Fast,
Not a cat but a friend of mine had a freedom 40 (no forestay) out of
Newport Beach California that had a custom kite fitted up some 20 years ago for some extra 'pull' and a lot of fun fooling around. Nothing as sophisticated as the nice rig in your photos. He used to rig up a bosun's chair type thing hanging under it and give the
kids a helluva ride out there much like a lot of peeps do with a loose footed
spinnaker.
There were two inherent problems: launching, and retrieving. The launch he eventually settled by launching it out of a turtle at the bow such that the top of the thing caught the
wind and only drew the rest of it up and out as it filled, thus keeping it out of the
water. His was fitted with a line to the masthead for that purpose, ( I see a similar line in your photos) but the stress on the
mast during the transition was at times, substantial. I've *heard* of some people using different types of ballistic launchers. I'm going to try
rigging one on my freestanding schooner using a "pilot chute" type mechanism to go up and then draw the 'kite' out of a turtle. (probably cause I'm an old paratrooper and the pilot thing worked pretty good for that
Further, no matter what, a small pilot strong enough to
lift and suspend the kite, isn't going to tear up the rig.
The second problem bob had was retrieving the kite when the wind blew up, without running over the thing and/or the lines. I'm liking the idea of my pilot chute more for this problem also, as , if you rig the pilot so it continues to fly above the kite, (look at pictures of parachutists in action) you can use your inversion line to invert the kite so you can pull it back in easily while the pilot chute keeps it up out of the
water. Otherwise, as you invert, the thing can simply fall into the ocean if you're not careful, at which time you really have your hands full.
He used to try to
winch his kite down directly while still full, but this is a testy proposition as you have to bring in all lines at the same rate, thus you need someone manning each line, and even at the end, you still run the risk of the thing collapsing and running over it before you get it all inboard.
Good luck. I can only imagine the speed you're going to get out of one of your cats with these things. They can pull HARD!!! which can get exciting if your helmsman 'zigs' when he should've 'zag' d
seer
)
Linear Mode
Recent Discussions