Hello everyone. This is my first post on thebeachcats, or on any forum. I figure I should document this So here is the story. I used to have a h14 turbo growing up. Thing was a blast during my early teens. Then I got into wake boarding in my 20's. After 10 years of tearing ligaments I realized it was time to settle down and get back into sailing. I was looking at hobie 18s for a while waiting for the right one to come along (cheap). I ran into a guy one day wakeboarding who I told my desire to move on from the sport and get into sailing. He said that his dad had an old catamaran in his yard and that he wanted to sell it. Up to that point all I knew about catamarans was that Hobies went fast and seasprays didn't. I had no idea there were so many manufacture of catamarans. When he told me it was an inter 20 and that he was asking $1500, i assumed it was a seaspray calibre of boat or just two unriggable hulls. I went to look at it with not a lot of enthusiasm. You can imagine I got pretty excited when I first laid my eyes on her. She looked like sh*& from sitting in the yard for 4 years up in mildewy vancouver. Also had been backed into by a rv and had numerous other gelcoat chips and scrapes. however she was sitting on a custom 3 year old ez-loader trailer which was nice. Result of the RV collision was a dollar bill size crack in the port side hull and a bent rear beam. the tramp, rigging and sails had been in dry storage and were in great condition. As well it came with a bunch of decently nice harnesses and pfds. So I bought it. Paid a guy who worked on bigger boats $800 to fix up the hulls and the rear beam. I did well on the deal.

So here is the fun part. First sail, I went to a lake that I knew there would be wind on that weekend. I invited 2 of my friends who had never been on a sail boat to join. I arrived about 4 hours before they were able to get there and started sorting through all the rigging tying to figure out what was what. Having never rigged anything but a laser and the 14, I considered my self an expert and didn't bother downloading the manual or anything before I entered the no service zone. The lines were all pretty frayed and just old. I eventually figured what was what and where it went. I even solo raised the mast. (I recorded a video of the triumph incase all went wrong and it would just make a good youtube vid). The other fellas showed up to the rigged boat and a nice 8kt breeze. It was late September and despite warning them that they were probably going to get wet,the two of them insisted on wearing jeans because it was cold out side. Whatever. So when we pushed off the wind picked up to around 12 knots. The two of them out on trap while I was at the helm. Over the coarse of our maiden tack, the wind picked up and was gusting at... more then I have ever sailed in. We were screaming across the lake, the three of us holding on and trying not to sh*& our pants. We were about 200m from the shore line and and we hit a sand bar.

So lesson one is know the body of water you are sailing on. Didn't even feel it. The boat just kinda lost steering a bit and there were white chunks of fibre glass floating away behind us. It took us about 3 hours and finally a pull from ironically a mastercraft X-star, boat I used to wakeboard behind. The rudder was barley holding on and the starboard dagger was cut in half and left at sea.. or lake.

Lesson 2, when you buy a boat, check out murrays online store and see what replacement value is on parts. You will quickly realized that breaking boat parts, especially if they are shinny is not something you want to do. We managed to fix the rudder using a piece of 1"X 3/16" flat bar I for some reason had in my truck. we used a fire to heat it up and bend it to the contour of what the missing chunk was. This held up for about 6 months then I hit a crab trap and finally learned about the magic of west systems.

I ended up buying a delaminated dagger board off ebay for a deal at $300, I used bondo, resin and gelcoat to get it back into the shape it should be. Not an easy task, still no regrets on the money I saved. A side note. I have never used any of these products before. Youtube is great for tutorials.

Here she is while getting some of her repairs before I took her to the boat yard. A little rough around the edges.



Next time I will post about hull polishing dos and don'ts (mostly donts) and gopro mounting dos and don'ts. To me this is the most important part of sailing. Everyone needs to know how rad we are.



Edited by catnoob on Oct 07, 2014 - 06:01 AM.

Insure your boat, that grounding would have only cost you your deductible.

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Greenville SC

Offering sails and other go fast parts for A-class catamarans
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Lesson 3, insure your boat.

catnoob

Hello everyone. This is my first post on thebeachcats, or on any forum. I figure I should document this So here is the story....

Hey catnoob, welcome to TheBeachcats.com and thanks for sharing your stories!

Jumping right onto a beast like a Nacra 20 after years away from the sport had all the ingredients!

Couple of expensive lessons in there but at least you got the boat for a steal to begin with. We've all been there making the big mistakes during the "learning curve" and some of us live "there" permanently.

Keep the enthusiasm and the stories coming!

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Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
Memphis, TN

How To Create Your Signature

How To Create Your Own Cool Avatar

How To Display Pictures In The Forums.
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Where do you sail out of HongCouver?
I had a investment property there, at Yaletown for 15 years. Sold it for enough $$ to pay cash for a waterfront house just north of The Big Smoke. West Van, actually any Van, is stupid expensive now.
There are Cats at Jericho, I think there is even a dedicated Cat club there.
I didn't go quite a crazy as you, I started with a 19' & soloed it most of the time. I haven't run it aground, yet, but made lots of other dumb mistakes the first year.
Make sure you can right the thing, you WILL flip it at some point.
Create an album, (Damon has "How To" in the FAQ section) so everybody else can see your ride.

ASnd hey, the Seaspray are not THAT slow...as long as you keep them out of the big waves.

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Hobie 18 Magnum
Dart 15
Mystere 6.0XL Sold Was a handful solo
Nacra 5.7
Nacra 5.0
Bombardier Invitation (Now officially DEAD)
Various other Dock cluttering WaterCrap
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