Catamaran tacking angles , really that bad???

[sailjumanji]

Seawind 1160 has a curved track for the self tracking jib. Works wonderfully, and actually makes it fun tacking upwind in a narrow channel! Getting s little more power but having to deal with sheets release and trim in is not worth it. IMO. I deleted the tracks for such on the new build.

[Kiwi Dave]

Just in case this thread is still active. Here is a clips from a rougher coastal trip with tacking in to developed 20-25 knot SW of 18 hours duration with a 1.5m NW swell. Tacking angle (from ground track is near 90 degrees).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K6Kq6OeQew

Full video of the day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyKH7UWh3Sc

[Sand crab]

Originally Posted by gsuescum

My wife and I have owned a Privilege 615, a Mainecat 33 and now a Privilege 495 (our go-away boat!) and they all perform well.

Were you the original owner of the Maine Cat 33? I saw it for sale recently and it seems like it sold fast. Can you tell us about that one?

For the benefit of the rest of the crew here that MC33 was a custom stretched version of the MC30. I think it was ordered that way and the modification was done during the build by the factory.



And tell us about the tacking angles.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by gsuescum

It depends soooo much on the make of catamaran. It seems like the production cats of today (I.E. Lagoon, Leopards, etc.) are heavily design-driven by the charter market. That is fine for charterers who are moving a few miles per day. I believe if you want to get some performance you have to stay away from most of the production cats OR look at their earlier models which catered a bit more to sailors.

I’ve chartered the Moorings/Leopards and a Lagoon 450; all great fun on beam reaches and comfortable.

My wife and I have owned a Privilege 615, a Mainecat 33 and now a Privilege 495 (our go-away boat!) and they all perform well. They’ve all done much better than the production cats we’ve “raced against” both upwind and with less leeway.

On those older Privileges we can easily get up 30 apparent wind and still be doing 1/3-1/2 the apparent wind speed. Here a pic from our shakedown of Hopes & Dreams, our P495. We were doing 1/2 apparent wind speed at ~40 deg (7.5kts in about 11 kts true)

Take a look at the older makes of catamarans or non-charter-centric makes and I’m sure you can find good performance. Attachment 205127

gsuescum, Looking at your instruments and reading your post it looks to me that you are doing very well! You are hitting 7.5 knots close reaching in 11.5 knots of wind. And I see that your apparent wind angle is around 40 degrees and I calculate that to be a true wind angle of about 65 degrees.

So, taking this back to the topic, what are the tacking angles of catamarans, I'd say your tacking angle is about 130 degrees and your VMG is under 4 knots knots. For going upwind, that is not particularly good. My VPP predicts that if you headed up 5-10 degrees you will get better VMG and tacking angles but you'll obviously be going quite a bit slower.

I don't know if your p495 has dagger boards, I'll bet not. I think that the modern cats with deep boards will perform better to windward. Your strength will be sparkling performance a bit off the wind.

No matter what boats we have, cracking off and going faster is very tempting and much more fun but it does not get us to a windward destination very fast.

[rom]

Originally Posted by wingssail

gsuescum, Looking at your instruments and reading your post it looks to me that you are doing very well! You are hitting 7.5 knots close reaching in 11.5 knots of wind. And I see that your apparent wind angle is around 40 degrees and I calculate that to be a true wind angle of about 65 degrees.

So, taking this back to the topic, what are the tacking angles of catamarans, I'd say your tacking angle is about 130 degrees and your VMG is under 4 knots knots

If you do the math you mlght as well do it right. 7.5 x cos(65) ~= 3.17 knots VMG to the wind. Now, gsuescum did not say that 40AWA is the best he can do. he says he can easily get up 30AWA. And it's been explained a number of times here that if you're too fast (which in this example leads to a rather poor VMG) you can simply point higher and reduce speed in order to improve your tacking angle over ground (but not necessarily your VMG).

