This is my first post: I teach sailing for the Boy Scouts at St. George Island, we have 10 Hobie 16's, Hobie 18sx, and my chase boat is a Prindle 19mx, We sail in the Apalachicola Bay (Near Panama city) which has very shallow depths and many unseen oyster bars. The Prindle has center boards and handles this area quite well, an Inter or Nacra would be destroyed in this shallow bay here due to their 5' daggerboards. My question is why are they building daggerboard boats when centerboards are safer and can take a beach landing? Also is the Prindle 19mx still competive in todays world of Inter 20's and other carbon (aka fragile) based boats? Thank you for reading my post. www.brycehale.com

Bryce,



just like sails and airplane wings a higher aspect ratio (longer and thinner) generates lift with better efficiency and less drag. Daggerboards are no different. While I'll agree that the swinging daggerboards offer great advantages in convenience, they do not provide lift with the same low drag characteristics of a straight deep board.

The Tornado, which is the older and bigger brother to the p19, fits into this category. In our high weed area I would not be caught dead with a dagger board boat. With the Tornado and the P19, you can run turning blocks and lines so that the leeward board can be operated from the windward side, a big advantage while solo.



Also, I have heard of someone who made a dagger insert for the centerboard trunks, so you can use it as a dagger bd or center board boat.

If you must have the efficiency, and you don't care about class rules, you could remake the centerboards on a p19 or tornado so that they are rotating wings, rather than semicircles. This would greatly increase there efficency, and retalin the benefits of the centerboard.



Also, a drop in adapter, that you put in the cboard trunks would allow the on-the-spot conversion between the two types of boards.

This is a great forum, really fast quality feedback. But how does the Prindle 19mx compare to the Inter and NACRA? Is it competive? Thanks again...

The Prindle 19mx is certainly a competitive and well respected boat with a great racing history. As far as rating goes, check http://www.ussailing.org/portsmouth/tables02/tables02mh.asp for the Portsmouth ratings between catamarans (the lower number is faster). The Prindle 19MX is rated slightly faster than the Nacra 5.8 (which is also 19'). I am not sure if the Prindle 19mx rating includes a spinnaker but I know the 5.8 rating does not. The P19mx is almost identically rated with the Hobie 20 and so on....

There is no Inter 19-ft boat. The Nacra 6.O na is correctly rated faster than my P-19 stock, but all that means is that a 6.O guy can beat me boat for boat, by a little, and still correct out to second place. I know I'm rated 14.6 seconds/hour faster than a Nacra 5.8 original, meaning that if I beat him by 15 seconds in a one-hour race, I win; if I only beat him by 14 seconds, he wins. P-19 pinhead is rated boat-for-boat identical to the Nacra 5.8na, but cannot point as well due to the centreboards. The solution is to sail farther, faster. The P-19 mx is rated a hair slower than the Nacra 6.O original, so finishing at the same time or a few seconds behind would 'correct out' to win.

Anyway, read the tables. The numbers fof the older, less "sexy" boats like P-19 and Nacra Anything "original" are easier to hit by a decent sailor than are those for the hot classes like Inter 20, Hobie 20, and to a somewhat lesser extent Nacra 6.O.



sail fast

The Tornado's Board is a rotating wing but, it's lenght is limited by the lenght of the board trunk

You are right, the max depth of the tornado board is about 18". But, ...., don't the new tiapans and such have shallow boards, anyway?

Indeed the Taipan and sorts like the Bimare 16 and Stealth have boards that go less deep noticably. The F18 daggers and I-20 daggers go almost 1 mtr deep (3 feet) next is the Stealth at 0,75 mtr. (2 ft 12 inches), then the Taipan and bim at 0,65 mtr (=2 feet + 1 inch)



Also A-cat baords don't run deep= somewhere between 0,6 and 0,75 mtr. while the I_17R and FX-one singlehanders are near to 1 mtr. again.



0,65 mtr. deep water reaches just above the knee. I don't think that laser 1's can sail in water that is less deep than that.



wouter

As a fellow P19MX owner with the big jib, I would definately agree that I haven't been on an easier boat in shallow water. As far as how well they perform, I think they can certainly hold thier own. A good friend of mine of equal to better multihull sailing ability on his I-20 can't beat me up wind. Come off the wind and it's a whole different story, he pops the chute and sails 15-20 deg. lower than me at roughly the same speed, doesn't sound like much, but at the end of the day he wins...



I also feel the P19 handles much better in surf and larger waves. I would be interested to hear any good info you have experienced or seen with the P19. I have only had mine for about 2 months now and am just now getting my "P-legs."



Shannon Galway

P19MX