Cats Can't Sail to Windward....

[Jon Eisberg]

Originally Posted by monte

BB, it's a Oram44C, built by the OP. Nice cats and at around 6T, nice to sail! Bob Oram is an Australian designer and spent his career designing fast, relatively easy to build cats. Home built cats are pretty popular in Aus, with fast, light and designed for home builds from designers such as Crowther, Schionning, Oram, Grainger and many more leading the way over the past 30 years.

Cool looking boat, but I must confess it took this monohull sailor quite awhile to figure out where the helm(s) is(are) situated...

;-)

[BlueBuddha]

Originally Posted by monte

BB, it's a Oram44C, built by the OP. Nice cats and at around 6T, nice to sail! Bob Oram is an Australian designer and spent his career designing fast, relatively easy to build cats. Home built cats are pretty popular in Aus, with fast, light and designed for home builds from designers such as Crowther, Schionning, Oram, Grainger and many more leading the way over the past 30 years.

Thanks Monte! I had no idea the OP was Bob Oram! Now I'm even more impressed and a tad embarrassed!

Hope you are enjoying Grenada. I'm off to Antigua on Monday for 2 weeks of RYA fun!

[monte]

Originally Posted by BlueBuddha

Thanks Monte! I had no idea the OP was Bob Oram! Now I'm even more impressed and a tad embarrassed!



Hope you are enjoying Grenada. I'm off to Antigua on Monday for 2 weeks of RYA fun!

Hi BB, no the OP isn't Bob. The cat is designed by Bob Oram and built by the OP. Sorry for the confusion
Enjoy Antigua, awesome island! What RYA courses are you doing? We're not quite down to Grenada yet, too much to see along the way

[BlueBuddha]

Thanks Monte for the Clarification. I'm doing Coastal Skipper practical with miramar sailing and getting some miles with Ondeck Sailing. I finished the coastal/offshore theory course a month a go... it kicked my butt but I passed! :-).

[Nicholson58]

I know its not an even comparison, but my Tornado Cat will outpoint and out-speed every mono-hull I've encountered. (and most other cats) I don't see why a well tuned large cat should suffer windward performance.

[arsenelupiga]

Originally Posted by Nicholson58

I know its not an even comparison, but my Tornado Cat will outpoint and out-speed every mono-hull I've encountered. (and most other cats) I don't see why a well tuned large cat should suffer windward performance.

true, but in confused seas large cat does no do well windward or other point of sail. Mono does much better. Sudden moves dump sail shape. And that's what monohull community refers to, i would assume. I find these conditions around 5-10 % of time.

[Factor]

Originally Posted by arsenelupiga

true, but in confused seas large cat does no do well windward or other point of sail. Mono does much better. Sudden moves dump sail shape. And that's what monohull community refers to, i would assume. I find these conditions around 5-10 % of time.

Only true for some designs, Ascribing Lagoon 450 characteristics to a Gforce 14 m i s not usually going to work

[colemj]

Originally Posted by arsenelupiga

true, but in confused seas large cat does no do well windward or other point of sail. Mono does much better. Sudden moves dump sail shape. And that's what monohull community refers to, i would assume. I find these conditions around 5-10 % of time.

I would wager that half the monos cruising out there are no better in those conditions. Nothing dumps sail shape more than a mono rolling its guts out downwind.

Mark

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by basenay

Wind and no waves. Perfect for going to windward in any boat but especially a catamaran.
As a former catamaran owner who missed this point on a repeat test sail I was talked into by salesperson for the "newly redesigned catamaran". Got my deposit back after previous test sail on same cat in 3-5 ' square Tampa Bay waves that caused terrible pounding and lots of leeway. Bought after second test sail and for next 3 years tried to convince myself I hadn't made a mistake. Went back to monohull 19 years ago and never regretted decision. I know I bought wrong catamaran as others never pound to windward!

The obvious question this raises: what kind of catamaran was it?

Anyway, my post doesn't say ALL cat's can sail well to windward, or that we'll do it comfortably in any and all conditions. But that applies to trimarans and monohulls too doesn't it?

I'm just pointing out (sorry) that some cats CAN sail to windward, and can do it pretty well.

[Canibul]

You sure? I thought all catamarans were doomed to circling the earth to the west.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Canibul

You sure? I thought all catamarans were doomed to circling the earth to the west.

I thought they were all doomed to flipping if they left the dock.

Mark

[Cheechako]

We KNOW you guys have the leeward engine running :>)

[44'cruisingcat]

Those outboards are so silent.


Ah, but just around the 1:12 mark, there's a brief flash of the throttle levers, both in neutral...

[Sailingcouple13]

Why do you think electric motors are gaining popularity. Cats will point so much better

Sent from my SM-G900P using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[weavis]

Well, I have found on the Tri that if I extend the hulls, speed increases by several knots to windward.

I do try to save the hulls by not extending and going monohull speeds