So How High Will a Cat Point?

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Hmmm... sounds like the above FP 56 is operated as a motor sailor whether it is one or not! I wonder if her owner is surprised...

Cheers,

Jim ( a monomaran owner who actually likes multis, despite the bad-mouthing I've received when offering my observatons)

Can only agree - on our boat an AWA of 60 degrees generally translates to a TWA of 110-120 - if the best we could do do windward was 60 we'd only be able to sail downwind!

[catty]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

Because you said, if you want to sail to windward don't look at catamarans.

Fact is cats CAN sail to windward. Its just a matter of choosing the right one, if windward sailing is a priority. Actually it's the same with mono's. They don't all sail well to windward either.

Hey 44c, don't get upset I complemented you on your boats performance. Please check my figures. I merely solved the vectors using trig. from the figuresyou provided. Once again thanks for posting your real world angles.

Yes I agree with your statement regarding choosing the right one. The OP needs to understand that conditions and hull design choices affect windward gains. For instance "v"eed forward hull bottoms are highly desirable in the open ocean and flat bottoms are better for sheltered waters and ease of building.

Wasn't the earlier raising of the 60 degrees off the wind regarding TWA, hence 120 between tacks, so that may be worth a reread.

[sailvi767]

I have a Voyage 440 Plus with the longer hulls and mini keels. In under 15 knots of wind I normally set 38 degrees apparent in the autopilot in wind mode while going upwind with moderate sees. As the wind increases I can push the boat up to about 32 degrees apparent. I normally start the first reef in at about 22 knots of apparent wind. This is a charterboat but I have found that I point just as high as almost all the charter monohulls. Most charter monohulls however have the shoal keel options and basic sails.
One thing I found interesting. I have a 1200 sq ft Asy. Cruising chute. Rigged on a bridal arrangement with no sprit I can point to 55 degrees apparent and get 5 knots of boatspeed in 7 knots of wind.

George

[Palarran]

Jim, so if I motored for one day out of 8 because it was directly upwind, my boats a motorsailor? Nice. You know what I find funny about that? It's that the typical "cruisers" never sail anywhere anyways. They have barnikals growing thick on their hulls and the anchor chain hasn't been pulled up in months.

As far as the comments about a Marquises not sailing above 60 degrees, if you read my post, I don't find it worth it, not that it can't. But I really shouldn't be surprised that most here either can't or don't bother to read. As I said in my orginal post on this topic, 110 posts and about 3 are actually on the topic.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Hmmm... sounds like the above FP 56 is operated as a motor sailor whether it is one or not! I wonder if her owner is surprised...

Cheers,

Jim ( a monomaran owner who actually likes multis, despite the bad-mouthing I've received when offering my observatons)

Originally Posted by Palarran

Jim, so if I motored for one day out of 8 because it was directly upwind, my boats a motorsailor? Nice. You know what I find funny about that? It's that the typical "cruisers" never sail anywhere anyways. They have barnikals growing thick on their hulls and the anchor chain hasn't been pulled up in months.

As far as the comments about a Marquises not sailing above 60 degrees, if you read my post, I don't find it worth it, not that it can't. But I really shouldn't be surprised that most here either can't or don't bother to read. As I said in my orginal post on this topic, 110 posts and about 3 are actually on the topic.

G'Day Palarran,

Well, I thought I did read what you wrote, mate. You only described the one days motoring to windward, not the other days you now spring on us. Somehow this proves that your (quite desirable) FP 56 is not a motorsailor.

OK, as I said, what you described doing is exactly what folks with motorsailors do:motor to windward. What you do in the time you didn't tell us about is a mystery to us, and seems somehow unrelated to the discussion. Enough of that...

Now, it also seems that you believe that I (a "typical cruiser" I think) never raise my anchor and have barnies clustered on my hull. Dang, mate, that's a bit of a stretch. If you want to compare logs, we can do that, but we have managed to log just under 40,000 miles in the 8 years we've owned this boat. And we do sail to windward -- for instance, last September we SAILED Cairns to Gladstone against the SE trades, despite being told it wasn't possible.

Ann and I are not hero sailors, but we do sail most of our miles whilst cruising.

Finally, I plead guilty to not posting directly in response to the OP in this case. I didn't realize that commenting on others posts was not part of the CF style.

So, sir, if we can leave off the personal stuff, I am interested (as stated in post #2 of this thread) in what cruising cats can do going to windward. Some of the ones that I have encountered out sailing didn't do so very well , but obviously some can do well indeed. So I have learned some useful things reading this far and hope to learn more.

Cheers,

Jim and Ann s/v Insatiable II lying Morning Cove, NSW, Oz

[Agility]

On my maiden voyage aboard our Atlantic 57 from Panama City, Panama to Cabo, Mexico we saw 10 - 15Kts of winds for several long stretches. We were sailing about 2 - 3 Kts slower that the true wind and we were tracking at almost exactly a 90 degree course over ground. The track looked like a perfect zig zag at 90 degree angles and straight lines tack after tack. With bigger waves we were shy of 90 degrees but we had typical pacific ocean conditions for the 10 -15Kts of winds. With bigger winds we made better than 90 degree tracks until the waves got big.These night watches were perhaps them most fun watches I've had in my life. I played with the sails a fair amount but I'm not sure I every really dialed them in on the autopilot. I suspect a better sailor could have gotten another knot or two and would have seen perhaps 3-4 degrees improvement to windward. I saw that improvement when I hand steered which I did several times because it was just so damn much fun.

