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From: (no name) (no email)
Date: Tue May 09 2006 - 11:53:12 EDT
In a message dated 09/05/2006 16:03:17 GMT Daylight Time,
writes:
I'm definitly thinking a cat is the way to go for me as well.
What I'm looking for is why other cruisers (keel or trawl) think a cat
is hard and/or dangerous to handle in heavy seas.
My thoughts:
Modern cats with their mains being roller cars and their roller
reefing genoas can reef very quickly. Also if you realling get in the
heavy stuff, thowing a sea anchor over would keep you safe (I'm
thinking of an easy to deploy sea anchor like a Para-Tech).
Any cat info from cat owners who have been in heavy seas would be
really great.
Regards,
Jason
Well, here is my take on this - not talking survival conditions - though in
a cat they could turn out to be that very quickly - say winds of 30/35 knots
plenty of wind for most people and too much for many.
A mono will look after you - you can relax read a book go to sleep and not
worry too much as the mono will automatically depower the rig when it heels
should the wind increase either due to a weather system change or just a line
squal. A cat cant do that so if you are overpowered by an increase in wind
even just a short term line squall what do you do? run off downwind? Ok your
in your cat and you are rocketing along 10 plus knots maybe 20 if your in a
big cat 45 foot and more you have what say 10 knot app wind but the true wind
is something like 30 plus knots. You cant harden up to reef the main as you
are liable to capsize OR drop the stick if the rigging is correctly sized
(will break before cat capsizes)
You cant get the main down not even if you have the best Harken cars so you
keep on running hoping that you wont run out of sea room and hit a bit of the
lumpy stuff OR stuff your nose into a wave bringing your boat speed down to
1 or 2 knots and your app wind up to 30 plus when things are going to get
instantly very very interesting.
Heavy weather in a cat you have to be alert every second the cat wont look
after you like a mono would and bearing all of that in mind you need to sail
conservatively doubly so at night on passage. Also you have to know and watch
your weather even more so than in the mono so you dont get yourself and the
boat into difficult situations.
Cats are fast yes but at 10/15/20 knots life gets a bit hectic and you wont
sail like that for long on a passage if you want to relax sleep and do things
like cook.
Look at the recent adventures of Richard Woods the somewhat famous cat
designer and experienced cat sailor he got wiped out in a Caribbean storm and lost
the boat.
Yes, i am a cat fan but not 100% convinced that they have as many advantages
over a monohull as is popularly promoted.
regards
David
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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