Go for it. Big cats are fun cats!!! Be smart and bring hefty buddies.
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John
Nacra 5.0
CT
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First catamaran supercat 19?
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Posted: Dec 11, 2019 - 09:16 PM
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Posted: Dec 11, 2019 - 09:41 PM
Growing up around the water, I have NO idea why I didn't get a catamaran earlier. The big ones are more "serious" because of the weights, power and potential energy...for something to go wrong. Or go fast. You have to have that disciplined mind set, where with a 16 to even 18 footer you can jack around and not get into too much trouble...in theory. But, if you develop good play-by-play set up and execution, you can handle the 19. Just WAY less room for error. Harder to find parts, repair etc. When you need to.
Gonna use racing discipline? You're good and will have a blast.
Gonna get stoned and screw around on the lake? You're screwed.
You sound like you're in that first class of person, however. We all want to know how this comes out because we want others to know the blast it is to sail beach cats...especially the younger gen.
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Chuck C
NACRA 500 Mk2
Hobie 21se (sold)
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Posted: Dec 12, 2019 - 12:54 PM
A stepladder? We don't all have a house and workshop on the shore. I don't have "home" water, and instead trailer from lake to lake behind a Subaru Outback. Where the hell am I going to carry a stepladder? The roof is already occupied with a box for sailing/camping gear and a kayak rack. Be realistic.
You haven't elaborated on your concern about "gin pole loads". I don't know yet how it's going to be to raise my SC19's mast, but in the unlikely event I find it to be too much, a gin pole will be the next thing I try. If for some reason you think that's an unsafe practice, don't toss around canards. Tell us what makes you nervous.
Edited by jonathan162 on Dec 12, 2019 - 01:13 PM.
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Southern Alberta and all over the damn place.
*
1981 SuperCat 20 "Roberts' Rockets"
1983 SuperCat 19
TriFoiler #23 "Unfair Advantage"
Mystere 17
Unicorn A-Class (probably made by Trowbridge) that I couldn't resist rescuing at auction.
H18 & Zygal (classic) Tornado - stolen and destroyed - very unpleasant story.
Invitation and Mistral and Sunflower and windsurfers w/ Harken hydrofoils and god knows what else...
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Posted: Dec 12, 2019 - 02:32 PM
Seems a little dramatic. A ladder easily fits below a cat on the trailer, even with a sail tube, or on top of the tramp where it is in a perfect position to be used for its intended purpose when needed. It weighs almost nothing and holds up to the elements. I know several of us do it. I double deckered 2 cats, with 2 sets of sails, spare parts, beach wheels and 4 guys weeks worth of camping gear in a Honda CRV and the ladder was not an inconvenience.
If you have another system that’s great but I assure you hauling a ladder is not the monstrosity you make it.
I will say using the existing mast support on the trailer can work just as well, especially if you haul your boat bows facing backwards -
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Posted: Dec 12, 2019 - 02:52 PM
It wasn't me who had the concern about gin pole use. My friend uses one to raise the mast on his H21 and it is a beast (can pretty much do it by himself with the pole). I use one on my F-24 and the system has been around for nearly two decades. No issues at all.
As for the step ladder, jalex is correct. It is light enough to go anywhere. That said, for my F16, I am going to install a removable rear support in lieu of the ladder. I have had the mast up and down enough now to know the minimum angle needed to use the mast stand/winch to raise it solo with no sweat.
Question, with the boat facing backwards, what is used to crank up the mast?