@gsuescum: your comparison with other brands is both unfair and unrealistic. Unfair beacause the P495 was built in the early 2000' and should be compared to a lagoon 470 or maybe a L500. I don't think you want to race those. Unrealistic because you are underestimating the newer condo cats, like many mono sailors do. These boats did not totally stop going upwind because they got fat. They are just less good at it.

[DougM]

Thought I'd share a view of going upwind in my Gemini 105mc, in powered up conditions. This is a view of my track on a nice relaxed sail up an arm of my local harbour on a sunny afternoon. Started at the left (mouth of arm), wind coming straight up from the end of the arm, took the pic after turning and heading back downwind. 15-20 apparent. Not really pinching, keeping 6.5 to 7 knots mostly. Haven't attempted to measure the tacking angles, but happy with the performance in these conditions. But its lots different when the wind gets light, and boat speed goes down to 4.5 knots or less. The leeway angle increases significantly. Monohulls that I'd go by in good wind drift by me in light winds, probably due to the lack of thickness in the centerboards. btw I have decent sails, a relatively heavy dyneema hybrid genoa, and a north 3Di main.

I've chartered a couple of mini-keel cats, neither of which gave me the same upwind performance in this wind. I couldn't get the same tack angles, and i found that as i tried to point above 40 apparent, my leeway increased without significant increase in heading.

[jsmbythebay]

We are cruising in the Caribbean in a Catana 42 and have been for a year. While i am sure we couldn't keep up with a racing oriented monohull upwind, we can keep up with the cruising monohulls we sail with. And on a reach we leave them in the dust...

[donradcliffe]

Originally Posted by jsmbythebay

We are cruising in the Caribbean in a Catana 42 and have been for a year. While i am sure we couldn't keep up with a racing oriented monohull upwind, we can keep up with the cruising monohulls we sail with. And on a reach we leave them in the dust...

I always find it interesting to hear how cats leave mono's in the dust. As another data point, look at the last ARC tracker, and follow Justina, an Amel 54, and Hera, a Catana 50. As the ARC is mostly off the wind, and Amels are known as fairly slow and safe monos, you would think that Hera would leave Justina in the dust The reality was that Justina finished 22 hours ahead.

On a fully crewed daysail, Hera should leave Justina in the dust. However on passage cats are handicapped by their off the wind sail plan. To safely sail at night in tradewind squalls, most cats reef the main to the point where they are quite undercanvassed between squalls. The monos with their bigger foretriangles and easily reefed headsails can safely carry more canvas at night and shorthanded.

I am sure that the crews of both boats had a great time.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

I always find it interesting to hear how cats leave mono's in the dust. As another data point, look at the last ARC tracker, and follow Justina, an Amel 54, and Hera, a Catana 50. As the ARC is mostly off the wind, and Amels are known as fairly slow and safe monos, you would think that Hera would leave Justina in the dust The reality was that Justina finished 22 hours ahead.



On a fully crewed daysail, Hera should leave Justina in the dust. However on passage cats are handicapped by their off the wind sail plan. To safely sail at night in tradewind squalls, most cats reef the main to the point where they are quite undercanvassed between squalls. The monos with their bigger foretriangles and easily reefed headsails can safely carry more canvas at night and shorthanded.



I am sure that the crews of both boats had a great time.

Once again, the ARC is a useless measure as some boats have crack crews and others don’t, some sail exclusively while others motor more or less, and finally, unlike almost every other passage and certainly unlike those that go north-south or vice versus rather than east-west, the ARC route is virtually all deep downwind. Comparing and evaluating individual boats based on ARC results doesn’t make sense.

Regarding cats and downwind passages, the last time I looked almost all catamarans have furling headsails. So any cat can put up clouds of easily-furled headsails, including code sails and assymetrics - all perfectly safely furled away in case of squalls.

Many boats, cats and monos alike, drop their mains completely, primarily to avoid blanketing head sails to leeward, but also to avoid the hassle of reefing downwind. It can be done, but takes more time - by the time you’re done, the squall is over. Sort of like when you take time to soap all over, only to have the rain stop before you can rinse.

