Jaguar 36 Stories ?

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Rubikoop

Tanks and fill locations---I think your word "goofy" is appropriate. Fill locations and cleats are outboard and down from the top of the hulls. It's not much fun to put fuel in or put lines on the cleats. It sounds like yours is much better. Not a deal breaker but a real PIA!!
....
It would seem the morale to this story would be to go sail one, a lot, before purchase to make sure yours is one of the good ones.

My tank fills are all on deck forward of, or adjacent to, the deck house. Most of the cleats are outboard, which I agree can be a pain sometimes. I have stern cleats near the swim platform and mooring cleats on the forward beam which are not outboard.

Yes, as with any boat, evaluate it before purchasing to make sure it fits your intended use.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Rubikoop

...why the need to backwind the jib and/or ease the main to get it to come around? ...

As I understood, Ak said this was his method, but there is in fact no NEED to back the jib on the W35/J36 or most other production cats. Ease the main a bit as you come head to wind and tack the jib. This shifts the combined CE forward and she will drive through the tack. This technique works out better for many cats, but depends upon the boat and conditions. First learned it sailing Hobie 16s which require some finesse to tack.

Using this technique you lose less boat speed and have a better tacking angle than backing the jib. In my experience, 110d +/- tacking angle is pretty representative of most production cruising cats (even larger cats).

Oh and, Rubikoop, I appreciate that you can discuss these boats without descending into some kind of mindless rant (which happens on many subjects all too often). I don't know the answer to the apparent significant performance variations in these boats. I could better understand these discrepancies for something like a Hobie 16, which is a bit quirky and requires techniques specific to that boat, but these do not have a lot of quirks to their behavior under sail. There used to be a W35 MkII in the charter fleet here that was a total POS, major structural issues, but ironically sailed just fine.

[RSC]

Hi All.

Had Wildcat 2002 model, bought in 2006. Loved the boat and sailed it for four years. Surveyed when bought, no problems detected. Surveyed out when on dry for anti-fouling after two years (2008) no problems.

Wanted to upgrade to bigger cat in 2011- sale was signed pending survey on Wildcat. Survey done - DISASTER. Could not believe survey result, had it redone at different harbour different, also independant surveyor - SAME RESULT. Had reputable yacht builder look at it with the view of repairing it - would not even consider doing the repairs. Boat was sold for less than HALF its value to somebody willing to take on the risk and the repairs.

What were the problems:
a) Massive delamination spots, both hulls inside and outside of both hulls.
b) Paper thin fibre glass on some part of starboard inside hull.

I am not writing this to debate Wildcats, they are very good(well designed) and comfortable boats to sail in any seas but in my case I had to conclude the following:
1) The boat was seemingly without problems for a couple of years as evidenced by surveys.
2) Problems developed following an 18 hour trip in very rough conditions.
Thus, it seems that through natural laminate stress the fibre glass skins sheared away from the inner core. This may be due to bad building practise OR posibly due to problems with the resin/glue deteriorating with time.

Conclusion: The boat was good for years but problems apparently developed when hulls were stressed causing delamination.

Thus, please have regular surveys done when you own one of these boats.

[Boatfreak]

I was reading with interest the different views on the performance of the Jaguar 36 and it did ring some bells with my own experience. After many years of dinghy racing at a fairly mediocre level we bought a Beneteau First 305 monohull which is a relatively good performer. After five years this was replaced by a Fountaine Pajot Maldives 32 catamaran . This is probably lighter and more generously canvassed than the Jaguar 36 and reckoned to be a good performer. Unfortunately whilst it was a skyrocket on a reach I was dissappointed upwind with tacking angles of 120 degrees and frequent incidences of getting in irons in tacks. This situation persisted for about five years, however two seasons ago we started to go really well upwind and our tacking become comparible with modern cruiser racers. I am not aware of what we are doing differently except that having achieved a good performance we have marked the tension adjusters of the fully battened mainsail. The other difference is that because she gets seasick (our reason for changing to a cat) my wife has to helm for long periods. Consequently she is the one who sets the boat up. She is not an experienced dinghy helm but is obsessed by weather helm. In my opinion there is very little weather helm on our cat (compared to a well heeled monohull) but she finds the helm heavy and sets the traveller further out than I would. Whilst we disagree about the reason there is no doubt that the boat is faster and easier to sail. The way my wife sets up the boat it tracks to windward as if on rails and there is no need to back the jib when tacking. Obviously at only 32ft there are many faster boats, especialy where we sail in the Solent however in general not many cruisers under 40ft ever overtake us. Last weekend between Beaulieu and Chichester the only boat to overtake us was a 50 footer motorsailing.

The point I'm making is that it does matter a lot how you set the boat up, unfortunately I'm not a pundit and don't profess to be able to tell you how.

[Notyet]

For the people that have these problems with upwind sailing: what precisely does the cat do? Does it stall, are the sails starting to flap, doesn't the rudder listen to you anymore, what? Is it the same as with a monohull when you steer too sharply towards the wind?
And if you keep your sails as straight as possible, especially when you have a track on your "spoiler", so you can keep your sail quite flat, why wouldn't you be able to sail sharply upwind?

Wim

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Boatfreak

...

The point I'm making is that it does matter a lot how you set the boat up, unfortunately I'm not a pundit and don't profess to be able to tell you how.

I've had similar experience with multihulls in general and high-performance monos. Relatively minor changes in set-up and sail trim can make significant differences in performance.

For example, I keep a barber hauler rig handy on my W35 and use it often on any point of sail other than close hauled. It can make a physically noticeable difference in performance -- no need to even look at the GPS - you can hear and feel the change.