I am thinking of club racing an A class. At 6ft 6inch and 240pounds am I too big? also on a limited budget what will I have to pay for a boat to race occasionally and have fun. I would be sailing inland in NC
kes wrote: I am thinking of club racing an A class. At 6ft 6inch and 240pounds am I too big? also on a limited budget what will I have to pay for a boat to race occasionally and have fun. I would be sailing inland in NC
Hey kes,
Welcome to TheBeachcats.com, good to see another "grown man" catamaran sailor. 👿
Are you sailing beachcats now? How familiar are you with the A-Class?
Kes,
At 240 you would be on the heavy side, but you won't be too far out of the range. The top two sailors at worlds last month are 160lbs and 220lbs. The weight difference is made up for by the cut of the sail. A little deeper draft is pretty easy to cut in, and there is so much sail area for the weight it just doesn't matter (or so I was told by Pease at Glaser Sails who I trust a lot).
The cheapest way into the class is probably going to cost you around $5,000. For the boat, trailer, ect... You will also need to buy or scavanage a set of Cat Trax ($500), a harness ($150), a life jacket ($100), and I would really recommend a Lycra suit instead of a swim suit.
For this you will get a decent condition strait board boat. It will likely need some work, but I am pretty sure every A needs some work. For a little bit more, say 7-$8,000 you step up to an older C foil boat. Down wind in breeze the C foils are faster, but it isn't night and day different, but it is substantial. For around $17,000 you can get a used full foiler.
These days to win NA or Worlds you are almost certainly going to need a foiler, but for local stuff any of them are going to be insainly fast. If you are curious take a look at the Portsmouth ratings for A cats compared to other beach cats. The current rating is assuming strait foils btw, and the boat is still the fastest one person beach cat. C and Foilers just take that to a new level.
And btw I bought an A-Cat about two month ago, with zero beach cat experience. My advice here is a distillation of everything I learned while looking for my boat
While I pretty much live bruised and a little battered, holy good god these boats are fun to sail. I have never had as much fun, or gone as fast, with so little effort on anything. My only regret over buying an A is that I didn't do it sooner. it is honestly the most fun I have had on a sailboat in years!
I've owned over 30 catamarans in my 42 yrs on the water, and the only one I regret selling is the A! Such a silky feel through the water, so quickly powered up you get to spend lots of time on the trap, my favorite place to be! The ease of rigging, lightweight on the beach, the single string to pull, the ease of settling into the pure joy of sailing. I hope another rejoins the fleet before my catsailing days wind down!
Dave
Kes,
I am assuming we spoke at Waccamaw.
I am a new A-class owner. Racing the A has been a pure joy in breeze. I'm 6'1" 230, the boat is still very powered up. I find it the most fun boat I have raced so far, and while its an excellent race boat, it's not a great cruising boat. If you were to pull up at a beach, you really do not want to walk away from it while the sail is up.
Please contact me is you decide to sell the Hobie.
Couple of points to consider:
- Steep learning curve to sail the boat well
- Handicap rating has been "driven down" by all of the great sailors on the boat
Those two points will make fleet racing a difficult and likely frustrating endeavor.
- A cat is built to be light (read fragile)
- Unirig is more difficult to tack and keep in the groove
- Documentation, parts and support info specific to your boat will be more difficult to find
Although, yes it is fast and a TON of fun, be forewarned that something like a Hobie 16 (or 17 if planning to sail alone), Nacra 5.0, 5.2, 5.5, etc. may be more appropriate for your situation.
I wouldn't worry about the handicap too much. My local committee gave me a 24 PHRF rating. Having sailed an A-Cat for about two months so far, I am already close to sailing to that rating. Besides, who cares about the rating, it's the most fun i have ever had on a boat, bar none.
Reactivating an old thread here.
Unpacking this pile of Unicorn parts, I think I have it pretty much mentally sorted out. I can see how the standing rigging is organized and what's likely to need work - a few replacement wires and such. The biggest obstacle is probably the very crunchy old tramp - no idea if or for how long I can use it before I go through.
