Cats Out Performing Monos to Wind

G

Gludy

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www.sailingvideos4us.com
I am an experienced boater but am new to the cloth bit - so as I make my pilgrimage through learning to sail, all I can say, is that what I am told does not tally with what I observe,

I have ordered a 50 ft Cat (st Francis 50) which will be ready this summer. For experience I chartered with a skipper a boat in the Leeward Islands a few months back.

I am currently editing a video of the experience.

W hat I observed was that your standard production fin keeled mono sailing upwind was always outperformed by the standard production 43 foot cat that I was on.

The skipper on my boat mainly sailed with one or two reefs in the main and we still on every occasion seemed to outperform mono's when sailing upwind - my forthcoming video will show examples.

I am not saying that a properly tuned racing mono will not outperform a production cat upwind - of course they will ... what I am saying is that my observations to date show the opposite of the collective wisdom that I have been handed.

I will now take cover /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
 
/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
hm, skeptical here. How close to wind? Not very much from what i saw, and nice flat water too! From what i saw the crew did their party piece - empty boat, whip the gennaker up and yeehah - 10 knots sog from 10knots of true wind. But that presupposes that the direction (just a teensy bit to windward, as per polar diagrams) is exaccerly where you want to go, that you're fine with empty tanks and not much personal gear on board. The only time this would occur is erm, on a demo sail...

Anyways, i am sure it will be nice. However, upwind is the very time i would prefer to on a mono - just one keel hammering those waves instead of two.

Oh, and that gennaker the skipper and mate... I have yet to have the gennaker up and something desn't go a bit wiffy or break with the thing - well done to them for geting it up, showing you the numbers and then ahem put that away while the going is good! Unlike real life when the furler line breaks, the spinnake halyard breaks, and one way or another the whole lot ends up mashed in a pile on the deck, like wot mine is right now.
 
No need to take cover from me Gludy, I cut my sailing teeth in cats, I loved 'em. Cats are faster (in the right hands) than a monohull except maybe downwind where it paid to gybe a lot but I never found one that could point higher than a monohull. 'Course that were many a year ago lad so maybe I'm out of touch. After buying my first 505 I never, ever wanted to go back.
 
TCM
The video is not out yet - so how could you see it?

By outperform I mean tacking upwind in a channel on a course - the cat gets further faster than the monohulls if about the same size doing the same thing.... so VMG.

Maybe the monohulls could point a tiny bit higher but because they were slower they dropped behind.

Mind you the cat I was in had two reefs in it and the monohulls full mains so even the handicapped cat seemed to outsail the monohulls everywhere we went /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

I do not know much but is this why cats were banned from those early yacht races were they were allowed to compete against monos" Only asking /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
 
Think you might be disappointed when you get your Cat and try it against most fin keeled monohulls. You will get left behind tacking up a channel. Mind you, the answer could be to stick the engine on.

On a broad reach you should be a lot quicker. I have sailed a lot on a fast 27ft Tri and that vastly outperforms any similar sized mono on points of sail other than upwind.
 
There are many different cats, and many different mono's.
Some cruising cats don't go to windward at all well, some are not bad, some are very good.
A really light cat, like a stripped out iroquois can be very quick indeed. A look at the Island SC round the island results shows a few comparisons.
But most cruising cats have too little dagger board so won't go to windward so well. People buy them for the space, so they get heavy with furniture etc. Racing cats are a breed apart.
They are difficult to handicap against mono's because good ones fly in light weather and it was seen as impossible to have fair racing.
I have bob fisher's book about cat racing, he was on an iroquois that won a race against mono's, despite capsizing at one point!
MOCRA is the place to look for multihull offshore racing in the UK.
 
I have a serious question about cats too.

I saw loads when I was sailing in the Caribbean recently but none had a backstay. I'd not noticed this before.
Do they never have backstays? If not why?
If they don't, this changes my scorecard.

