On a previous post I saw mention of 5" hull toe in set on championship Hobie 16s. How is this measured and how do you adjust it? It seems like a desirable thing to do because it may induce a windward crabbing effect when close-hauled.
Alan M
I noticed that I have toe-in also. Do you remember when the post you refer to was? I also wonder what the effect of Jib halyard tension has on toe-in. It sure seems to pull the hulls together.
The post did not get much response. The post was in August. Here it is I think: http://www.catsailor.com/forums/sho...
I've been interested in Hull Toe-in for some time, but was unsure what the performance benefits were supposed to be. However the windward crabbing effect seems believeable.
Till someone who has completed the toe-in steps forward to enlighten us, here's my take on the subject.
A square boat is one with a front pylon width of 78 1/2
, and a rear pylon width of 77 1/4
. My stock 16 is very close to this.
The 5" Toe-in would have to be measured from the bow tips to make any sense at all. The front pylon width would have to be shortened by enough to acheive the desired Toe-in. I don't know the exact amount, but it might be, just a couple inches, and probably varies from boat to boat. To get the front pylons closer you would have to cut off both ends of the front cross bar and re-rivet the corner casting. Of course the jib tracks would have to be shortened to accomodate the new placement of the corner casting, and the lower bar on the dolphin striker would have to be shortened by bending, rethreading, etc.
This is an interesting idea, but intuitively, I'm not really sure what you would really achieve by doing this. It would seem that with both hulls in the water you might see some help, but I would think there would be drag - would the effective increase in the angle of attack of the leeward hull be enough to overcome any increase in drag? To eliminate the drag (if it is truly bad), you would need the windward hull flying, but with the windward hull flying, the leeward hull would take its normal attack relative to sail and rudder trim, and it would seem there would be no real benefit - except that now the tramp is effectively skewed and you could be achieving a certain degree of windward sheeting on the main assuming your traveler was centered.
Keith, Annapolis, Md.
H-18
Northstar 500 (monoslug)
wouldn't cutting your cross bars, besides making your boat no-longer class legal, create a narrower beam decreasing your leverage thereby killing any advantage on a windy day?
cheech
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