I'm seeing one thing, though, that's got me a little rattled: The lack of hiking straps. There are attachments for them on the fore crossbeam, but not on the aft or anywhere in between. And looking at the photos on the Unicorn site, it looks like those maniacs don't have them - trapeze only. Now, I live for the wire, but I get a little freaked out if I don't have the straps to keep my toes under, especially in low+gusty conditions that can't justify the trapeze but still might puff me over.
Anyone here with an old A-Cat who can give me a little guidance?
jonathan162 wrote: Reactivating an old thread here.
I'm seeing one thing, though, that's got me a little rattled: The lack of hiking straps. There are attachments for them on the fore crossbeam, but not on the aft or anywhere in between.
Anyone here with an old A-Cat who can give me a little guidance?
The rear attachment for the hiking strap may be through a grommet at the aft end of the strap, tied to grommets on the rear end of the tramp (if your tramp is tightened on the rear crossbeam).
As in the photos on this page:
https://www.thebeachcats.com/pictures?g2_itemId=126916&g2_imageViewsIndex=1&g2_GALLERYSID=ce93d5b09761b47db1bfb1cc0fcfec93
Yeah, I'm looking for the usual suspects - but there's simply nothing to attach to. The tramp has bolt rope along all four sides - no lacing whatsoever. There are no grommets and no little cross-straps to keep the straps down on the tramp. And no eye straps or anything else on the aft crossbeam. It's really weird.
Its funny you mention those hiking straps. I have never used them in my 5 years. I was considering removing them. I have never liked leaning off a lot by the time the straps take hold. I would not stress the lack of them. I use mine only for tying shrouds to for trailering.
Oh, I'm stressing, I'm stressing. You don't indicate where you are, so I don't know whether you're prone to extremely gusty winds, as we have here in/near the mountains. I wouldn't sail without hiking straps for a hot minute, because they're essentially a safety backup for when there's not enough wind overall to be hooked onto the wire, but at any second a hard gust can knock your ass over. And they're invaluable when you take a newbie out. If I'm not hooked in, my toes are under it.
Call me a wuss, but not having them is a worse feeling than driving without a seat belt.
Edited by jonathan162 on Sep 20, 2023 - 11:51 AM.
Fair enough. I am on the gulf coast. Steady breezes here except near the condos.
jonathan162 wrote: Yeah, I'm looking for the usual suspects - but there's simply nothing to attach to. The tramp has bolt rope along all four sides - no lacing whatsoever. There are no grommets and no little cross-straps to keep the straps down on the tramp. And no eye straps or anything else on the aft crossbeam. It's really weird.
Kinda sounds like a non-OEM trampoline. The original could have had lacing, or grommets for lashing the straps.
How do you get a tramp installed if all four sides are bolt rope - remove both crossbars and load them first?
This is weird.
I strongly lean toward believing that it is an OEM tramp, given that it was made ~50 years ago, before "now-standard" methods of doing these things had evolved. Also, its condition suggests it's that old. I've put feelers out to the UK Unicorn group to see if I can connect with someone with the same boat - that'd help a lot.
Lemme try another photo (though I'm not having a lot of luck with them... nope, still don't get how to make them work here).
At least this won't screw up the aspect ratio:
https://www.imagebam.com/view/MEP2J7T
Edited by jonathan162 on Sep 21, 2023 - 02:45 PM.
How do you get a tramp installed if all four sides are bolt rope - remove both crossbars and load them first?
I am seeing bolt rope on three sides on each half of the tramp. You insert the tramp on the hull first, then the beams, then lace the center. The PO may have figured out it saved time to just unbolt the beam and slide it off with help.
"Some assembly required" would apply here.
What I'm seeing is that that's a detail that doesn't matter - it effectively has a bolt rope around all four sides. The only lacing that would be relevant to this discussion is aft, because that's what that end of the hiking straps (the point of this discussion) might tie to.
