Catamaran tacking angles , really that bad???

[SalingSue]

I always found this funny.

You ain’t getting raceboat performance and the comfort of your ikea condo, you have to slide the slider to one side or the other.
Or just get a power boat and burn some dinos


I have a mono, offset companion way, clubbed staysail and all, but I enjoy boats and living on them. The problem is when you like condo life but also like the IDEA of being on the water.

The condorans seem like a good deal for fair weather Bahamas duty, but if you want to get sporty it’s the wrong tool.

[Jim Cate]

Well, DH, lets go back to one of your earlier posts:

Originally Posted by Dark Horse View Post
Have an 86 Idylle 51. New sails. Big rig. 1550 sq ft of sail that she can carry into 20 knots up wind at 30 degrees AWA. She goes well but once you get into heavy waves performance dives due to leeway and the speed of the water headed down wind.

You get on something like a Bayfield 36 or the and you will be losing ground in 25 knots of wind and accompanying waves.

Nobody considers the speed of the water going down wind. It is huge.

A wave travels at a speed equal to 1.34 X the square root of the wave period (in ft) for instance say a wave is 144 ft crest to crest. Then take 12 x 1.34 =16.08 knts.

Seems like we were talking about wind waves, not wind driven currents or seiches, were we not?

None of us have argued that there can't be surface currents that will strongly affect one's boat speed and direction over the ground.

But as stated, the water in wind waves does not translate in the direction of wave motion... as Wingsail and fxykty and I have been saying. There is no surface flow at 16 knots opposing one's progress upwind simply from wind waves in your hypothetical case.

And BTW, when I took up helping the forum by becoming a moderator I did not give up my role as a contributing member. If I transgress the rules, I am sure that my fellow mods will gleefully remind me of my obligations to obey.

Jim

[Happ]

Originally Posted by SalingSue

I always found this funny.

You ain’t getting raceboat performance and the comfort of your ikea condo, you have to slide the slider to one side or the other.
Or just get a power boat and burn some dinos


I have a mono, offset companion way, clubbed staysail and all, but I enjoy boats and living on them. The problem is when you like condo life but also like the IDEA of being on the water.

The condorans seem like a good deal for fair weather Bahamas duty, but if you want to get sporty it’s the wrong tool.

I have to disagree with you in your conclusion that the larger Catamarans are only good for light cruising. I have a friend and his wife sailed around the world in Lagoon 380!

You also must not understand CMG or VMG. Often while falling off a few degrees you loose a bit of taking angle but your increase in speed will make up for any loss of time. Yes this comes from racing.

The only time that taking angle is critical is if you are trying to clear a lee shore without having to tack again. This may be a factor tacking the tide into consideration. You may have a much better tack due to which way the tide is flowing.

Condomarans as they are sometimes called are more than floating condo or sailboats. The only negative I have found of importance to me at least ias they are not as cozy down below. They have very spacious interiors with separation from galley to saloon to nav station compared to a monohull. It’s purely what you like.

[Sailor 99]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Well, DH, lets go back to one of your earlier posts:

Seems like we were talking about wind waves, not wind driven currents or seiches, were we not?

None of us have argued that there can't be surface currents that will strongly affect one's boat speed and direction over the ground.

But as stated, the water in wind waves does not translate in the direction of wave motion... as Wingsail and fxykty and I have been saying. There is no surface flow at 16 knots opposing one's progress upwind simply from wind waves in your hypothetical case.

And BTW, when I took up helping the forum by becoming a moderator I did not give up my role as a contributing member. If I transgress the rules, I am sure that my fellow mods will gleefully remind me of my obligations to obey.

Jim

Thanks Jim. It is not 16 knots I agree. Bad formula.

No we are taking about wind driven current. A significant amount of water being driven before the wind.

What is a seiche but the result of the wind driving the water to one end of the lake. It is only because it is a lake that you notice the water drop at one end and rise in the other.

If it was only driving the top 6 inches or 12 inches the water would never pile up at one end. Bottom circulation would take care of that immediately

It is not just surface. Lots of friction involved. It goes deep enough that you can apparently blow 100 billion gallons out of a 65 ft deep lake 200 miles long as my pictures and links show.

You don't see this dramatic effect on Lake Ontario but it is there none the less and you see it to a certain degree. Your not even going to notice the effect on a ocean because there is always water filling back in. That does not mean it is not happening.

It likely does not matter at all on a cat going up wind a 16 knots in 6 or 8 foot waves,(if possible without losing your teeth), but on any cruising monohull trying to make its way upwind to a destination it is a big deal.

