BoatBanter.com - Info On Unique UK Sail Design. Anyone, Please

On 22 Apr 2004 01:20:54 GMT, ospam (Stephen Baker)
vaguely proposed a theory
.......and in reply I say!:
remove ns from my header address to reply via email

When I had a 23' cat (International 23), I used to have to navigate
through many boats to get to my mooring. The process was interesting.
I have done 18 knots in that cat in a good breeze........and probably
that through the moorings a couple of times; she could accelerate G.

But she had no weigh at all. 500 Kg or so of boat with a 9 metre mast,
3.5 m boom and you had to have the jib up to navigate or go about! Say
30 m2 of sail? Can't remember, but a quick calc gives me that.

I had to learn that to attach to the mooring, you sailed up to it in a
close reach (but not too close), with the windward hull pointed
straight at the buoy, and headed up _fast_, so that you just overshot
the mooring, with the buoy between the hulls. The crew then had time
to grab the buoy as it came back past the bow! If you sailed too high
for that particular breeze, the cat would end up slightly downwind
(she had shoal keels, almost skegs, and slipped a bit in light
breezes) and you had another go, picking your way back out through the
boats again. That was where I learned to reverse a cat.

Add to this that where I was moored there could be a 2 knot current,
and that on certain days of fresh breeze the other boats required
several changes of course in maybe 50 metres of sailing, and twer
easier for the proverbial camel....

I am sure that people living on the nearby shores came to watch my
approach with a sort of amused dread. I did not suffer silently....

And where was the outboard in all this? Well, you know...outboards.
Never work. Apart from that it was a 6 (?) hp Johnson. I tried a 9hp
but only had a short leg one, which spent most of its time gulping
water, and I had little money. The 6 was way under powered in a
breeze. A 15-20 might have done the job!

Was this on a cat? If so Bah! _Anyone_ can sail a cat backwards! G

Sour grapes, Nick?

;-)

Steve

************************************************** **
I went on a guided tour not long ago.The guide got
us lost. He was a non-compass mentor.........sorry
.........no I'm not.