Outhaul on cruising cat

[nfbr]

I’m moving my reef setup from on the boom to on the mast so I dont have to climb onto the coachroof and can have the halyard at the same place.

I have a dedicated winch, so no clutches. Current reef will be on the winch. Others will be on cleats for slack.

That leaves the outhaul. The boom has a sliding car for the sail attachment / outhaul.

I have four options.

1. Lash it tight, fixed

2. Leave it setup on a clutch on the boom. Almost never touch it.

3 move it to the mast. When reefed it’s slack and on a cleat. When full main it’s on the winch. Treat it like a reef line.

4 move it to the mast with a clutch. Mostly stays tight, trim maybe almost never.

[Snore]

I have sailed a fair number of miles in cats and am fairly anal about trim. In that time I have NEVER tweaked the outhaul. IMHO the main on most cats already has too much draft.

Therefore, I would vote for 1 or maybe 3.

[AKA-None]

On my little boat I lash it tight as that’s where I want it most of the time and it works for me most of the time

When racing all bets are off [emoji3]

[alamoana]

If you want to get the most out of your cat, you need an outhaul control where you can use it. You may decide not to tweak it…

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by nfbr

I’m moving my reef setup from on the boom to on the mast so I dont have to climb onto the coachroof and can have the halyard at the same place.

I have a dedicated winch, so no clutches. Current reef will be on the winch. Others will be on cleats for slack.

That leaves the outhaul. The boom has a sliding car for the sail attachment / outhaul.

I have four options.

1. Lash it tight, fixed

2. Leave it setup on a clutch on the boom. Almost never touch it.

3 move it to the mast. When reefed it’s slack and on a cleat. When full main it’s on the winch. Treat it like a reef line.

4 move it to the mast with a clutch. Mostly stays tight, trim maybe almost never.

I think you need the outhaul. You dont want to have to overstretch the foot of your sail for eternity. You also may want to loosen it for light air. The simple way is a block on the boom side to turn it 180 then forward to a cleat at the forward end of the boom. If you figure this out, the cleat or clutch, or have both, can align with a winch on the mast which is used for other things. Or you can go 2 or 3 part tackle on the line.

[Brioche]

I like to arrange lines logically, and since the outhaul and the reefing lines serve similar purposes I lead them all back to the cockpit and group them together. But then I do tweak the outhaul a lot, for downwind and light air power and also for better pointing. But then I don't have a cat so that might make a difference.

[thomm225]

Tie it off tight and forget it.

[fxykty]

Whether you need/want to adjust the outhaul on different points of sail or wind strengths depends on a number of factors. And it is not related to being on a monohull, so generally ignore those posters.

1) If your main is made of non-stretch membrane or laminate, you can set and ignore the outhaul. If you want ultimate performance, ease one or two cm for broad reaching and downwind, and tighten one or two cm for reaching and upwind.

2) If your main has full battens, regardless of the material it’s made from, you can ignore the outhaul. It would only affect the portion of the main under the lowest batten, so who cares?

3) If your main has partial or no battens (very unlikely as you don’t have a furling main and why have a relatively performant cat with no roach?) then you will want to adjust your outhaul.

Just in case, lead your outhaul forward to a clutch or jammer that is inline, or can be lead to a winch. Then try adjusting it and see what difference it makes to the shape of the mainsail and to boat speed. I’m pretty sure that you’ll set it and forget it - on a large cat the performance impact of outhaul adjustment is absolutely dwarfed by things like batten tension, sheet tension and traveller position.

On our boat, the three reef lines and the outhaul all come out of the front end of the boom through jam cleats and sheaves that direct them down to the deck. For adjustment they can be individually led around a 180* turning block at the base of the mast and up to one of the mast winches (one on either side of the mast). In 3 years with membrane sails we haven’t touched the outhaul except to initially set it to match the depth curve of the first batten. YMMV

[ggray]

Originally Posted by fxykty

2) If your main has full battens, regardless of the material it’s made from, you can ignore the outhaul. It would only affect the portion of the main under the lowest batten, so who cares?

Interesting.

I'm not sure I agree, but I will look closer the next time I adjust the outhaul.