You will also recall that I posted in response to someone saying he was told by an Amel 43s owner she would not consider trying to buck up wind to a destination because the boat performed so poorly. I am not aware that Amels were lousy boats that could not sail. Quite the contrary.

I think my own boat is likely significantly faster than an Amel 43 and now that I am retired I would not bother to do it either unless it was a short sail. 100 miles? Forget about it. New wind tomorrow or diesel.

As they say. Gentleman do not go to weather.

[Training Wheels]

Originally Posted by SalingSue

I always found this funny.



You ain’t getting raceboat performance and the comfort of your ikea condo, you have to slide the slider to one side or the other.

Or just get a power boat and burn some dinos





I have a mono, offset companion way, clubbed staysail and all, but I enjoy boats and living on them. The problem is when you like condo life but also like the IDEA of being on the water.



The condorans seem like a good deal for fair weather Bahamas duty, but if you want to get sporty it’s the wrong tool.

[emoji15] Offset companion way? You’re going to die! [emoji23]

[Training Wheels]

Originally Posted by Dark Horse

Thanks Jim. It is not 16 knots I agree. Bad formula.

No we are taking about wind driven current. A significant amount of water being driven before the wind.

What is a seiche but the result of the wind driving the water to one end of the lake. It is only because it is a lake that you notice the water drop at one end and rise in the other.

If it was only driving the top 6 inches or 12 inches the water would never pile up at one end. Bottom circulation would take care of that immediately

It is not just surface. Lots of friction involved. It goes deep enough that you can apparently blow 100 billion gallons out of a 65 ft deep lake 200 miles long as my pictures and links show.

You don't see this dramatic effect on Lake Ontario but it is there none the less and you see it to a certain degree. Your not even going to notice the effect on a ocean because there is always water filling back in. That does not mean it is not happening.

It likely does not matter at all on a cat going up wind a 16 knots in 6 or 8 foot waves,(if possible without losing your teeth), but on any cruising monohull trying to make its way upwind to a destination it is a big deal.

You will also recall that I posted in response to someone saying he was told by an Amel 43s owner she would not consider trying to buck up wind to a destination because the boat performed so poorly. I am not aware that Amels were lousy boats that could not sail. Quite the contrary.

I think my own boat is likely significantly faster than an Amel 43 and now that I am retired I would not bother to do it either unless it was a short sail. 100 miles? Forget about it. New wind tomorrow or diesel.

As they say. Gentleman do not go to weather.

If you have a boat that will go to weather, you go to weather whenever you want to go that direction. In lighter wind, we prefer going to weather. More apparent wind makes it cooler and faster.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Dark Horse

Thanks Jim. It is not 16 knots I agree. Bad formula.

No we are taking about wind driven current. A significant amount of water being driven before the wind.

What is a seiche but the result of the wind driving the water to one end of the lake. It is only because it is a lake that you notice the water drop at one end and rise in the other.

If it was only driving the top 6 inches or 12 inches the water would never pile up at one end. Bottom circulation would take care of that immediately

It is not just surface. Lots of friction involved. It goes deep enough that you can apparently blow 100 billion gallons out of a 65 ft deep lake 200 miles long as my pictures and links show.

You don't see this dramatic effect on Lake Ontario but it is there none the less and you see it to a certain degree. Your not even going to notice the effect on a ocean because there is always water filling back in. That does not mean it is not happening.

It likely does not matter at all on a cat going up wind a 16 knots in 6 or 8 foot waves,(if possible without losing your teeth), but on any cruising monohull trying to make its way upwind to a destination it is a big deal.

You will also recall that I posted in response to someone saying he was told by an Amel 43s owner she would not consider trying to buck up wind to a destination because the boat performed so poorly. I am not aware that Amels were lousy boats that could not sail. Quite the contrary.

I think my own boat is likely significantly faster than an Amel 43 and now that I am retired I would not bother to do it either unless it was a short sail. 100 miles? Forget about it. New wind tomorrow or diesel.

As they say. Gentleman do not go to weather.

Dark Horse, We sail to weather a lot. We do so because we can and because it happens quite often that it's the direction we need to go to get to our destination. In light to moderate conditions we prefer it. A great sailing boat going to windward is a true joy. In heavier conditions (over 20 knots true, or thereabouts) we tolerate it.

We are also very attentive to our instrumentation and have very good and complete instrumentation.

We have not experienced or noticed the phenomenon you refer to. We've never experienced or noticed wind driven current or a moving mass of water that affected our VMG (less than 1 knot? we'd probably not notice that).

What affects a boat going upwind is the waves hitting the bow and often stopping the boat, plunging bows into the trough, leeway from being heeled and from lack of forward motion which prevents the keel from working well.

