So How High Will a Cat Point?

[Curmudgeon]

I realize that the best way to sail a cat is to ease off a bit (rather than trying to pinch) and let the nondisplacement hulls pick up speed. But ease off from what?

What are the tacking angles for a well-designed cat without daggerboards? Will such a boat tack through 90 degrees apparent?

What about a well-designed cat with daggerboards. Will such a boat tack through 80 degrees apparent?

[Jim Cate]

G'Day Curmudgeon,

Being a monomaran sailor I can't answer your query, but I wonder if you really mean tacking angles with reference to apparent wind? Especially with the non-dagger board cats, I have noticed while sailing to windward in their company that they make LOTS of leeway. So, to me the question should be what the course-made-good tacking angle might be... and I'm interested to see what the zealots say!

Cheers,

Jim

[SaltyMonkey]

I too am very interested, as everything I hear about Marshalls, Herreshoff, and Mengels has been poor.

[capngeo]

So How High Will a Cat Point?

Not high enough!

[Factor]

[QUOTE=Curmudgeon;660771]

I realize that the best way to sail a cat is to ease off a bit (rather than trying to pinch) and let the nondisplacement hulls pick up speed. But ease off from what?

No the best way to sail a cat is the same as a mono, the best VMG. Now sometimes that means bearing away is best and sometimes not.

What are the tacking angles for a well-designed cat without daggerboards? Will such a boat tack through 90 degrees apparent?

Yep

What about a well-designed cat with daggerboards. Will such a boat tack through 80 degrees apparent

yep -easily.

The reality is that a good cruising multi will tack as well as a good cruising mono and a bad cruising multi will be worse than a bad cruising mono. Same holds true for racing.

I can tack as well as catalina 36s bavaria 38s etc

[Intentional Drifter]

For a 40-ish foot cruising cat, ours probably goes to windward better than just about all of the other non-daggerboard cats, but I have to say that is still not their forte. I view tacking angle as somewhat different. Having the two hulls does make a difference. As for tacking, the usual procedure is to bear off a bit, pick up some more speed and then come about, bearing off some more on the opposite tack to bring it back up to speed and then bring her back to the desired heading. Most of the time, we're talking 100 to 110 degrees between the farthest points.

As for pointing ability, the boat can be pinched to 35 degrees, but is happier and faster at 45. We've found that leeway varies substantially with both windspeed and sea state. Choppy, short-period seas ahead of the beam pushes her around more. If winds are under 15 or so (true), this is aggravated. Higher winds and smoother seas or swells, not as much leeway. That is on our boat -- other cats I've sailed have sometimes been quite different. We have a pretty big genoa with tracks that let us sheet it in quite far. Many cats have relatively smaller foresails and tracks that are more outboard and their behavior is effected. The self-tacking jibs I've been on tend to be worse.

Daggerboards are a definite improvement for windward ability, but they do come with a significant trade-off in terms of space consumed, maintenance, noise, and sailing complication. The ones I've been on would reduce the tacking angles from the 100 - 110 area to 90 - 100, and a bit better on the higher performance designs. This assumes a reasonably experienced and synchronized crew and a suitable design. Some of them basically require 4 people, hustling, to pull off the maneuver quickly and smoothly. Some of the designs seem to think that you will have a dedicated crew member at each sheet and each daggerboard. The better designs let one person perform both tasks.

Fortunately, depending on what you're looking for, there's plenty of designs to choose from in both types.

ID

[Factor]

Originally Posted by capngeo

Not high enough!

My last 28ft tri would outpoint a Cal 28 without breaking into a sweat.

[SaltyMonkey]

boy was I OT! sorry guyz

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

boy was I OT! sorry guyz

Ohhh noooo!

I thought you were exhibiting a sense of humour, Salty.

(And whose to say you were not right? No response from the OP, Curmudgeon)

Cheers,

Jim

[SaltyMonkey]

Welp, I've never seen a catboat with "non-displacement hulls" (plural), so I am definitely a left field monkey!

Gluck on this thread!

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

I realize that the best way to sail a cat is to ease off a bit (rather than trying to pinch) and let the nondisplacement hulls pick up speed. But ease off from what?

What are the tacking angles for a well-designed cat without daggerboards? Will such a boat tack through 90 degrees apparent?

What about a well-designed cat with daggerboards. Will such a boat tack through 80 degrees apparent?

While generally not considered a high performance cat, my Endeavourcat can tack through 100 degrees true with no loss of speed, I can go to about 80 degrees true at the sacrifice of about half the speed. The apparent angles are much closer than that as I'm loosing about 10 degrees to leeway. That is I'm pointed near 40 apparent but making 50 true. This is a condomaran with stub keels, not a dagger board cat. These numbers are for sheltered waters with no more than a 2 ft chop and the sails have to be trimmed properly. I don't know who told you cats can't point but I've shown several cruising monohulls, who questioned my boats pointing ability, my stern as I crossed their bows going to windward in my condo. I would hate to see what a performance cat would do to their egos.

[tsmwebb]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

Welp, I've never seen a catboat with "non-displacement hulls" (plural), so I am definitely a left field monkey!

Gluck on this thread!

You are not alone. I'm guessing maybe the OP is after the apparent wind tacking angle of some combination of these:

YouTube - Hydroptere - Fastest Sailboat in the World

YouTube - Georgica Cup Beetle Cat Race

Good dissonance anyway.

Tom.

[Dragon Lady]

Fantastic! who cares how high you can point at 61 knots.

[44'cruisingcat]

We have a daggerboard equipped, performance oriented cruising boat.

In the right breeze - around 12 - 14 knots, we do 9 - 9 1/2 knots at 26 degrees apparent, 9 1/2 - 10 1/2 at 30 degrees. We can point up to 20 apparent but speed falls to around 5 knots. All flat water numbers.

At 20 apparent (and 5 knots) we are pointing 30 degrees true. I discovered this by accidentally leaving the wind indicator on true wind angle, and was wondering why the indicator said we were pointing 30 degrees but the boat didn't want to go! Surprisingly (to me anyway) the luff still held at 20 degrees, but the tell-tales were lifting.

So if we sacrificed a fair bit of speed we could tack through 60 degrees true.

We usually enjoy the speed and tack through 90-100 though.

Sailing up Sydney harbour recently we encountered a Farr 40 which was heading out to participate in their world championships. There wasn't enough breeze to suit us, only around 6-7 knots, but still they were not making any ground on us - not gaining in height or distance. I reckon a few knots more breeze and we'd have smoked them.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by Intentional Drifter

Daggerboards are a definite improvement for windward ability, but they do come with a significant trade-off in terms of space consumed, maintenance, noise, and sailing complication.
ID

Daggerboards really add very little complication to sailing. It's not like you would raise and lower them for every tack, if you were short tacking. You'd just leave them down on windward legs, only changing their position when reaching or running.

Noise can be minimised by strategically glueing in bits of marine carpet into the cases.