I believe that summer is our time, a time for the people, and that no politician should be allowed to speak to us during the summer. They can start talking again after Labor Day. - Lewis Black

After the flood of interest we have gotten over the past few months for the Takacat Explorer, we have decided we will offer it as a bare bones boat. The Explorer can be ordered as an open boat or with two jockey console options.

We are looking into trailer options, but currently it is cheaper to buy a trailer of your choice (any flat bed trailer 14' long is sufficient) and source your own outboard, although we can supply a Mercury OB up to 20 HP (more than enough power to get it up on a plane with cargo and a few occupants).

This boat is a premium boat of the Zodiac or BRIG ilk, but at a price tag of about half. The New Zealand Coast Guard uses these boats as open water Search and Rescue boats.

The price listed below and on the Explorer product page include shipping to the lower 48 states.

The Olympics are growing closer (or not, if Rio Olympics gets cancelled due to crime or the Zika virus) and we will start to see an uptick in sailing news in the near future.

Every summer Olympics brings more interest in the sport of sailing. If you are without anything to watch this summer, try and find some Olympics sailing events on TV and watch them. They will be thrilling to watch and driving up the ratings will prompt media to cover the sport better, thus increasing interest. The more popular the sport is the more competitive the segment gets. The more competitive the sailing world is, the more cool products will come out and make the sport that much easier to enjoy!

On a local level and not news yet, but we are starting to work on establishing One Design classes on a national level for the Tiwal and MiniCat boats. if you have suggestions or would like to be more involved with the process please contact me at [email protected].

We have decided that our old format for demos was confusing and was hard to maintain properly. We now have a demo calendar that shows all of our events. We will be adding to this as things get scheduled.

We have already input multiple races that we plan to participate in, as well as boat shows we will be attending.

Any day that is open on the calendar is open for a scheduled private demonstration for any of our boats. We are now scheduling private demos 7 days a week for our customer's convenience.

If you see a boat show that we are planning to attend in your area, please send us a note via email as we try to stay a day or two after the show for customers that would like to demo the boat in the water before their purchase.

Check out our calendar HERE.

Click on the images below to select from MiniCat 310 (top left), MiniCat 420 (center), MiniCat 460 (top right), Tiwal (bottom left), or X-Cat (bottom right).

Also be sure to follow us on Instagram @redbeardsailing as we are always taking pictures of our latest adventures!

We are proud to have partnered with Bread Finance. Bread is a new way to pay! You can apply for financing for our boats (up to $5000). If your desired boat or cart total is more than $5000, you can finance up to $5000 and the excess is all you'd need to pay up front!

We currently offer 24 month, and 12 month standard financing, and 6 month same as cash financing!

We think this is a great way to make sure you buy what you really want and pay as you go! This new payment option will help you pay for the things you didn't expect to need when looking for a new boat, such as life jackets, electric inflation pumps, and even outboard motors!

To put this into perspective you can buy a Takacat for as little as $69 a month, or a MiniCat for as low as $204 a month!

You will see a button on each product page, or at checkout to apply!

We are still working out the best format for these newsletters. If you would like to see more or less of a certain kind of content please let me know! I like writing about sailing, and you like reading about it. Your feedback is welcome, good or bad!