On the other hand, if you can see something I don't (that is, how that center lacing could help with the hiking strap problem), I'm all ears.
Edited by jonathan162 on Sep 21, 2023 - 03:08 PM.
jonathan162 wrote: On the other hand, if you can see something I don't (that is, how that center lacing could help with the hiking strap problem), I'm all ears.
Based on that photo, I'd say your Unicorn didn't come with hiking straps.
There are no hints of a mounting for either end of the strap.
klozhald wrote: There are no hints of a mounting for either end of the strap.
Sure there is. Look at the right (fore) tube. Those two SS thingies (the lower/starboard one has a bit of shock cord tied around it) are clearly for hiking straps. That's what makes this so confounding. They're there and there's nowhere for the aft ends of the straps to attach (yet).
I suspect the rings you have on the beam are related to mast rotation.
You clearly know these boats better than I do, but I'm going to have to differ with you on this, unless you've seen one that uses 2" webbing for mast rotation.
Those parts are RWO R324 - newer numbers R3240 + R3230 - even newer numbers R3240 + R3284 (toestrap gear).
The mast rotation is done via that guide and camcleat on the center tube.
I don’t really know anything about those old boats.
It’s hard to tell with the scale is. Anyways, on a boat that old I wouldn’t assume anything is original. It wouldn’t be a big deal to add a provision for the strap on the tramp you have, or just get a new one made with a similar provision.
The link below has some pictures of another tramp.
Yes, I did spot that (very nice!) one, but didn't learn anything from the pictures.
As far as what might be original or not on mine, I think I'd lean toward "yes" on these, simply because the RWO part numbers are so old and thus probably contemporary with the boat's construction date. But that still leaves the "what about the other end of the straps?" question, so I really dunno. I suspect what I'm going to do is add similar (and probably RWO as well) parts to the aft crossbeam. But I scarcely know how to describe this tramp other than "rock hard and brittle", so there won't be any modifying it - I'll be lucky if I can test drive it without going right through the damn thing. I'll likely have a new one made (unless you can direct me to an available replacement) with at least one pair of hold-down cross-straps for the hiking straps to pass under - I'm not a fan of straps stitched down to the tramp.
Today's good news, though, is that I sold all of the extra bits that came with mine - which turned out to be an entire Albacore rig minus the hull. That covered nearly half of what I paid for the lot, making this cat less than $180 USD out of pocket. Please don't hate me...
Edited by jonathan162 on Sep 25, 2023 - 01:19 AM.
jonathan162 wrote: Oh, I'm stressing, I'm stressing. You don't indicate where you are, so I don't know whether you're prone to extremely gusty winds, as we have here in/near the mountains. I wouldn't sail without hiking straps for a hot minute, because they're essentially a safety backup for when there's not enough wind overall to be hooked onto the wire, but at any second a hard gust can knock your ass over. And they're invaluable when you take a newbie out. If I'm not hooked in, my toes are under it.
Call me a wuss, but not having them is a worse feeling than driving without a seat belt.Edited by jonathan162 on Sep 20, 2023 - 11:51 AM.
I use the hiking straps a lot. I have a modified Prindle 18-2 and a Classic Tornado. The Nader is obvious since it's single trap. On the Mod 18-2, I will stay in and hike with the wind is over 25 knots. Especially when I'm doing speed runs. Our lake has a lot of development so it's very puffy.. I can easily have winds 10-25 knots during a cold front. I have found running offshore in 20+ knots downwind, I use the hiking strap like a bullrider.. I have mainsheet and hiking strap in one hand and tiller in other. I have almost gotten slung off the hull while surfing a 6' swell. Yes, 6' isn't that big compared to the east and west coast, but the wavelengths are only 60-70'.
texastuma wrote: I have found running offshore in 20+ knots downwind, I use the hiking strap like a bullrider.. I have mainsheet and hiking strap in one hand and tiller in other.
Gotta love crazy Texans!
