Performance of charter cats?

[JustMurph]

Originally Posted by sailingharry

Not disagreeing in principle -- I suspect leeway across the board in a cat is pretty awful.

Leeway is generally not great in most production mini-keeled cats, but is generally pretty good in most performance daggerboard cats. Amongst my cohort of mates with daggerboard cats, all of them will sail upwind at 30º AWA and are capable of outpointing most monos. Tacking angles are typically around 90 - 100º.

[gsuescum]

Originally Posted by JustMurph

Leeway is generally not great in most production mini-keeled cats, but is generally pretty good in most performance daggerboard cats. Amongst my cohort of mates with daggerboard cats, all of them will sail upwind at 30º AWA and are capable of outpointing most monos. Tacking angles are typically around 90 - 100º.

I’ve had cats with and without daggerboards and agree with what you’re saying.

Most recently we were “racing” against a daggerboard cat. On the very long reach we were neck and neck but there was a point, because of shoals, we had to point upwind. The daggerboard cat pointed about 10 deg further upwind than us and pulled ahead.

[sailingharry]

Originally Posted by JustMurph

Leeway is generally not great in most production mini-keeled cats, but is generally pretty good in most performance daggerboard cats. Amongst my cohort of mates with daggerboard cats, all of them will sail upwind at 30º AWA and are capable of outpointing most monos. Tacking angles are typically around 90 - 100º.

I was thinking of mini-keel cruising cats, not performance (and performance cruising) cats. I'll agree, a good cat is much better.
Your numbers are a bit odd, though. I'll accept 30 AWA, but that's apparent on your boat. If you are "outpointing most monos," I assume you are talking about TWA (ie, you are pointing farther to windward), yet you tack through 90-100, which is as good as the worst monos (I tack through about 80, and track at 90 after leeway).

[JustMurph]

Originally Posted by sailingharry

I was thinking of mini-keel cruising cats, not performance (and performance cruising) cats. I'll agree, a good cat is much better.
Your numbers are a bit odd, though. I'll accept 30 AWA, but that's apparent on your boat. If you are "outpointing most monos," I assume you are talking about TWA (ie, you are pointing farther to windward), yet you tack through 90-100, which is as good as the worst monos (I tack through about 80, and track at 90 after leeway).

Easy explanation. We don't usually sail as high as the boats are capable of, as we'll have better VMG by cracking off a bit and sailing deeper and faster.

There are plenty of monos out there that can sailing higher, but in practice we see time and time again that we can outpoint a lot of them. It still surprises me.

[HuffinPuff]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

Set a route in the chartplotter that is close haul put autopilot on and you should get your XTE and VMG automatically...at least thats what i am getting with a raymarine S2G or orca core (who delivers many additional parameters to XTE)
Without daggerboards or winglet keels thats what you get with shallow draft mini keels when sailing close haul on a cat. Thats pure physics. And the big windage surface of a Bali and basically not many sail trimm possibilities certainly is not helping here either....

I am waiting for the HH44 from the wynns with the winglet keels to see how much closed haul in real world they can do with them compared to daggerboards. If thats satisfying that would be a project start to check how much designing them would cost for my cat, making them from a foam block and laminating them to the keels is the easy and expect cheap part.

It's funny, I use to design boats as an engineer when I first graduated college. I thought of designing my own winglet to help with pointing. Figured I can do it the next time I haul out.

[CarlF]

The problem with many production cats is they aren't equiped to sail well. They have lousy crosscut sails, fixed instead of folding propeller, are overloaded, and the skipper doesn't know how to trim the sails to get the most out of the boat.

My Leopard 50 - certainly not a performance cat but at the upper end of production boats - is here doing 7kts at 57 TWA (32AWA) in 15kts true wind. It would have done a knot faster if not punching into 3 ft waves.

And while the J/41 monohull I used to race had an astonishingly tight tacking angle it's not a comfortable cruising boat. A racing monohull isn't a fair comparision to a cruising monohull or cat. My 55ft cruising monohull with 6ft draft had a tacking angle remarkably similiar to the Leopard.

Of course, daggerboards and an epoxy/carbon fiber build would help a lot but this boat has better VMG upwind and down than my previous 55ft cruising monohull. in all wind speeds. And the Leopard boat cost less than half the cost of a performance cat. That's a lot of money to arrive two days earlier on a transatlantic crossing. And the room on the Leopard would make the trip much more comfortable.

So far, the videos on YouTube of the new generation of performance cat that have more comfort than the pervious performance cats - such as the HH44 - are not partiularly impressive. Sure, they're faster than a production boat but in most conditions the difference seems to less than 2 kots. I'll be intererested to see if the Wynn's fancy mini kieels are close to daggerboard performance or just behave llike mini keels.

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by HuffinPuff

It's funny, I use to design boats as an engineer when I first graduated college. I thought of designing my own winglet to help with pointing. Figured I can do it the next time I haul out.

