Hi, is there anybody who has experience in sailing an A-cat with a spinaker? I want to buy one to perform better downwind. What size (square meters), I thought about 12 square meters. Where to order, etcetera...
Greetings from a Dutch catsailor
There were several posts on the, now defunct, old forum. While I don't remember a manufacturer stepping up and commenting, the consensus was that the modern A-cats are designed so minimally that they can not handle the additional loads that a spinnaker can add. I'm certain someone can elaborate more.
The concensus from some very reliable sources is that an A Class can handle a spi in VERY light air. How light depends on the individual boat. When it reaches the boats' limit, it rips the winward hull off.
That's right, a trashed hull.
Someone has put a compression bar between the hulls in order to distribute the load over both hulls. It helps, but there is still a large potential for disaster.
Most A Class hulls are very narrow and have limited lateral strength. Maybe diagonal tension lines combined with the compression bar would translate the excessive lateral forces into vertical force it could handle?
I would love to have an A Class with a spi also, but I am going to wait until a mfg. makes one I can trust.
Marstrom has built the M18 in an effort to discover how much stronger(heavier) an A Class must be in order to safely handle a spi.
The Marstrom A-cat can handle a spi without problem. The M18 use the same hulls as the A-cat! No extra carbon in the hulls, the M18 is just a bit wider and a spi added.
/hakan