Cat rounding up despite counter helm

[HabibiDah]

Originally Posted by fxykty

For the OP, if you have additional people on board then one person can ease the traveller then mainsheet immediately after the main flips during the gybe. That should prevent the post-gybe roundup that you experienced. Not having a headsail doesn’t matter and if you want to go further downwind than 130* AWA the jib won’t be doing much at all so you may as furl it away. Or barber haul it out to leeward to settle it down as someone suggested.

I completely agree. FWIW, I did move the traveler to the center and hauled in hard on the sheet so that the boom movement was minimal during the gybe. There is WAY too much sail up there creating way too much energy to let that boom move during a gybe. As another poster commented, I'm too protective of my gear. Something we can get away with in a day sailer could destroy a big boat.

On my next gybe, I'm taking your advice and easing the boom right after it fills on the opposite tack. I wasn't even thinking about this when this event occurred. I'm also looking forward to being more aware of, and efficient with the sail balance.

[Snore]

Originally Posted by HabibiDah

This next comment might get some disagreement, but here it goes:

I thought that sailing a cat would be easier than a mono. True, it doesn't heel and it is a steadier ride, but it seems to me that the forces involved in a large cat are just hidden better. Overpowered? On a mono you know right away because you are standing sideways. On a cat? One hull might be lifting a little more. Your wakes may not match. But in reality, your gear is screaming at the forces. They've just been muzzled so you can't hear them. I'm finding that sailing a cruising cat (correctly) actually takes more attention to what is going on with your boat because the tell tales are just so much more subtle.

Congratulations! You are on your way to being a competent cat sailor! Sailing larger cats is definitely a by-the-numbers sailing experience. Some engineer calculated that first reef should happen at 17 or 18kts AWS when AWA is > 95. Anyone who thinks they are smarter will eventually break stuff.

Why do I say that? As state in my first post over 50% of the used cats I move fail survey for a cracked shroud ferrule. Either the ferrules are all from substandard materials, or operators are not reefing per the book. Based on this forum and other experiences, I will be heavily on failing to reef.

All that said, you learned the trick of tacking cat in light air. Let's say you are on port tack. Ease the jib to move the COE aft, use the imbalance and the rudder to turn her up. When AWA is <30 back harden the STARBOARD jib sheet to backwind the jib. When AWA is >30 on starboard, get ready to easy starboard sheet, harden port sheet, and ease the main a tad. This puts COE forward and gets you through the tack. When I did charters, if the folks were really loving no noise, I would do this to tack. They appre$iated it.

I like tell tales on the body of the sail, and leech tell tales- or ensigns on the topping lift.

PS- practice reefing! It take practice to get the leech reefing lines secured without wrapping around the boom-- while making sure there is enough slack in the main sheet to let the boom rise. Practicing in 10kts is much better than having a @#$ show when it is blowing 25.

[smj]

Originally Posted by Snore

Congratulations! You are on your way to being a competent cat sailor! Sailing larger cats is definitely a by-the-numbers sailing experience. Some engineer calculated that first reef should happen at 17 or 18kts AWS when AWA is &gt; 95. Anyone who thinks they are smarter will eventually break stuff.

Why do I say that? As state in my first post over 50% of the used cats I move fail survey for a cracked shroud ferrule. Either the ferrules are all from substandard materials, or operators are not reefing per the book. Based on this forum and other experiences, I will be heavily on failing to reef.

All that said, you learned the trick of tacking cat in light air. Let's say you are on port tack. Ease the jib to move the COE aft, use the imbalance and the rudder to turn her up. When AWA is &lt;30 back harden the STARBOARD jib sheet to backwind the jib. When AWA is &gt;30 on starboard, get ready to easy starboard sheet, harden port sheet, and ease the main a tad. This puts COE forward and gets you through the tack. When I did charters, if the folks were really loving no noise, I would do this to tack. They appre$iated it.

I like tell tales on the body of the sail, and leech tell tales- or ensigns on the topping lift.

PS- practice reefing! It take practice to get the leech reefing lines secured without wrapping around the boom-- while making sure there is enough slack in the main sheet to let the boom rise. Practicing in 10kts is much better than having a @#$ show when it is blowing 25.

