I think this is my first post on here and i need some help. I bought an old Pacific cat 19 last fall that hadnt been in the water for at least 12 years, refurbished it over the winter and have been enjoying it this summer. The thing sails just fine downwind with any breeze but is miserable upwind, and this is where we need help,i dont know what angle we tack through as we dont have a compass but its got to be more than 120 degrees,(it feels like 180) We are lost as to what it takes to get acceptable vmg, i realise that we are not going to point like a keelboat but we need to be much better. So, this boat has a typical 3 stay rotating rig of very low aspect ratio with a very roachy sail and a jib that has a lousy sheeting arrangement to a track on the aft beam that is totally in the way when tacking. The sails are old but in good condition,not neccesarily good shape. These boats are quite heavy at 550lbs as they are solid deck boats with sunken cockpits, really quite comfortable to sail and unusually dry and seem to have little tendancy to drive the lee bow under. One thing that is strange is that there are long daggerboard slots that look like they would use pivoting centerboards but it has daggers,so you can position them over a range of a couple of feet,we have been mostly keeping them aft as it can produce a balanced helm but perhaps a different position would get us upwind better, we are using the mast spanner to keep the fwd wools on the main streaming, i think we need a cunningham to get the diagonal wrinkles out of the main. We are thinking of designing a new jib that can sheet to tracks on the main beam like most cats i see which would clear up the cockpit which would make tacking easier, this would need to be custom as the boat has a fwd crossbeam so the tack is much lower than most cats. Anyway, i would think that a lot of guys with older cats like H18s etc with older sails may have some insight, I expect we need to look at things like daggerboard position fore and aft, shroud tension, we have a small rake and fairly loose shroud with the leeward one swinging around a bit, should they be tighter? Obviously a lot of forestay sag. Thats about it, there was a P cat in the classifieds on here.
Thanks,Steve.

That boat was designed with a spinnaker. You may be using the spin blocks for the jib. Rig should be much tighter. jib/main slot should be 2' & you're probably 4'. Make sure your main is center traveled. It will tack at 90 degree angles. Pete

Thanks Pete, we have a copy of the owners manual which shows the deck layout and we dont have it rigged totally the same because we wanted to clean it up a bit, we are sheeted to the same location though but dont have the 2:1 purchase which i dont think we need, i think a big part of the problem is we havnt rigged the barberhaulers on the jib sheets which it is supposed to have as when we prepped it for paint we removed all the nasty old original hardware and filled the holes, we want to simplify it a lot as with the original sheeting there is just too many lines to the back of the boat to get tangled up in when tacking and just pleasure sailing.
Steve.

the jib sheeting position is vital on any boat if you want to point without the jib flogging

the previous own of my nacra 5.2 had moved the jib sheeting position from over the tramp to the hulls to free up some space but it meant the large over lapping jib couldn't be set for upwind work at all

other important things for pointing are a tight forestay and flat main, get that cunningham sorted

the barber haulers are not used upwind



Edited by erice on Sep 18, 2011 - 11:54 PM.

biglakesailor

I think this is my first post on here and i need some help. I bought an old Pacific cat 19 last fall that hadnt been in the water for at least 12 years, refurbished it over the winter and have been enjoying it this summer..

biglakesailor,

Welcome to TheBeachcats.com, glad to hear you have resurrected one of the members of the "dead boat society". It's always a mystery how rare boats are supposed to be rigged, if you get lucky someone remembers.

It really helps the next guy if (once you get yours figured out) you will document what you learn, take pictures and even make diagrams for a technical help album here.

You mention you've got a copy of the original owners manual for a P-Cat? I'd love to have a scan of that for the technical section if you could do it.

Again, welcome to the site, keep us updated on how it goes.

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Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
Memphis, TN

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This is all we have right now on the Pacific Cat, please add pictures of your boat.
http://www.thebeachcats.c…ictures/?g2_itemId=73548

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Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
Memphis, TN

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Ill have to get my son to add the pictures, he took a bunch from when i bought it on ebay last fall from Boat Angel and we dragged it back from Fairfax Virginia to Minnesota, a 3000 mile round trip for a $300 boat. We worked on it in the spring painting it in the same color scheme as my Macgregor 36 cat that i lost in a warehouse fire a few years ago. My boat is hull#293 built in 1970 so it has the low aspect rig which i think contributes to its apparent lack of desire to bury the lee bow, you would have to try hard to pitchpole it i think. We have removed all the spinnaker gear as we dont seem to have a downwind problem, in a race last satureday we started with the spinnaker fleet on a downwind start and were 3rd to the 1st mark behind a Nacra A2 and a Mumm 30, it all went to hell on the long beat though.
Steve.