Hi there,
I have a early 70's H16 in very good shape. It was sailed about 10 times a year for it's first decade of life and then less than five times a year until the mid 90's when I started sailing it more and more. The boat and sails are in superb shape, but I have noticed when sailing with more modern 16's that my boat is quite a bit slower to windward and has serious pointing issues on port tack. The boat feels like it's torquing and feels loose. Are there any suggestions as to modernizing my boat as well as any information as to whether I'm insane regarding the torquing feeling?
Thanks!
Tom
Its very common for an old H16 with the old corner castings to be loose and torque. Once you tighten the tramp frame by tightening the tramp and glueing the frame it is amazing how it adds to the boats performance. For how to glue the tramp frame go to (took this message off another post on this forum):
"You might check out the article in 'On the Wire'
Vol 1 Issue 7 'Towards The No-Slop Rudder'
www.catsail.com
Now for up grading your boat the question is do you want to stay stock / class legal or do you want to spend some money and turn it into a formula type cat. So where do you want to go with upgrades?
I'm not particularly concerned with class legal. I'm more concerned with go fast-newtoy stuff. I don't get too much of a chance to race the boat against other H16's and the races that we do manage to have in our club are more
cross the line first
glory....so, formula cat stuff would be right up my alley.
Thanks!
If you notice there was some posts on this forum about developing a fun go fast Turbo or Formula H16 division of the H16 class. I am currently promoting this division not class for those of us who want to do distance races and PN racing. I am currently setting up my H16 with a loosed-footed square top main with improved outhaul and downhaul, and foam battens. I am also adding a try radial jib, and EPO rudders, plus I use the Trapseat spinnaker. I have Trapseat wing seats on my H16 as well. The Trapseats are great for solo sailing and Trapseat class racing or cruising, but may not be an advantage for buoy racing, but I do think the added comfort and more leverage for big winds is an advantage for distance racing. These additions to the H16 will enable go much faster. So if you are interested in these additions email me at info@sail-s.com. I have been discussing PN numbers with some other sailors and we think that it is possible the PN number for the H16 as a turbo / formula may be as low as 69 or 70, which is really good for a board-less 16 ft. cat. Once again Mike Strahles has been regularly beating H20’s etc. with just the addition of the Trapseat spinnaker to his old H16, so the results of the turbo / formula H16 will be interesting.
Once again I am trying to get the Trapseat spinnaker section of the Trapseat web site done but is taking longer than I would like, stay tuned.