Snowgoose 37

[Superstrath]

Put the boat in the water last week and was astonished to find myself doing 10knots up the Clyde on Saturday.
Question for fellow owners - does anyone have a manual for this boat that they could let me have a copy of, or more specifically can anyone suggest recommended wind speeds for reefing? We have an in-mast main, roller genny and staysail. It's easy on a mono - but with the cat the boat does not tell you too much, and it seems too easy to be over canvassed - any thoughts or experience would be useful.
It's going to take a while to get used to this "no-heel" business. Cruising at 10 knots without spilling beer I can get used to very quickly!

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[timevans2000]

Hi fellow Snowgoose owner! I have the same boat. Ours is a 81 Snowgoose37. She has a larger than standard rig. 6ft taller than standard, fully battened main, mylar genoa. I tend to sail fairly gung ho according to my pals.
I wouls say, only reef to windward when the speed is too great to be comfortable. It gets unpleasant doing 8 knots to windward in a chop. The boat will let you know when it is too much cos things start to jump about! The Snowgoose is pretty heavy so not much chance of lifting a keel! If the wind is behind the beam, you can carry a lot more sail than you would feel comfortable with in a monohull as she wont roll about. down wind in F6/7 I have carried full genoa (485 sq ft) and no main. This gives somes great downhill sailing with wave induced surfing and planing.
The best speed we have out of our Snowgoose so far is 16 knots! I am not planing to go any faster. She is supposed to be a cruising boat!

I would worry too much about when to reef. You will soon get a feel for it. The Snowgoose is very forgiving

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[Birdseye]

I cannot advise you what to do - I can only tell you the approach I have taken. So far so good - but it might go t*ts up for me tomorrow!

There is a simple formula developed by Wharram, I believe, which will suggest the wind over deck speed at which to reef. If you pm me your e mail address I will mail it to you.

I have a Quest, and the characteristics are similar to the Snowgoose. Smaller boat but smaller rig. The formula works by calculating the wind speed which would overturn the boat hard on the wind with a certain sail area. It then reduces the speed to 60% to allow for gusts. Thus, full sail capsize wind speed in a Quest is 30kn reduced to 18kn wind over deck to allow a safety margin. Thats when I put in my first reef - usually dropping the main since mine sets like a Tesco bag.

The formula is simplistic and only takes into account wind speed, whilst most capsizes of mono and multi are reportedly the result of energy transfer from breaking waves - there is a USCG research paper on the subject if you want. Nevertheless I was told once by a researcher at Southampton Institute that it was not a bad approximation of what they found in their test tank.

Be careful - converting from mono you do not at first realise when a cat is being over pressed because the heel is limited and the boat does not round up. But it is not unheard of for cats to be simply sailed into a capsize as the leeward bow goes down and the windward stern lifts up. 16 kn is definitely up there in the high risk area.


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[Close hauled]

Good stuff - I do like to hear stories about Snowgeese! I had 12 knots out of our 37 Elite while my wife was cooking a curry! The original manual that came with the boat is not very helpful - 'you have a reefing system and you may want to use it'. I never get appreciable weather helm but the boats manner starts to change as she gets over-pressed and you become very aware of it.

I used to sail Dart 18's and they told you they were overpressed by falling over at high speed.

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[Superstrath]

Thanks for the thoughts. Will try a few different set-ups this weekend bringing it back down from Tarbert. We sailed there in three hours - but it's a three hour drive by car!

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