A few years ago a bought an early Prindle 18. Last season I finaly had the time to sail it often. Thanks in large part to excellent tips and advice posted here I learned a lot and had a blast when I flew a hull briefly.
Thanks to all of you who take the time to donate your knowledge.
When gybing the P18 I find myself looking and sometimes facing aft ready to get my arm out of the way of the traveller as it flys across the rear beam. Most all beach cats have the traveller located forward of the steering bar. On my P18 the traveler car does not run the length of the rear beam. It seems I could lengthen the rudder arms and move the steering bar forward of the traveler. I suspect this doing this would imped sheeting the main and traveler car and might interfer with a crew memeber trapped out far aft on the hull.
Has anyone tried this modification or is it simply a bad idea ?
Sail Fast,
The Hobie Wave that I sailed on holiday was set up like you describe (are they all really set-up like that?) and sheeting was an absolute pain! Admittedly the 'traveller' was just a block running on a piece of SS wire, but I commented several times that if it were my boat I'd have to change the steering to a more normal arrangement.
Also although the Wave didn't have a tiller extension, I expect your Prindle has. Have you thought about where that goes when you tack/gybe? You could have a 'cow horn' type extension but these bring their own problems.
I can't see what your hoping to achieve, as in more than 30 years of cat sailing I can only recall one occasion when my hand got even close to being caught by the traveller car during a gybe and then it was because I was off-balance in a big sea with winds around 35mph. Your gybing routine is just something that you eventually perform without even thinking. You get used to it.
Most of the bigger supercats are setup like you describe - with the tiller crossbar in front of the mainsheet / traveler. The problem that you run into on a normally sized boat is that you will have trouble moving the tiller extension from tack to tack without either getting stuck on something, or repetively beating your crew. The Hobie wave does not have a tiller extension or a traveler.
I managed to slam a hand in a jibe once, nearly broke it and could not move it for a long time. Normally I grab the sheets just below the top block and force my main over in a jibe, goes slow, does not slam, i know when I am at center and a lot of good feedback is transmitted to the hand holding the sheets.
The Wave has no traveler. Has to have been a cluster someone set up. We designed the Wave to be easier to steer and without a hiking stick. That is why the tiller xbar was forward and into the tramp area, but the block was fixed and easy to use to. Sound like they made sheeting harder on the rental boat described because the put used cable traveler.
Yes Matt, I guess that's possible. Not being familiar with the Wave I just found the whole setup bizarre and difficult to use. When I tried to sheet in the 'traveller' kept coming towards me, I could pull it almost all the way to windward before the mainsheet blocks took up and allowed the traveller back. (The traveller line was so thin it kept sliding through the clamcleat - in the end I just put a knot in it! 
)
It really was no fun at all 