Hey,, you do know what you're talking about..except for the weather
helm bit.


Walt wrote:
Well, my sample space is rather small when it comes to cats. Mostly
Hobies of varying lengths with the odd Prindle or Nacra on rare
occasions. Every cat I've ever sailed had significant weather helm.
Teeny or no jib coupled with a giant roach usually adds up to a lot of
weather helm.


Faster boats in general have less weather helm... are you
sure you're not just thinking of helm load at speed, this
can get rather large if the rudder blades aren't raked properly.



Maybe I should have said most small beach cats have significant weather
helm? Anyway it's an accurate statement when applied to the boat in
question, the Hobie 17


Actually, it's not. The H17 is a rather well mannered cat
IMHO, except that it doesn't have a lot of reserve bouyancy
(still, has more that the old H16).


Never sailed one of them ginormous condomarans, so I can't speak for
that experience. I'm curious which cats have little or no weather helm
- care to give an example?


All the Nacras should be rather well balanced on the helm,
by which I mean that you should pretty much be able to let
go of the tiller and have the boat go straight. The Isotope
is worth mentioning. I raced Hobie 18s too for a while and
they handle pretty well. Almost any cat with
daggerboards.... the new plastic Hobies aren't bad either,
even though they have skegs

If you get a chance to skipper a decently set-up Tornado,
jump on it. Those are the best sailing cats I know of;
perhaps not quite as fast as the newest top-gun designs but
heck the Tornado is pushing 50! I haven't sailed the Intra
20 but it looks like they steer nicely & tack readily (of
course, the guys sailing them are pretty good and make it
look easy).

Fresh Breezes- Doug King