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dk
Blade F-16
Hobie 14
Corsair F-242
Mirage 25 (Sold)
Hobie Tiger (Sold)
Hobie Tiger (Sold)
TomCat 6.2 (Sold)
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Posted: Dec 12, 2019 - 03:11 PM
I don’t crank it, I just use the ladder or support to get it at enough of an angle I’m not dead lifting it off the tramp. A little different from what the rest of you are discussing, but still applies getting the mast started at an angle -
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Posted: Dec 12, 2019 - 03:19 PM
exactly why i trailer "backwards"
i can use the mast yoke to hold the pinned mast at a favorable angle so i can get under it and lift
works on a moderately heavy mast
still would not be enough for me to attempt a solo mast raising of ANY supercat mast. they are build like a tree -
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Posted: Dec 12, 2019 - 03:29 PM
For us it's a family of four (three women!) plus kit, so we're pretty jammed for space. The 19 came without any on-trailer storage, and a tube (which I've used in the past) isn't going to cut it because this thing's boards are HUGE (and that's before I decide whether I'm going to trailer rudders-on or -off) so I'm going to have to come up with a 10' long box. The ladder's weight is immaterial - it's the overall volume it displaces, which is disproportionately large... and awkward... and clattery. So that's a nonstarter.
Geometrically speaking, I don't follow you.
[edit]
Oh, I get it. By trailering backwards the (tongue-mounted) mast stand already has it up at 20 degrees or something so it's not a dead lift.
Edited by jonathan162 on Dec 12, 2019 - 04:23 PM.
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Southern Alberta and all over the damn place.
*
1981 SuperCat 20 "Roberts' Rockets"
1983 SuperCat 19
TriFoiler #23 "Unfair Advantage"
Mystere 17
Unicorn A-Class (probably made by Trowbridge) that I couldn't resist rescuing at auction.
H18 & Zygal (classic) Tornado - stolen and destroyed - very unpleasant story.
Invitation and Mistral and Sunflower and windsurfers w/ Harken hydrofoils and god knows what else...
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Posted: Dec 12, 2019 - 04:52 PM
The big hairy problem is dropping a mast. Was next to a new guy when he dropped his H16 mast and THAT was dramatic. I couldn't imagine what bad would happen if I lost a trap wire or other stabilizing cable during a lift...it would be the ruin of the mast and some kind of a dangerous impact. It's why I steadfastly refuse to lift with anyone (or anything like another car) in a radius at LEAST the height of the mast. I've politely asked people to move at the beach and/or warn parents with kids. They've always been very appreciative, interested and comply for those 2 minutes during which the operation proceeds. I also inform my crew to back out fast and "let it drop" if anything goes wrong.
I do a lot with crane rigging safety and asked a ton of questions at the outset about making a gin pole. Didn't get a ton of answers, but guys here were/are helpful enough. The big hairy deal here is, if you don't get the pulling angles right, you can have a catastrophic incident and easily pull apart a cable, etc., which might drop the mast. Again, BAD. That's what makes light masts/smaller boats so inviting-ease/have more fun sooner, with less trouble. BUT if you want to carry a family, then you need buoyancy = bigger boat.
HOWEVER, there are ways to skin this cat (see how I worked that in?). I ended up doing a modification between the A-frame permanently mounted on the trailer and the standard gin pole. I built a square bracket, that the boat slides up against, with a gin pole mounter to a hinge on the bracket. This bracket is in line with the ball, at the same level. I have ropes on either side to stabilize the gin pole. They stay on and double as hold downs for the mast. Now, the boat is always perfectly aligned, the gin pole is always on the trailer and I can step the mast in the same time or maybe even slightly faster than my buddy can his H16. It's just pull backwards, rotate into position, pin the mast base and crank it up. The forestay stays attached to the mast from the last time I sailed as letting it down is the reverse operation. I can do it solo, but don't. I also use a ladder (no offense), it's for ease. I got a bow roller, mounted it in a 6 inch PVC pipe and strap that to the ladder to make propping the mast a little easier, can control it and move it a bit. Doesn't work as well as I'd hoped. I'll get pics this weekend of the setup and upload them.
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Chuck C
NACRA 500 Mk2
Hobie 21se (sold)
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Posted: Dec 12, 2019 - 09:23 PM
Ah, got the backward thing. Do you hook up stays to stabilize side to side?
My F16 mast is so light, I will give that a try in the spring. As for my Tiger to do it solo, I think I would still go forward, hook up trapeze wires to stabilize side to side and crank it up using the mast stand winch.