Normally, we set the auto-tack angle at 90 degress, get up to full speed post tack and then pinch in a bit to get to highest VMG. This bigger issue I don't completely understand is the trade-off when a boat like ours speeds up so much at about 40-45 degrees apparent (think true wind aft of beam). In decent weather it seems like we can fall off, gain speed and apparent wind, point higher and sail faster VMG.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by catty

Hey 44c, don't get upset I complemented you on your boats performance. Please check my figures. I merely solved the vectors using trig...

Then added 15 degrees of leeway, which came from where exactly?

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by catty

For instance "v"eed forward hull bottoms are highly desirable in the open ocean and flat bottoms are better for sheltered waters and ease of building.

Better tell these people that, they circumnavigated via 4 of the great capes including cape horn, with a flat bottomed boat. Fallado's Circumnavigation

BTW, there's really no point you telling us what angles your boat sails, if you don't also tell us what design it is. Does it have daggerboards or mini-keels? What length is it? Is it more "condomaran" or performance boat?

From your posts we can only surmise that it sails quite poorly, or even very poorly. You should let everyone know what it is, so they can avoid making the same mistake you did.

[tsmwebb]

Originally Posted by Palarran

As I said in my orginal post on this topic, 110 posts and about 3 are actually on the topic.

Here is the OP:

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

I realize that the best way to sail a cat is to ease off a bit (rather than trying to pinch) and let the nondisplacement hulls pick up speed. But ease off from what?

What are the tacking angles for a well-designed cat without daggerboards? Will such a boat tack through 90 degrees apparent?

What about a well-designed cat with daggerboards. Will such a boat tack through 80 degrees apparent?

The answers are: "it depends", ">= 0 .. < 90", "yes", ">= 0 .. < 90", and "yes".

If you look over thread you will see that folks posted those answers pretty early on. Without some explanation those answers are not very helpful. Lots of folks have noticed that too and tried to expand on them. There are some problems with the question beyond that -- the "non-displacement hulls" clause and coaching the tacking angles in terms of apparent wind are problematic. Many posters have commented on them. Please notice that the OP didn't say anything about "cruising". So, some responders have included observations from racing catamarans and suggested that there is a wide continuum of possibilities. A couple of posters picked up on the possibility that "a cat" might mean a cat boat, or a catamaran or felis catus (possibly rocket propelled ). In short, the question was a bit odd and obscure and the answers to it have been too. But, all in all I think that most of the posts have been on topic and interesting.

Tom.

[sailingaway221]

Windier it gets higher I point... 7 to 8 knots 15 knots of wind and 42 - 43 degrees off the wind. St. Francis 43... flatish water....Choppy rough..... 20 - 30 k I slow the boat down by pointing higher if its comfortable... 39 - 42deg...apparent.... if uncomfortable, 45 - 47 but have to reduce sail to slow it down.

[44'cruisingcat]

Yesterday: Sailing northeast in a northwesterly, which turned NE. On autopilot, so angles aren't quite as good as hand steering, but still in the 90-100 degree range.

Waiting for Catty to tell us how the (South setting) East coast current helped here....

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

A well designed cat points higher than most monos, in any case (?).
Under motor..
It also sails twice as fast.
Downwind...
b.

Your smoking that funny stuff again....

[Captain Bill]

I'm not sure what the point of tacking through the apparent wind is. The only real thing that counts is your path over the ground or should I say bottom. My stub keel boat points very high based on apparent wind, but looses a lot to leeway. I manage 50 degrees either side of the true wind over the ground as measured by COG on my GPS. Whether the bow of my boat is pointed at 40 degrees or 30 degrees to the apparent wind is pretty much irrelevant as long as my SOG and VMG are holding up.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by tsmwebb

Please notice that the OP didn't say anything about "cruising". So, some responders have included observations from racing catamarans and suggested that there is a wide continuum of possibilities. A couple of posters picked up on the possibility that "a cat" might mean a cat boat, or a catamaran or felis catus (possibly rocket propelled ).
Tom.

Well, I did post this in the "multihulls" section of the "Cruisers Forum" So I think it would be logical to assume that I wasn't talking about catboats, animals or trimarans. Most folks correctly concluded that I was asking about catamaran sailboats, and I appreciate the many informative responses.

I've concluded from these responses that no, most cat's won't point as high as a well-designed monohull sloop, but they will get from point A to point B faster or just as fast because their hull speed is higher. I knew that already. The question was, how high can they point? How much higher can a daggerboard cat point than one with keels?

[catty]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

Yesterday: Sailing northeast in a northwesterly, which turned NE. On autopilot, so angles aren't quite as good as hand steering, but still in the 90-100 degree range.

Waiting for Catty to tell us how the (South setting) East coast current helped here....

Thats so funny. I just checked out the weather obs for yesterday and there was very little wind so I'm guessing you had the motors running. Here Latest Weather Observations Port Macquarie Airport.

Hey your boat obviously sails better than the carbon Gunboat 48 going by the polars publiushed and the figures you gave. so you should be pretty happy.