In our case we have a very powerful boat and for us the limiting factor is how hard we want to press the boat. Upwind in in big winds and big waves our boat drives through the waves and gallons of water are thrown up and back onto our faces at 35knots. We launch off of waves and slam down on the next one. But the boat does not slow down much and does not slide off to leeward. When it becomes tiresome we have to purposefully slow down, which is not often easy to do.

I think the reason that, as in your example, a Bayfield 36 won't make great progress to weather is that it is not as well suited for windward work and the action of leeward flowing water is not what is preventing it from going to windward.

That does not mean that water doesn't pile up on the leeward side of a lake or ocean, but I think it means that the overall movement of that water is not a significant factor in the progress of a boat sailing to windward.

[double u]

"...the water in wind waves does not translate in the direction of wave motion..."

if the windwaves are generated over a moving surface of water (as over a current, in a river,..) the water in those windwaves is moving too. You are talking about "ideal waves" in a stationary body of water. I am sure we can find some tables somewhere that inform us of the duration of a given windstrength necessary to induce a current.
Anybody who has not felt the effect of an adverse current is invited to beat against well established tradewinds any appreciable distance straight upwind.

[Michael Cobbe]

Originally Posted by SaltyBlonde

I looked into this a bit when shopping for my Cat and what I kept getting told was that once you get over 40' on a Cat, going upwind is pretty much a motor endeavor. I opted for my lil 30' because it has daggerboards and the combo of the daggerboards and shorter length, seem to avoid those notorious upwind Cat problems. I've got afew kinks to work out on my lil fixer upper before I take her out, so I have yet to prove this theory, but it came up often enough with reputable folks that I felt there must be some truth to it.

https://hydrovane.com/stories/nautitech-47-catamaran/

[arsenelupiga]

Originally Posted by double u

"...the water in wind waves does not translate in the direction of wave motion..."

if the windwaves are generated over a moving surface of water (as over a current, in a river,..) the water in those windwaves is moving too. You are talking about "ideal waves" in a stationary body of water. I am sure we can find some tables somewhere that inform us of the duration of a given windstrength necessary to induce a current.
Anybody who has not felt the effect of an adverse current is invited to beat against well established tradewinds any appreciable distance straight upwind.

Thanks for invitation, been there done that. We managed 3 kn VMG returning from lizard I over ground. I tested current couple times - driving in opposite direction when weather not too rough - and was on average around 1 kn against us. It is absolute PITA against very strong constant tradewinds because of current.

[double u]

not too bad, 3kn VMG. Really 1kn current from Lizard to Cooktown? Not some little "eddies" from reefs?

[arsenelupiga]

Originally Posted by wingssail

Why do you think real VMG was less than stated on the plotter?

it is on mine. plotter calc does not include boat drift. And also current generated by wind that is sometimes present when steady winds. Learned this bit when going against strong tradewinds.

[arsenelupiga]

Originally Posted by double u

not too bad, 3kn VMG. Really 1kn current from Lizard to Cooktown? Not some little "eddies" from reefs?

it was strongest from lizard to low isles. After that we played winds/land so got faster progress. Whenever I tested current - our way and reverse - with engine when we started or end sail for the day, got reading of that magnitude. Also speedo was showing consistent current against us, but not much confidence in it.

This was first time for us hence probably not the bestest routing. Got bit better now.

[double u]

...had splendid sails each time - the other way...!

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by double u

"...the water in wind waves does not translate in the direction of wave motion..."

if the windwaves are generated over a moving surface of water (as over a current, in a river,..) the water in those windwaves is moving too. You are talking about "ideal waves" in a stationary body of water. I am sure we can find some tables somewhere that inform us of the duration of a given windstrength necessary to induce a current.
Anybody who has not felt the effect of an adverse current is invited to beat against well established tradewinds any appreciable distance straight upwind.

Well, we beat into E and ENE trade winds for a couple of days from South Minerva Reef to Tongatapu, anchoring off Big Mama’s Yacht Club (and snuck ashore that night before clearing in the next day for well-earned beers and burgers). It was pretty much straight upwind in 15-20 knots of trade wind with underlying 4m swell. Had the first reef in most of the time and both daggerboards down to deck level (3/4 deployed)

According to our log, 421 miles sailed vs 285 miles straight line in just under 2.5 days. We made two tacks and had an average boat speed of 7.5 knots and average VMG 5.1 knots. No “trade wind current” in evidence.

Cooked, exercised, slept, (made love), chatted, relaxed, stood watches, steered for fun, routine chores = life as usual, regardless of wind angle.

Can’t be done, yeah, right.



And our log pages for those interested in the underlying stats.