Was the engineer quoting the Lagoon 46 or cats in general?

[Snore]

Originally Posted by smj

Was the engineer quoting the Lagoon 46 or cats in general?

There is a line between quality sarcasm and just foolishness.

Every catamaran I have run has an owners manual that provides reefing points. Some are on the boat, others I find on line. If none is available the owner discloses that and we agree on the reefing points.

[smj]

Originally Posted by Snore

There is a line between quality sarcasm and just foolishness.

Every catamaran I have run has an owners manual that provides reefing points. Some are on the boat, others I find on line. If none is available the owner discloses that and we agree on the reefing points.

Only catamaran I’ve owned that came with an owners manual was our Seawind 1000, and it has reefing instructions. None of the others did.
We don’t have wind instruments so would have to do an educated guess on wind speeds, both apparent and true. We do however have enough experience sailing catamarans that we can tell when we need a reef, catamarans will talk to you, you just need to listen.
You still didn’t answer my question concerning the engineers quotes on when to reef. If he was talking about a specific model then maybe someone worth listening to. If he was making a blanket statement concerning all cats then an absolutely useless source of info.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Snore

There is a line between quality sarcasm and just foolishness.

Every catamaran I have run has an owners manual that provides reefing points. Some are on the boat, others I find on line. If none is available the owner discloses that and we agree on the reefing points.

I tend to ignore Lagoon reefing advice.. in my opinion their flat water reefing wind speeds are to high for ocean sailing and I reef sooner than their recommended speeds.. don't like arriving with broken boats..

[smj]

Originally Posted by boatman61

I tend to ignore Lagoon reefing advice.. in my opinion their flat water reefing wind speeds are to high for ocean sailing and I reef sooner than their recommended speeds.. don't like arriving with broken boats..

Did your Wharrams come with reefing guidelines?

[Snore]

Originally Posted by boatman61

I tend to ignore Lagoon reefing advice.. in my opinion their flat water reefing wind speeds are to high for ocean sailing and I reef sooner than their recommended speeds.. don't like arriving with broken boats..

I reef on “first gust”. If the manual says 17, i reef at first gust at 17 or above. Basically the same, run it conservatively… Lord have mercy on the crewman who fails to wake me to reef.

Arriving with the boat and telling the owner, or his agent, “most of the stuff that broke is in the forward cabin, the rest fell overboard” is not a good way to grow a delivery business…

[Snore]

Originally Posted by smj

Only catamaran I’ve owned that came with an owners manual was our Seawind 1000, and it has reefing instructions. None of the others did.
We don’t have wind instruments so would have to do an educated guess on wind speeds, both apparent and true. We do however have enough experience sailing catamarans that we can tell when we need a reef, catamarans will talk to you, you just need to listen.
You still didn’t answer my question concerning the engineers quotes on when to reef. If he was talking about a specific model then maybe someone worth listening to. If he was making a blanket statement concerning all cats then an absolutely useless source of info.

Pretty much every modern cat has a manual. If I am delivering the boat, there is a wind instrument. Too much liability otherwise.

In this case the OP has a newer cat, I am exceedingly confident there is a full functioning suite of electronics aboard.

FYI, on a delivery I do not a TWS check versus my age-calibrated face and, if possible, a buoy. If there is no buoy, and I really feel the TWS is off, I will hail a ship. Offshore most will help out a delivery guy who needs to check instruments.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by SailingHarmonie

… You can get into a situation where turning up wind to reef suddenly gets really scary with a full main, and you can not pull down the main because it is hard against the shrouds.

The solution is to learn and practice the technique to slab reef a mainsail while sailing across or down wind. It is not difficult and doesn’t require any special setup. It’s just different. There is no need ever to turn into the wind to reef. Although, it is easier to reef when going upwind (within 60* of the wind, as the sail is blown off the rigging).

[smj]

Originally Posted by Snore

Pretty much every modern cat has a manual. If I am delivering the boat, there is a wind instrument. Too much liability otherwise.



In this case the OP has a newer cat, I am exceedingly confident there is a full functioning suite of electronics aboard.



