Dick Mills wrote: The following email was sent to editor@westsail.org:

Hi,

Greetings from Australia

I am on the fence and indecisive about purchasing a west sail for sale here. I hear many varying comments about their speed. The boat I am looking at is a ketch rig – Do you have many of these in the US could you put me in contact with some owners to get comments about the boat and rig design?

Thanks,

Scott 

scott.s@ssenviro.com.au

Scott,

To my knowledge, there was only one W32 built with a ketch rig, and that was hull #33, which I believe is still here in California.  If you are asking about the 33' boats that are advertised as Westsail's built in Australia, let me inform you that they are not the Westsail boats built by the Westsail Corp. in the US.  They are probably designed from the same Atkins plans that Westsail here used, but I do not know why the company in Australia has called them Westsail's, but it has caused some confusion.  I did ask the original owner of the Westsail Corp. if he had given someone in Australia the permission to use the name, and he told me that he certainly did not.  However, since Westsail Corp. went out of business in 1980, there is nothing that can be done if another company uses the name, except for knowledgable people like myself who were there at the start to try to keep it straight.