You’re right though, they both probably did have loads of fun. More than we’re having during lockdown, sigh.

[Barra]

While I think using the arc for comparisons is a pretty useless tool I agree the real world passagemaking is often closer between cats and monos than otherwise due to the different reefing approaches as you say, especially if sailing short handed like most cruisers do.

I'm talking about pre emptive mainsail, not headsails, reefing to the gusts for night watch mainly vs reefing for the average winds on the mono.

It can really add up on the daily mileage if the weather is a bit unsettled.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Many boats, cats and monos alike, drop their mains completely, primarily to avoid blanketing head sails to leeward, but also to avoid the hassle of reefing downwind.

Sailing without the mainsail is apparently a trend. It's easier, of course. But then motoring with no sails at all is even easier.

Keen sailors, and all racing sailors, know that the mainsail is an important part of the sail plan and they keep the main up at all times. If the headsail is blanketed on a downwind leg then they either come up a bit or use a pole or something else to project the headsail out to windward, or use a spinnaker.

Frankly, we've never had problems with the mainsail blanketing the headsail.

I think it is just plain laziness.

Now, on the part of cats, if the mainsail could cause a capsize then, of course reef it early. And if that is slow, well then, that's cat sailing for you.

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by wingssail

Frankly, we've never had problems with the mainsail blanketing the headsail.

I think it is just plain laziness.

Not if you sail a mono. Cats tend to have mainsail dominant fractional rigs some even have self tacking blade jibs. A configuration best suited to fast windward sailing. Off the wind means the jib is blanketed. Light weight cats could gybe downwind but with the introduction of the condomaran this was no longer possible. A much better downwind rig was that adopted by Prout huge genoa and mini mainsail. A couple of recent Lagoons have gone this route by sticking the mast further aft and is much better suited as they tend to motor or motor sail to windward anyway.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

Not if you sail a mono. Cats tend to have mainsail dominant fractional rigs some even have self tacking blade jibs. A configuration best suited to fast windward sailing. Off the wind means the jib is blanketed. Light weight cats could gybe downwind but with the introduction of the condomaran this was no longer possible. A much better downwind rig was that adopted by Prout huge genoa and mini mainsail. A couple of recent Lagoons have gone this route by sticking the mast further aft and is much better suited as they tend to motor or motor sail to windward anyway.

"Light weight cats could gybe downwind but with the introduction of the condomaran this was no longer possible."

Really? Not Possible? How so?

AND, if "Cats tend to have mainsail dominant fractional rigs" it would seem even more important to keep the mainsail up and get your reefing routine down pat.

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by wingssail

"Light weight cats could gybe downwind but with the introduction of the condomaran this was no longer possible."

Really? Not Possible? How so?

OK replace "possible" with "any benefit". There is no benefit to gybing a condomaran downwind it takes longer to get where you want to go. A boat needs to generate sufficient additional speed to cover the additional distance and is a tactic for light winds. The stronger the wind the less advantage. The relative wind / boat speed differential for a light cat (or racing mono) is much larger than a heavier slower boat.

eg. There is no benefit to gybing downwind on a Thames barge that needs 15-20 knots of wind to make any speed at all. There is no point in gybing downwind in 50 knots of wind.

Originally Posted by wingssail

AND, if "Cats tend to have mainsail dominant fractional rigs" it would seem even more important to keep the mainsail up and get your reefing routine down pat.

Agree to a certain extent but reefing is not the issue. For multi's with boards up, your analysis is fine as the CE always remains in front of CLR, that is now back near the rudders. On a cat with keels and a big main the CE will be very close to CLR and steering will become much less stable.

[Belezar]

Way late to this, and I’m a mono guy, but have chartered cats a few times. I absolutely hate sailing them. They’re such pigs! It’s tough to get even 90 degrees. I’ve wondered what daggerboards and good sails would be like. Awesome family platforms, but not for me even with better sailing.