Cats Can't Sail to Windward....

[Reefer.]

Our Crowther Spindrift 40', just this morning, averaged 8.5, touched 10.2 knots SOG heading around 25°-30° off a 15-20kt SE.
Pretty lumpy too, over a 1 hour hop across a channel between Cairns and Fitzroy Island in North Queensland called 'The Washing Machine'.
I have a new Genoa. Does that disqualify me?

[admiralslater]

Here is my PDQ36 not going to weather. before any on asks the engines do not hit . The roll of the wake is low right where they are mounted

[Andrew Grace]

Originally Posted by Reefer.

Our Crowther Spindrift 40', just this morning, averaged 8.5, touched 10.2 knots SOG heading around 25°-30° off a 15-20kt SE.
Pretty lumpy too, over a 1 hour hop across a channel between Cairns and Fitzroy Island in North Queensland called 'The Washing Machine'.
I have a new Genoa. Does that disqualify me?

Awesome pic, and a great Crowther example of the way a cat should be designed, and can go very well upwind.

Poor old Lock would be shocked to see the condomaran monstrosities that lagoon and other French Builders flog out these days.

[arsenelupiga]

Originally Posted by Andrew Grace

Awesome pic, and a great Crowther example of the way a cat should be designed, and can go very well upwind.

Poor old Lock would be shocked to see the condomaran monstrosities that lagoon and other French Builders flog out these days.

dont blame lagoon. it's people that are buying in this schema that should be ashamed. normally ex motor boaters stung by price of oil. Looks like they will buy back motor boats as oil 1/4 of what used to be, and lagoon will go out of business.

[caradow]

Hey Reefer no offense but AW @ 25-30???
Think you may need to recalibrate your instruments.
Either that or I want a cat like yours.
I have owned and raced a lot of boats in my life , both offshore and round the buoys boats that were mostly one designs such as J-Boats (24,27,35) and many years racing Etchells and Starboats. So sort of know what boats do up wind.
On my J-35 had a set of Ockams that were quite accurate with painstaking hours of calibration before major regattas and those numbers would have been difficult to match. Maybe brief periods when pinching in a breeze but definitely not continuous.
Poorly designed and/or improperly calibrated instruments can give you a lot of false data.
Again no offense but I think your instruments are misinforming you.
Anyway I am sure your cat points better than mine but thats not what I bought it for. However I am envious of cats that go to weather.

[Factor]

Originally Posted by caradow

Hey Reefer no offense but AW @ 25-30???
Think you may need to recalibrate your instruments.
Either that or I want a cat like yours.

The latter. I have been on a number of performance cats that will pull Apparent angles on 30 degrees, and the conser has some skinny long hulls, and is light so it should barrel along with the best of them, the dash will pull those figures easily and has outpointed EVERY mono I have come across, but to be fair it doesn't have much in the way of comfort :-)

[caradow]

Sorry Factor can't buy it with 20 kts wind "lumpy seas" sailing 25-30 AW.
I would have to experience that myself to believe it.
Are Crowther and Conser the same design? Believe Reefer was referring to his Crowther and you reference a Conser.
A cat designed specifically for racing yes but a cat that is suitable for cruising maintaining 25-30 AW in lumpy seas and 20 Kts of wind is a very hard pill to swallow.
It is stated by very experienced cat racers that Corsairs and even A-Cats sail best at 95-100 degree tacking angles.
Just to clarify I am not stating cats can't go upwind but also think we need to use reasonable numbers.

[Factor]

Originally Posted by caradow

Are Crowther and Conser the same design? Believe Reefer was referring to his Crowther and you reference a Conser.

No, not same, Crowther is Australian and Conser is US, and Crowther is deceased. Sorry for the confusion, as for the rest, buy it dont buy it I dont really care.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by caradow

Sorry Factor can't buy it with 20 kts wind "lumpy seas" sailing 25-30 AW.
I would have to experience that myself to believe it.
Are Crowther and Conser the same design? Believe Reefer was referring to his Crowther and you reference a Conser.
A cat designed specifically for racing yes but a cat that is suitable for cruising maintaining 25-30 AW in lumpy seas and 20 Kts of wind is a very hard pill to swallow.
It is stated by very experienced cat racers that Corsairs and even A-Cats sail best at 95-100 degree tacking angles.
Just to clarify I am not stating cats can't go upwind but also think we need to use reasonable numbers.

We often sail higher than optimum when it's lumpy, to slow the boat down. Leaping off waves at 10 knots isn't our thing.

So yes, we'll at times sail at higher than 30' AWA in 20 kts and lumpy conditions.

Re tacking angles across the ground - the A-cats might tack through 100' - but still be pointing very high. The AC 72's as an extreme example, were tacking through around 110', but sailing at around 20' apparent.

Fast boats drag the apparent wind forward so much their tacking angles over the ground may appear less impressive, but they are still making good speed to windward.

[44'cruisingcat]

From that other thread about how cat's can't sail at all:


Something few people seem to understand - a fast boat, because of it's speed can have what looks like a worse track when sailing to windward.