I do understand all the extra precautions for an H21 mast. It is a beast. My friend does an A frame, gin pole stabilized thingy set up on his and it is all worth the peace of mind.
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dk
Blade F-16
Hobie 14
Corsair F-242
Mirage 25 (Sold)
Hobie Tiger (Sold)
Hobie Tiger (Sold)
TomCat 6.2 (Sold)
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Posted: Dec 12, 2019 - 11:15 PM
I do it very similar to how Matt Miller shows in this video:
https://www.hobie.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=19910
I use the trap wires to stabilize, HOWEVER you must watch the tension or else this happens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpfoaiiBA0M
At around 15:00 to 16:00 in video, they bust a trap wire. The mast on A H21SE is on a curved cross bar, like a 17 or 18, therefore when you raise it, it pulls on the trap lines way more than on a straight crossbar. You have to get all the rotation points on the same plane or have a way to adjust lines looser when you raise and tighter when you lower. Those guys looked like they had a tough time of it in the middle of a crowd, but saved it. There are a lot of learning points in that second video. Very valuable lessons.
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Chuck C
NACRA 500 Mk2
Hobie 21se (sold)
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Posted: Dec 13, 2019 - 10:03 AM
First, get the SC19! It's a great boat! Inspect the standing rigging closely. Consider replacing all of it.
I've sailed with 3 SC19 owners. They all liked the reverse cowgirl trailering position. One guy used a gin pole with the block and tackle hitched to whatever fixed point he could find at the ramp. The other two went with the Iwo Jima walk up with a person out front on belay with a line on the forstay. All three used the trap wires secured to the ends of the front crossbar to arrest the sway. In all cases it was on the trailer in the ramp parking lot.
I sail an SC15. Also a great boat. I trail bows forward. I have a rear mast support that holds the mast about 3 feet off the stern crossbar when stored. Pinned to the step the masthead is about 8 feet off the ground. The front mast support telescopes up to about 10 feet off the ground. I run the winch strap over a bow roller at the top and rig a line to the masthead. I also use the trap wires to stop the sway. I hook them to the tie down straps on the front trailer crossbar.
I rig up and down single handed. An extra hand doesn't hurt though.
I got tired of having boat gear in the van and tied on the tramp so I built a box that holds it all and mounted it on the trailer tongue between the bows. I can open the lid with the boat on the trailer. It did up the tongue weight a bit. I had to move the axle forward.
Good luck with the SC19
GH
ps: I failed to mention, TIE DOWN THE STERN!
also I found it easier to attach/dis attach the two points of the forstay bridle at waist level as opposed to trying to connect the forstay to the bridle over head.
Oh yeah, mast rotation! Don't let the mast rotate when you are letting it down. I wrap the halyard around the mast in both directions to hold it dead for and aft when lowering.
Edited by gahamby on Dec 13, 2019 - 12:13 PM.
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'82 Super Cat 15
Hull #315
Virginia
Previously owned: '70 H14, '79 H16, '68 Sailmaster 26, '85 H14T
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Posted: Dec 13, 2019 - 10:03 AM
I think it's pretty obvious that if you're paying attention to what you're doing instead of trying to be BeachScorcese, you can catch a problem like this before it happens.
We're getting off on a bit of a mast-stepping tangent here, but I'll add .25 . The situation with my H18 at the family cottage on Lake Muskoka is somewhat unique in that the only way into the water is through the woods and with a rather nasty drop, so I was forced to figure out how to raise the mast with the boat on the water. This sounds easy - until you try it and find that the boat bounces a lot while you're lifting (from the tramp), and that the first victim is the hinge casting. The solution was to point the boat at the boathouse dock, brace the bows against a couple of those big rubber trailer bow bumpers, and raise the mast with a winch on the boathouse. The winch was mounted up high enough that I didn't need a gin pole - just standing in the water and lifting the mast that first couple of feet was adequate. And I did the trap-lines-to-crossbeam thing - loosening them as it went up so as not to do the above-described stupid. That was easy enough, but followed by a very fiddly operation to bring together the forestay and furler with a small, high-ratio block and tackle. But it worked every time.