FYI, on a delivery I do not a TWS check versus my age-calibrated face and, if possible, a buoy. If there is no buoy, and I really feel the TWS is off, I will hail a ship. Offshore most will help out a delivery guy who needs to check instruments.

As a delivery skipper I can see maybe you don’t have enough time to truly learn a boat before you reach your destination, so maybe sailing by the numbers is the best idea.
I’m also guessing that the vast majority of your deliveries are the popular charter cats? I don’t have a lot of experience with that type boat so unsure if they do a good job of “talking” to you.
I’m sure the wind instruments are nice to have but have never been a priority for us. This means we can’t sail to the numbers only the feel, but we’ve always eased into each cat we’ve owned and gotten to know the boat before pushing at all.

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by fxykty

The solution is to learn and practice the technique to slab reef a mainsail while sailing across or down wind. It is not difficult and doesn’t require any special setup. It’s just different. There is no need ever to turn into the wind to reef. Although, it is easier to reef when going upwind (within 60* of the wind, as the sail is blown off the rigging).

This is the key to safe downwind sailing. It also saves so much time, you keep on track rather than turning round and essentially stopping for 15-20 mins.


This also highlights the difference between keeled cats and daggerboard cats. A cat with boards up will sail comfortably downwind with just the main under autopilot (CE - sails is always ahead of CR - rudders) whereas a keeled boat will be much less stable (CE - sails and CR - combination of keels and rudders) are much closer together.


The tendency to round up is also more prevalent on keeled cats when sailing fast downwind in large waves. If the rudders cavitate the CR suddenly moves forward to the keels only and the boat will do a 180 almost instantly. The cat equivalent of a broach. Regardless of the sail configuration if the CR moves forward of the CE the boat will rotate.


In the case of the OP learning, unless the traveller is released as soon as the "sail" flips through the wind, allowing the CE to move forward as the boom swings out the CE will remain aft of the CR and the boat will round up.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by smj

Did your Wharrams come with reefing guidelines?

Naah.. They're rock solid..
The only Wharram I have heard of going over was a Tiki 21 in NZ with 4 guys sitting on the lee cabin top in 30kts on the beam with full sail.
I've broad/beam reached with full sail in a F7 crossing from France to the UK with nary a twitch on a Tiki 26, did an average of 15kts, occasionally 17kts.. remember passing a large mono reefed down with 3 crew huddled in the cockpit in their foulies.
Their faces were a picture as I skipped past their stern, I later overtook a cargo vessel which brought a couple of the bridge crew out on the wing to look.
Wharram Tiki's rock..
I was 35+ years younger and it was a blast..

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Naah.. They're rock solid..
The only Wharram I have heard of going over was a Tiki 21 in NZ with 4 guys sitting on the lee cabin top in 30kts on the beam with full sail.
I've broad/beam reached with full sail in a F7 crossing from France to the UK with nary a twitch on a Tiki 26, did an average of 15kts, occasionally 17kts.. remember passing a large mono reefed down with 3 crew huddled in the cockpit in their foulies.
Their faces were a picture as I skipped past their stern, I later overtook a cargo vessel which brought a couple of the bridge crew out on the wing to look.
Wharram Tiki's rock..
I was 35+ years younger and it was a blast..

Off topic.


It was about 30 years ago when we overtook the entire Admirals Cup fleet just after the start. The very smartly uniformed crews sitting along the rails were not amused by the sight of my son and his mate eating sandwiches on the trampoline. My very shabby looking Strider even appeared briefly on the helicopter news footage.

[Snore]

Originally Posted by smj

As a delivery skipper I can see maybe you don’t have enough time to truly learn a boat before you reach your destination, so maybe sailing by the numbers is the best idea.

That is the difference between sailing a boat I own and a delivery.

On a delivery, if there is a manual with stated AWS reefs, we reef per AWS. BUT, if at any time the boat does not feel right- often because of sea state- we reef.

I NEVER exceed AWS reef points. It is always safer to stick a reef than risk breaking stuff. Pushing a new $1.5M or more boat based on how I feel is not the best way to grow a business. Sailing to the numbers a just good business sense.

On boats I owned we had AWS reef points. 99% of the time if we followed them we were faster. Once again, sea state would cause us to reef earlier.