Can you help me too with mine? 40ft FP Lavezzi...
I assume if its the same cat length and mini keel draft they should be quite equal in shape anyhow.

40ft 8.5t fully loaded up with slim hulls and 95sqm sail area...sails quite well for a production cat and we already laminated the keel to the hull as its just glued at factory. Pointing a bit higher without engine would be great.
I also in contact with Cleaver for a set of new hydranet sail as mine are worn out.
FP states mini keels sacrificial but naval engineer and boat builder independently said its just a cheap way of mass production and also said on this light build Lavezzi it would simply rip it out of the hull before that glued keel will come out just from its glue or sheer off. Now its so strong bonded and re-enforced with 6 overlapping layers 450 biaxial on a big surface area to the hull that if i hit someting the lower part of the keel will sheer off as much weaker, before it would rip the keel out of the hull.
Can also officially beach it which is not possible due to FP before. We put the whole cat on one keel as test and no problem, no squeeking noise or cracking or deformation of hull, rock solid.

[HuffinPuff]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

Can you help me too with mine? 40ft FP Lavezzi...
I assume if its the same cat length and mini keel draft they should be quite equal in shape anyhow.

40ft 8.5t fully loaded up with slim hulls and 95sqm sail area...sails quite well for a production cat and we already laminated the keel to the hull as its just glued at factory. Pointing a bit higher without engine would be great.
I also in contact with Cleaver for a set of new hydranet sail as mine are worn out.
FP states mini keels sacrificial but naval engineer and boat builder independently said its just a cheap way of mass production and also said on this light build Lavezzi it would simply rip it out of the hull before that glued keel will come out just from its glue or sheer off. Now its so strong bonded and re-enforced with 6 overlapping layers 450 biaxial on a big surface area to the hull that if i hit someting the lower part of the keel will sheer off as much weaker, before it would rip the keel out of the hull.
Can also officially beach it which is not possible due to FP before. We put the whole cat on one keel as test and no problem, no squeeking noise or cracking or deformation of hull, rock solid.

Happy to share my design once I complete it. You can adjust the size as a percentage should you need a slightly larger one. I know Bali's are a bit lighter and I believe the keel is a bit shorter. I don't know which keel is longer. Both keel length and hight have an impact on the size of the winglets. Foil design is equally important but you would have to take measurements and try to map it to NASA foils. Would be a bit challeging. It may be easier to assume the two are similar. You won't get an optimized solution, but it shouldn't be too off.


.

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by HuffinPuff

Happy to share my design once I complete it. You can adjust the size as a percentage should you need a slightly larger one. I know Bali's are a bit lighter and I believe the keel is a bit shorter. I don't know which keel is longer. Both keel length and hight have an impact on the size of the winglets. Foil design is equally important but you would have to take measurements and try to map it to NASA foils. Would be a bit challeging. It may be easier to assume the two are similar. You won't get an optimized solution, but it shouldn't be too off.
.

Thanks. Maybe best to open a new thread?
Lavezzi is lightship 6,75t and fully loaded liveaboard 9t, 2,7t payload so I could go to 9.5t. Draft is 140cm and if I remember correctly minikeels are 230cm long and 65cm at the end and middle 50 cm high
Bali 4.0 is 8,6t lightship and 11,2t loaded due to tests. Draft is 130cm, minikeel from drawings seem to be shorter and less high then mine but that could be because hulls are higher in total then mine.

[Giova]

Originally Posted by CarlF

The problem with many production cats is they aren't equiped to sail well. They have lousy crosscut sails, fixed instead of folding propeller, are overloaded, and the skipper doesn't know how to trim the sails to get the most out of the boat.

My Leopard 50 - certainly not a performance cat but at the upper end of production boats - is here doing 7kts at 57 TWA (32AWA) in 15kts true wind. It would have done a knot faster if not punching into 3 ft waves.

And while the J/41 monohull I used to race had an astonishingly tight tacking angle it's not a comfortable cruising boat. A racing monohull isn't a fair comparision to a cruising monohull or cat. My 55ft cruising monohull with 6ft draft had a tacking angle remarkably similiar to the Leopard.

Of course, daggerboards and an epoxy/carbon fiber build would help a lot but this boat has better VMG upwind and down than my previous 55ft cruising monohull. in all wind speeds. And the Leopard boat cost less than half the cost of a performance cat. That's a lot of money to arrive two days earlier on a transatlantic crossing. And the room on the Leopard would make the trip much more comfortable.

So far, the videos on YouTube of the new generation of performance cat that have more comfort than the pervious performance cats - such as the HH44 - are not partiularly impressive. Sure, they're faster than a production boat but in most conditions the difference seems to less than 2 kots. I'll be intererested to see if the Wynn's fancy mini kieels are close to daggerboard performance or just behave llike mini keels.