The scorecard as I see it
Costs - mono (esp in marinas of course)
Space - Cat
Looks - Mono (but there are some good looking cats now)
Manoeuvring under engine - cat
Payload - mono (esp as the cat has space, too easy to overload)
Comfort - cat
Upwind - mono

Downwind. I thought cat, but with now backstay the shrouds have to be swept aft so you can't get the main out all the way. Right or wrong?

Is my scorecard nonsense?

Just curious but I find this sort of thing interesting?
 
I am not interested in racing and would not be too much bothered either way.

I think that, from my limited observations to date, the intrinsic faster speed of cats more than makes up for any slight lack of pointing to wind.

You will see a little of what I mean when the next video in my pilgrimage from power to sail comes out within the next month.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I have a serious question about cats too.

I saw loads when I was sailing in the Caribbean recently but none had a backstay. I'd not noticed this before.
Do they never have backstays? If not why?
If they don't, this changes my scorecard.

The scorecard as I see it
Costs - mono (esp in marinas of course)
Space - Cat
Looks - Mono (but there are some good looking cats now)
Manoeuvring under engine - cat
Payload - mono (esp as the cat has space, too easy to overload)
Comfort - cat
Upwind - mono

Downwind. I thought cat, but with now backstay the shrouds have to be swept aft so you can't get the main out all the way. Right or wrong?

Is my scorecard nonsense?

Just curious but I find this sort of thing interesting?

[/ QUOTE ]

You have your scorecard about right apart from downwind. Cats are superb going downwind with either a big chute, double headsail or with just normal main and genoa. Using a spinnaker on a cat is very easy as you don't need a pole. We carry 2, a 155msq 1.5oz and a 80msq 2.5oz we can fly the smaller one in up to 25 knots.
 
Yes, catamarans, just like the MacGregor 26x, are very special boats that the likes of Tony Marchaj should investigate - due to their surprising sailing abilities.

It is really strange that conventional monohull sailors just don't understand the revolution that is passing them by.

My old friend Olin used to able to wind our cat up to 35 Kts in a 12 Knot breeze, upwind.
 
I am not talking about cats with dagger boards.

Basically I am just giving my own observation - a cat traveling faster at a greater angle to the wind does not need much edge on speed to be faster than a mono sailing slightly tighter to the wind.

I am also only quoting your standard cruising mono handled in an average way V your standard cruising cat handled in an average way.

TCM - I have in boom furling for the main, a furling screacher plus a furling genoa..... I am leaving the rest of the wardrobe in the locker until I get more experience. /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
Basically I am just giving my own observation - a cat traveling faster at a greater angle to the wind does not need much edge on speed to be faster than a mono sailing slightly tighter to the wind.


[/ QUOTE ]its called VMG!.... and I still think its unlikely to be quicker upwind comparing similar levels of cruising spec.... i'm not disputing the advances in cat design though.
 
Quite possibly. Glad you caught it.

In fairness, cats like the Gunboat are astonishing performers - empty. As tcm says, add toothpaste and it all goes to pot. If you could shift the duvets and stuff every time you tacked the proposition would become attractive.

There is also no doubt that if you want to get around the world without using aeroplanes, multihulls are the way to do it quickly.

However, there will be times that the close-winded monohull will come to the fore, and it's propensity to capsize is much. much lower.

Allotment vs Waitrose?
 
[ QUOTE ]
and it's propensity to capsize is much. much lower.

[/ QUOTE ]
Don't think so. Much harder to capsize a cat. Less likely to self right though.... Or sink.
 
We've had a lot of fun overtaking racing monos in our Dazcat 920 when we've had a good breeze. In a F4/5 we do 8Kn to windward, tacking through 90/95 degrees. Not many monos under 40' will make more than, say, 6.5Kn. Even if they can tack through 80 degrees, we usually have enough speed to overhaul them.

But we get overtaken by slippery monos to windward in light winds.

Tony MS
 
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