directly with Bjorn. He may be able to scale down a Hunter for you.

Dan

: Hi Dan-

: My wife is looking over designs. Alas, she's thinking of a hard boat rather
: than a skin boat, but I promised her I'd build what she wants if she
: picked it out. Have you tried Thomasson's Hunter design? I am incredibly
: easily swayed by aesthetics, and this is his best LOOKING design, in my
: opinion. She's small and weighs around 130. She's a little nervous about
: tippiness, but compared to my 18 3/4" skin boat I have a hard time
: imagining a 20 1/2" boat with soft chines being TOO tippy. Plus-
: She's Swedish, so that may be a selling point...

: Mike