Unfortunately the Vortex 60 went down with the company in the early 80's. There were only about 50 made that I know of.... there could be more. Fortunately through the efforts of one of the members here I was able to obtain his boat with the intention to produce the boat again. It will be WELL into the future because while it is a lovely sailing boat, and commands a lot of attention, the demand is not great when compared to the IOM and EC-12. (I have to go with what pays the bills. )

At the rate things are going I don't see it happening... hardly even in 2007 with the agressive schedule we have on other classes. The J Class and AC Class will follow up the IOM's once they are completed and ready which hopefully will be by next Spring. But, the good news is that we have a pristine example, and all the paperwork needed to get it right. On the other hand, I have been developing the winch on a much larger and more powerful and faster scale. This WILL be availalble sooner as it will be incorporated on the J and AC class boats. So the idea of overlapping headsails will be promoted sooner. I started working with them 20+ years ago when we put the SC-4 on the Half-Meter with spectacular results. The trick is improving all those factors needed in racing which is speed, power, speed, reliability, and speed. (did I mention speed?) The 2nd problem is when sailing downwind, with no whiskerpole, the Genoa is not as efficient as the self-tacking jib using a jib boom but I am testing the latest on that problem this coming weekend and the bench tests have been GOOD, so maybe we have solved this one. I hope so.