For instance - a boat sailing at 5 knots, at 40' apparent in 10 knots true wind, will tack through 117 degrees.

If it sailed at 8 knots, at 35 apparent in the same 10 knots, it would tack through 125 degrees.

It's VMG is over a knot faster though.

By some people's reckoning, the AC 72 tacked through an unimpressive 110 degrees. But they achieved an astonishing VMG of around 18 knots in around 20 knots wind. To do this they had to be sailing at around 150% of TWS and at around 20' apparent.

Yep, cat's can't sail to windward.

[caradow]

Thank you Fast Cat for your explanation.
I will assume responsibility for any confusion I may have caused however it seems we may be speaking about 2 different things. I always think of AWA that is related to max VMG and I believe you are stating because of conditions you feather to keep the boat more under control.....so I appreciate that. You are going too fast for a comfortable/ safe upwind leg so you feather (pinch) your boat.
Many boats including monohulls can sail higher in those situations and may very well be a lot more comfortable.
Ok so that I can fully understand the characteristics of your boat please enlighten me further:
Taking a hypothetical situation where you are sailing in flat water say in 15-18 knots of breeze, what would your AWA be when your sails are full and trimmed properly for a beat ?
I would assume that particular AWA would be your max VMG and any degree above that would negatively affect your VMG despite sailing higher?
Again I apologize but I am intrigued by your boat and would love to hear more.

[44'cruisingcat]

We're fortunate enough to have a Simrad autopilot with a VMG optimiser function. When our sails were newer, it would settle on 29-30 degrees AWA.


Now our sails are pretty knackered it usually settles on 31-32 degrees.


New sails are ordered though!

[caradow]

Well I am very envious.
However one more question.
How much effort do you exert in keeping your boat light ?
On mine I do not. Although I do not consider mine a slug I am dragging around a lot of extra weight. eg: 2 40 hp Yanmars, genset, watermaker, wind gen, solar panels, many extra parts, 3 scuba outfits, 12 foot hardbottom dingy etc. With that I have had brief moments seeing 16 knots SOG, that was with a little wave action to be honest. We do maintain high 9's-13 knots with typical trade wind conditions. That all comes to a halt when the wind is forward of 45' !
The reason I am asking is frankly lust. Thinking about getting a daggerboard boat but there seems some irony in getting a light daggerboard boat and loading it down with all the stuff I have.
Guess waterline would negate that problem but may become cost prohibitive.
Might just be stuck with a cat that can't go to weather.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

From that other thread about how cat's can't sail at all:


Something few people seem to understand - a fast boat, because of it's speed can have what looks like a worse track when sailing to windward.

For instance - a boat sailing at 5 knots, at 40' apparent in 10 knots true wind, will tack through 117 degrees.

If it sailed at 8 knots, at 35 apparent in the same 10 knots, it would tack through 125 degrees.

It's VMG is over a knot faster though.

By some people's reckoning, the AC 72 tacked through an unimpressive 110 degrees. But they achieved an astonishing VMG of around 18 knots in around 20 knots wind. To do this they had to be sailing at around 150% of TWS and at around 20' apparent.

Yep, cat's can't sail to windward.

Important for multi's too to differentiate between tacking angle and sailing angle. After coming thru a realtively wide tacking angle, and building some boat speed and thus lateral resistance, you can bring them up to a much tighter sailing angle. For example, tack thru 110° and then come back up to 45° apparent.

On high performance boats, the tacking experience can be disorienting the first few times thru because of the dramatic shifts in apparent wind: sailing close hauled, but true wind is aft of beam...slow down in tack and app wind shifts dramatically aft, come thru tack (here is where it gets confusing...you just have to make your turn and ignore the wind angles), then back up to speed and close hauled. Essentially you tack to where your apparent wind angle is going to be and ignore your perception of wind angles during the actual tack...because they are going to change dramatically once you blast back up to double digit speeds.

First time I tacked a high performance tri, I did a full 360 chasing the wind angle during the tack!

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by caradow

Well I am very envious.
However one more question.
How much effort do you exert in keeping your boat light ?
On mine I do not. Although I do not consider mine a slug I am dragging around a lot of extra weight. eg: 2 40 hp Yanmars, genset, watermaker, wind gen, solar panels, many extra parts, 3 scuba outfits, 12 foot hardbottom dingy etc. With that I have had brief moments seeing 16 knots SOG, that was with a little wave action to be honest. We do maintain high 9's-13 knots with typical trade wind conditions. That all comes to a halt when the wind is forward of 45' !
The reason I am asking is frankly lust. Thinking about getting a daggerboard boat but there seems some irony in getting a light daggerboard boat and loading it down with all the stuff I have.
Guess waterline would negate that problem but may become cost prohibitive.
Might just be stuck with a cat that can't go to weather.

I expended the effort in building the boat light. We don't make any huge effort to keep her light. We don't have SCUBA gear on board, but plenty of other stuff. The dighy is a 3.5m RIB with 18hp, for instance. An incredibly heavy full queen size latex matress, a 2.4kva genset, watermaker etc.