Thank you for sharing CarIF ... it would be interesting to know the leeway together with speed and TWA

[malbert73]

Originally Posted by CarlF

The problem with many production cats is they aren't equiped to sail well. They have lousy crosscut sails, fixed instead of folding propeller, are overloaded, and the skipper doesn't know how to trim the sails to get the most out of the boat.

My Leopard 50 - certainly not a performance cat but at the upper end of production boats - is here doing 7kts at 57 TWA (32AWA) in 15kts true wind. It would have done a knot faster if not punching into 3 ft waves.

And while the J/41 monohull I used to race had an astonishingly tight tacking angle it's not a comfortable cruising boat. A racing monohull isn't a fair comparision to a cruising monohull or cat. My 55ft cruising monohull with 6ft draft had a tacking angle remarkably similiar to the Leopard.

Of course, daggerboards and an epoxy/carbon fiber build would help a lot but this boat has better VMG upwind and down than my previous 55ft cruising monohull. in all wind speeds. And the Leopard boat cost less than half the cost of a performance cat. That's a lot of money to arrive two days earlier on a transatlantic crossing. And the room on the Leopard would make the trip much more comfortable.

So far, the videos on YouTube of the new generation of performance cat that have more comfort than the pervious performance cats - such as the HH44 - are not partiularly impressive. Sure, they're faster than a production boat but in most conditions the difference seems to less than 2 kots. I'll be intererested to see if the Wynn's fancy mini kieels are close to daggerboard performance or just behave llike mini keels.

Well sure- but a 50 production cat is huge and comparable in size and price to a 65 foot monohull so that performance is pretty pedestrian. A comparably sized production monohull should be doing 9-10 knots in those conditions and pointing higher.

[Wandering1]

We sail a 1980s 44ft Van de Stadt ketch. Recently we had a couple of races with friends with catamarans. On both occasions these turned out to be close hauled sailing in relatively light winds. The first cat was a Nautitech 40 Open. The second one was a FP Astrea 42.
Both skippers were confident of their up wind performance, before the race started. They both quoted their AWAs as similar to mine. Having previously owned two catamarans, I was a little sceptical of their claims.
The first race with the Nautitech was interesting. We started off with good breeze that reduced over the few hours of sailing. Our 44ft ketch weighs 41,000lbs. She carries a big rig and 7'2" draft with 13,000lbs of lead in the keel.
We simply sailed away from the cat. We out pointed and were faster. His leeway was terrible. He may well have been able to point high but the leeway was out of this world. This is a boat with mini keels, a tall rig and laminate sails. He through the towel in and put his engine on.
The second race with the FP was similar. So much leeway that sailing in 10/12 kts true, his performance to windward was woeful. He put numerous tacks in to our two tacks over a 30nm distance. Our heavy monohull tacks through 90deg. She has to drag her mizzen mast to windward. That certainly doesn't help the windward performance and we still out perform modern production cruising cats with competent skippers and good sails to windward. Off the wind would be a different matter

[JustMurph]

Nothing surprising there!

[Factor]

Originally Posted by Wandering1

We sail a 1980s 44ft Van de Stadt ketch. Recently we had a couple of races with friends with catamarans. On both occasions these turned out to be close hauled sailing in relatively light winds. The first cat was a Nautitech 40 Open. The second one was a FP Astrea 42.
Both skippers were confident of their up wind performance, before the race started. They both quoted their AWAs as similar to mine. Having previously owned two catamarans, I was a little sceptical of their claims.
The first race with the Nautitech was interesting. We started off with good breeze that reduced over the few hours of sailing. Our 44ft ketch weighs 41,000lbs. She carries a big rig and 7'2" draft with 13,000lbs of lead in the keel.
We simply sailed away from the cat. We out pointed and were faster. His leeway was terrible. He may well have been able to point high but the leeway was out of this world. This is a boat with mini keels, a tall rig and laminate sails. He through the towel in and put his engine on.
The second race with the FP was similar. So much leeway that sailing in 10/12 kts true, his performance to windward was woeful. He put numerous tacks in to our two tacks over a 30nm distance. Our heavy monohull tacks through 90deg. She has to drag her mizzen mast to windward. That certainly doesn't help the windward performance and we still out perform modern production cruising cats with competent skippers and good sails to windward. Off the wind would be a different matter

About what I expected, the Astrea is very ordinary sailing cat, the Open 40 only very marginally better.

[Wandering1]

Originally Posted by Factor

About what I expected, the Astrea is very ordinary sailing cat, the Open 40 only very marginally better.

Which mini k eel modern catamarans do you think would perform better? Certainly not a Lagoon or a Leopard. The only catamarans to show good windward performance have deep daggerboards.
The twoI raced with were from the lighter end of the cruising cat market. They also have a lot less wimdage than others.