Seriously, Pete. What are your top 8 to 10 characteristics that you want in a beach cat?

No, but I have sailed a H 18 against another 18 with spinnaker, radical difference!

Guys & Wouter:

Anyone know of a Blade in the Houston area?

Bill:

Can we see your setup when you get it (mounting for A)? What type of boat?

Doug Snell
Hobie 17
Sone to be Nacra A2 or maybe Blade now?
www.tcdyc.com

Doug,

I could mock something up. I have DK17, its a homebuilt design, the bows are similiar to the A2 and the XJ, there isnt a point to the bows, so I cant mount the spin to the point in the bows and need to come up with another solution. But it wont be hard.



Bill

Bill:

Christopher and I may also be interested in your snail (3 or 4 of them). He has been talking to Marstrom, but I think they are to HIGH!!!! They wanted $260 euro ( around $300 right?) for there tacktick carbon compass mount.(200 plus 60 for shipping)

Doug

Bill,




I know, I know. But you know me; I just have to get back with a reply.

So no worries mate. I tried really hard to cut down on the text but I still felt like I failed. So ....





I can understand that. I wrote this in the part that contains my personal feelings/opinions. In effect this means that it is not a qualification of the A-cat that has general validity. It does so for me personally, but I'm completely convinced in other situations the sentiment if directly opposite.

Of course I try to stress my personal sailing scene overhere. Despite the fact that there are about a 100 of them around I don't see them much; I move about in different circles, attent different events, sail most often on the sea.





I know about the simplicity of rigging only a mainsail and the cleanness of the trampoline then. I sail my F16 like that (recreationally) when I have only a little spare time. Often in the summer time I go to the beach at about 7 pm and do a little sail till about 9 or 10 pm. Of course as The Netherlands is so far north that we daylight till very late in the evening.

With respect to One-design fleets, indeed, you are absolutely correct. I just wrote "boring" in my personal appreciation as we have only 3 OD A-cat races per year where I am. The rest is open class. Even 1 of these OD races is nothing more then an Open class start together with the F18's etc where the results are filtered out later. So in my personal stuation (I underline that again) the A-cat does not offer me much in the way of strict OD sailing. Especially not when you have to duck spi poles of some 40 other boats who share the same start and course.

But certainly; situations differ from place to place.

Wouter

1 light weight

2 durability

3 single handed performance

Wouter's gonna kill me! This isn't the same as it was a couple weeks ago~

4 good class participation * this is particularly important, I'd like to be able to gauge my performance against other sailors without needing a calculator.

5 good economics- reasonable going in cost vs resale

6 rig should not be overpowering- I'm not getting any younger.

7 relative ease in rigging up or down

8 peak performance should be in 8-10 knots.

9 the boat has to speak to me. I have to just be able to look at it and think "I REALLY want to do this". Absent that, it's too much work and way too much money!

10 a good balance of camaraderie and competition. Obviously, I like to just sit around and shoot the breeze, as well as sail.

Actually, the same techniques are applied. The building method isn't called "stitch and glue" for nothing !

Wouter

I haven't been keeping track of the Blade F16 sales lately. I know a few were sold but only in two cases I know to were. One of them is :

Tom Shannon Birmingham (AL) : Blade F16 - Delivery in 3/2006


My list for Texas says :

Taipan 4.9 spi #57 (from 1992). Moved from CA to TX in 2005


Doug, best is to contact Matt McDonald at Vectorworks Marine and know for certain.


Wouter

Doug,
$260 Euro = $315 US for a tacktick mount? wow.

Bill

Bill:

I said no way !!! Getting a JCD to mount on crossbar or may make extra mount to go in front of mast if sight is a problem. It was only $35 plus shipping and reacher sheet won't tear it off. I have a squaretop and reacher on 17 that I use tacktick on also. NICE tactical compass and timer too.

Doug

Why would you have to drill holes in your hulls to mount a spinnaker on an A class cat? We were looking at putting a spinnaker on and older A a while back and to mount the spinnaker pole bridle we would have run it from the forestay bridle mounts on the hulls. This works just fine and it means that the spinnaker and all its fittings can be removed without leaving any trace of it ever being there.

Darryl:

That is what I thought. I don't know why Haken did it to his Marstrom. He used ski poles. I would not do that to a beautiful boat like the A2. Really like your Omega!! You guys did a great job. Have any in the US yet?

Doug

Pete:

Check out the new A in the other thread.

http://www.catsailor.com/forums/sho...ed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#Post67565

Added volume in hulls for us heavy weights and looks a lot like a A2.

Doug

A vs F-16:

Lotus Exige vs Porsche Carrera

Both will get you 'round the track quickly.

Lots of interesting engineering in both.

Neither are as common as Chevys and Fords.

That is the same way that we have the kite set up on the Alpha F14. We knew that it would work just fine as we had previously used the same system on three other cats that we made in the late seventy's and eighties with spinnakers (standard on the 18' and optional on the 5m and the 4,4m).
Regrettably no Alpha F14’s in the states, as yet, we either have to find some one there to build them or hope that the Australian dollar takes a nosedive against the US dollar.

If the A class was to adopt a spinnaker, then no problem to build the boats with holes in the bows like the Marstrom.

I am not a big fan of the snail snuffer..... Tears apart the kite and slower to set / drop.

Why not build a carbon bridle like a NACRA and run a sigle forestay. The bridle will spread the load more on the bows and you can attach the spin pole to it. Run the support lines from the tip of the pole to the outer ends of the bridle and the bridle takes the load. Then include a sock on the pole like other spin cats run.

I too don't see why you'd need additional holes/mounts for the pole bridle. On my Stealth (unlike the other Stealths)the wires for the spin pole simply attach to the existing forestay bridle tangs.

The only holes you'd have to drill would be in the front of the mainbeam to take the pole end fitting and, of course, any holes for the spin fittings themselves. These could be kept to a minimum by sheeting the spin either from the trampoline track or base of the shrouds. The mast fitting could be a dyneema line looped over the top of the mast but you'd still have to drill the track near the top to take the rotation loop.

Stephen,

I seem to remember that Hakan said the snail worked quite well when mounted just in front of the mainbeam. Bad things happened if it was mounted in front of the jib on Tornados..
It makes sense, as the edges/opening/radius of the snail is very similar to the Marstrøm Tornado snuffer.


Wouter or others: what platform will allow my 97kgs to get out on trapeze first?

Reason : The A-cat has a double forestay and so keeping the pole up is an issue. There is no bridle strop to tie a line off to that holds the pole up and because he wanted to use the snail snuffer system he could not have a third forestay that holds up the spi pole, it would interfere with the snuffing operation. Therefor Hakan (and marstrom) uses poles rather then lines. An additional issue with double (triple) forestays is that it can be more difficult to gybe the spinnaker around the stays. And in some cases the twin forestays can prevent the spinnaker from being sheeting in properly. This happens when the forestays are far forward on the boat or when the spi pole is relatively short.

In my experience a single forestay and a mid pole alu ring snuffer system is the best system available. You take a small hit in pointing ability with the midpole snuffer, that is true, but in the way of handling it is more dependable and smoother in operation. It also allows a greater range of sheeting.

Personally I don't ever expect to see double forestays in the F16 class, not even with dedicated singlehander F16 versions. The advantages of improved platform stiffness simply don't outweight the drawbacks in handling. The fact that F16's were always intend to fly a jib helped us out in this respect. Our bows are more then strong enough to take the bridle strop and allows the sailors to keep the single forestay. I don't think this modification can be done on modern A-cats.

Wouter