I'm picturing a caricature of Scott on the back of a T-shirt. He's "bullriding" Frankenkitty down the face of a 6 footer...cowboy hat and boots, chaps, handlebar mustache...the whole bit. TCDYC logo on the front.
Yippee ki yo ki yay! I'd buy one!
Edited by rattlenhum on Sep 26, 2023 - 10:20 AM.
Ride 'em, cowboy! Eight seconds or bust!
jonathan162 wrote: Ride 'em, cowboy! Eight seconds or bust!
Lasted 8 seconds....
https://www.thebeachcats.com/pictures?g2_itemId=137844
Here I go again, reviving this thread after a couple of years of inactivity.
Getting this thing on the water was a bit of a slog. Just about every stupid little chickenshit thing that could possibly get in the way... did. Although ostensibly a pile of pieces that was once a boat:
- The standing rigging didn't fit (shrouds weren't long enough; I faked it with a long bow shackle up top and longer chainplates below).
- I had to have a tramp made, which took a couple of passes (incidentally, I initially tried to go to Slo Sails for it, and they basically blew me off - worst customer service experience in memory).
- I couldn't make any sense of the lever vang and yanked it in favour of a more conventional blocks style.
- I absolutely could not get the gooseneck to stay engaged - a few degrees of mast rotation and it just popped off. I have a workable little hack in place now, but it's part of what sparked me to get a lathe (little old Atlas 12x36) and a mill (Bridgeport J-head) since fall so I can fab parts like this properly from now on. Neither are quite up yet, but very soon.
- The traveler was a confusing mess; it appears that the swiveling cam cleat was removed from the car and remounted on the center tube, which didn't work worth a crap. I reassembled them and added a pair of small guide sheaves to the aft side of the car so it actually works fairly smoothly now.
- The sail's in pretty tough shape; the same amateur-hour moron who tried to "patch" the original/old/failing tramp by gluing some inappropriate piece of fabric (looked like corduroy to me) to the entire underside and then painting it used similarly sophisticated techniques on the sail.
- Rudder housings and tillers - which are some kind of wooden business - needed some epoxy and improved cleats, including a couple of releasing clam cleats for the kick-up. But I suspect I'm going to have to make something a little sturdier.
- My hacked-together trailer... well, the less said, the better, especially the part about how I just banged together the boat carrier from lumber leftovers, resulting in the whole thing now being buoyant... though maybe if I let water into the sail tube by moving the door from the fore to the aft end it'll let the wheels stay on the ramp...
- And how come nobody told me how badly stepping the mast sucks? Every boat I've owned has some kind of hinged stepping; this one is just a cup that sits on a pointy base, and that's a real PITA, no?
So after all that, I had a couple of shakedown sails last summer, and it felt awfully good - not perfect yet, because some halyard/outhaul weirdness kept me from getting the sail all the way up, but very encouraging. Right up until I heard/felt a couple of CHONKs from the windward hull, and realized that it was the deck separating. So now I'm at work on that - in the basement, because hoping that we've seen the last of this winter's snow will be unrealistic for at least the next month.
All of which leads me to ask: Anyone else out here sailing any kind of "vintage" (read: old) displacement A-Class?
Pictures please!
Pictures please!
I second this @jonathan162 it is now super easy to add photos to your posts, you can even take the pictures on your phone, make the post on the phone, and select the pictures from your phones photos. So you don't have to do all the "save to computer", resize, save for the web, then create your post and find the image on your computer steps.
On the old forum (where this topic started) the only way to have an image show up was to upload it somewhere on the web and then find it's direct url "www.somepicturestorage.com/mypicturesurl.jpg" and then manually type or paste it inside special BBCode tag [IMG] [/IMG]. Another big problem with using third party storage like TinyPic, Photobucket, ImageShack, etc. was they were all shut down or no longer allow public sharing.
It's a new day on the forums! Upload images, videos (by url), documents (PDF's), website links, social media post links etc. and they show up in your posts.