how fast?

top speed so far is about 19 knots on a tight, twin trap reach, no kite, 20 knots of breeze.

Here is a Polar Chart for 10 knots of various boats.

Polar Chart

I once clocked 25mph. I looked at the forecast for that day and at that specific time the gust in the area was 17mph. This was in Key West around this time last year.

It was two up on a reach.

18.9 knots, Mosquito Cat rigged, beam reach, 22-25 knots.

My zimmer frame and I get to about 2 kmph.. but you wait till I get the turbo-powered electric one!! <img src=

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Sometimes as quickly as 30 seconds.......

I once was clocked by GPS going 19.4 knots on a F28R on a reach in 25 knots. It didn't feel as fast as on a beach cat.

yeah, you need the spray to sting... then you know you are going fast.

Today while racing an F28 tri in some decent winds we were doing 14knts on the upwind leg. That was pretty intense. I can only imagine 19.4

The only thing that raised the hairs on the back of my neck was when I didn't have my hand on the traveller sheet and got hit with a pretty good gust. We went up on one ama. All I could think of was

not my boat, not my boat, not my boat!

The landing went fine however. The owner loved it.

To update, finished up the regatta on the F28 today. That thing is wild! Winds were slightly lighter than saturday, still hit 12knt upwind and 13-14 downwind with the spin up.

I have very little experience with the boat and the other crew had never flown a spin before. So it was interesting setting the spin, by the end of the day we were doing better.

I've raced the F28R against monohulls twice. I found it steered effortlessly-like a dingy. The difference in pointing ability versus an Etchells made for some interesting starboard/starboard crossings. If I could afford it I would definately buy that tri. The owner paid $60K for it 5 years ago.

GPS is not very reliable for speed measuring. you need to interpolate the measurements and discard those obviously wrong. Just look how fast my Garmin eTrex think it has gone <img src=

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I've had the Velocitek S-10 model for two years now and it's been great. It gives speed and VMG on a big display and is housed in a bullet proof case. It is especially handy on a cat since seemingly minor adjustments can reep 2 knots of boat speed. Learned some interesting things the first day I had it. Went out xmas eve and came home to lay the tracks down on Google Earth and GPS Action Replay, both are free downloads. If I was good at this computer crap I could attach the tracks but I'm not so I can't. Anyway here's the link. Great piece of kit. Ed

http://www.velocitek.us/

Where do you mount your S-10? Have any pics?

On their web site they have

bar clamps

in the accessories. These fit the A Cat and Blade booms. They are pretty tight on the Blade boom but work fine. Easy to remove from the boat that way. It sounds wierd but to see it from either side you just rotate it around the bottom of the boom. On one tack or the other it will be upside down. It takes very little to adjust to reading it upside down then on the next tack its right side up again. Ed

Was hoping you worked out a position that didn't require rotation when tacking/gybing.

yeah there is one, its call on tied around your neck, placed under your life vest. <img src=

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They keep rolling out new models and I ended up with two at one time. That took care of swapping sides, then I sold the old one. Would mounting it on the spin pole between the mast an the snuffer work? I haven't given it much thought since that would involve effort on my part. Ed

Sure you could mount it out there, you just can't read it from the tramp! The biggest problem I have with all these little hand-held GPS units is the screen size is so small, you have to hold it in your hand to read it. I like the bigger numbers and screen size of the Tic Tac stuff. I wish I could tie my GPS into that.

The numbers on the Velocitek display are bigger than the Tac Tic. I'll have to take a photo for you but you could read it easily from the spin pole. Heck, you can read this thing from another boat. I was just wondering if there would be too much going on up there that it would foul lines etc. Come to think of it though, thats where the N-20 (I-20) guys mount their Tac Tics. Photo coming if I can get motivated. Ed

I mount my Garmin GPS V on the boom with a swivel...then I use a labor-saving device called a

crew

to flip it during tacks/gybes.

I can read the gps display from the trap no prob.

I like the Velocitek system...they seem to have their stuff together. But it cannot take waypoints and so I'd still need to have the garmin for distance racing.

There is a third choice, the Sail Nauteek SC200 unit lloks like it might have it all.
SC200

Tornado,

I am right to think that the GPS V is not waterproof?
Could you post a picture of how you mount it?

Gill

That's correct...the V is rated waterproof but real world experiments say otherwise. Having a III+ model (same form factor as the V) on the boom for many seasons, it only got heavy spray which is handled fine. A capsize to turtle ended it's life. Garmin has a flat rate re-furb fee of $125. Ebay had the V for $180 as a refurb. Insurance was covering it so went with the V.

Don't have any photos of the mount handy. But, I used a standard Garmin handle-bar bracket that clips & screws into the unit. I drilled a hole through the wedge-shaped section of the bracket to accept a quick-pin. Then I made up an articulated bracket out of a few bits of stainless flat. One end of this fits over a vertical screw I've mounted to the top of the boom. A wingnut holds the bracket down and allows horizontal rotation. The gps end forms a fork over the wedge section of the garmin bracket. The quick pin passes through the forks with the wedge inside.

From the trap (gunwale is ~5' off centerline on the T) I can easily glance at the gps for a heading (typically I display the big compass pointer when distance racing) and speed (or distance to mark etc) reading without losing concentration on my helming duties.

Only used the GPS a few times on a catamaran when I lost my start watch (used the timer function for racing), but got 16,4 knots downwind with kite up in 13knots of wind. Use it mostly for windsurfing, 31,24knots in 23knots of wind. It`s too embarrassing to pretend catamarans are fast <img src=

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I think I`ll use it more often now, see if I can get the boat over 20knots, which would be quite a feat.
And Rolf, you can download your track, and delete all spikes to get a fairly accurate reading. We use the average of our 5 best 10sec runs as a good indication, after deleting spikes. My biggest spike has been just over 100km/h (54knots), then back to 0 very quickly.. After that wipeout I started saving for an impact vest and helmet.

I clocked 26.7 knots in 24 knots winds (gusts) on a thin beach strip that was only 10 to 15 meters wide, about 200 meters long and crowded with walkers (who run the smoothness of the strip and cut my speed).

That was while sailing my slowest landyacht (= toy really).

Soon I will try to better that.

Wouter

I clocked 37.8 knots today in maybe 15 knots of wind (gusts) while sailing DN, first time on board (I even capsized once <img src=

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On water 20 knots feels lot more than on top of ice, at least I didn't feel the speed unless I was watching shore, over 30 knots was scary at first though <img src=

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