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Southern Alberta and all over the damn place.
*
1981 SuperCat 20 "Roberts' Rockets"
1983 SuperCat 19
TriFoiler #23 "Unfair Advantage"
Mystere 17
Unicorn A-Class (probably made by Trowbridge) that I couldn't resist rescuing at auction.
H18 & Zygal (classic) Tornado - stolen and destroyed - very unpleasant story.
Invitation and Mistral and Sunflower and windsurfers w/ Harken hydrofoils and god knows what else...
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Posted: Dec 13, 2019 - 10:29 AM
That statement is both weird and funny.
I think I follow, if by "front mast support" you mean "gin pole". The only part I don't get is how you get the winch line off the mast head after it's up.
Oh - that's cool. Funny I never considered it. Not just easier wrt height, but potentially less complicated than the common bridle-apex/furler/chainplate combination (e.g. H18).
Edited by jonathan162 on Dec 13, 2019 - 10:35 AM.
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Southern Alberta and all over the damn place.
*
1981 SuperCat 20 "Roberts' Rockets"
1983 SuperCat 19
TriFoiler #23 "Unfair Advantage"
Mystere 17
Unicorn A-Class (probably made by Trowbridge) that I couldn't resist rescuing at auction.
H18 & Zygal (classic) Tornado - stolen and destroyed - very unpleasant story.
Invitation and Mistral and Sunflower and windsurfers w/ Harken hydrofoils and god knows what else...
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Posted: Dec 13, 2019 - 11:40 AM
Bingo
Yup, that is me coming over to help (be a 3rd person)
this issue is the loads get very high, any stay that is close to failure will be tested
gin poles are reliable and have been used for years but they are a pain to dial in, if you have curved beams they require on the fly adjustments of the guy lines and don't really solve all the issues (still need to be able to pin the forestay to the bridal - my ez mast gin pole didn't solve that last issue
in the end - for me the amount of time getting the jin pole rigged, the extra time it took to adjust the guy lines and the high loads are a bit freaky - in the end i just asked someone to pull on a safetly line from the front while i was on tramp -
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Posted: Dec 13, 2019 - 11:51 AM
I have a 6'-0" front mast support that I rigged a telescoping extension into. This makes the angle of the lift line deep enough to lift the mast. It's like a static gin pole. The line from the masthead to the winch strap is a mast length bridle that I hook to the Aussie ring and haul up the mast with the main halyard. I use a sail track slug to keep it tight to the mast. I have to rig a trip line to the ring to pop it off the hook and haul it back down. The long bridle goes around and over all the standing rigging and hooks to the winch strap.
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'82 Super Cat 15
Hull #315
Virginia
Previously owned: '70 H14, '79 H16, '68 Sailmaster 26, '85 H14T
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Posted: Dec 13, 2019 - 12:33 PM
I'm sorry, but I just can't let this false dichotomy slide. I understand what you're getting at, but there's a wide spectrum between. "Racing discipline" includes obsessive, anal-retentive tuning in order to win a race when the wind has dropped to 0.1 kt and arguing in protest committees when the wind is up. Not my idea of "good", only part of why I lost my taste for racing at an early age, and the hell with it. At the other end, "get[ting] stoned and screw[ing] around" is the kind of abject stupidity that often results in its practitioners ultimately assuming water temperature.
Personally, I'm one of those guys somewhere in the middle who just wants to get out there and hammer nails in challenging places and conditions and come back under my own steam in the right number of pieces.
Edited by jonathan162 on Dec 13, 2019 - 06:59 PM.
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Southern Alberta and all over the damn place.
*
1981 SuperCat 20 "Roberts' Rockets"
1983 SuperCat 19
TriFoiler #23 "Unfair Advantage"
Mystere 17
Unicorn A-Class (probably made by Trowbridge) that I couldn't resist rescuing at auction.
H18 & Zygal (classic) Tornado - stolen and destroyed - very unpleasant story.
Invitation and Mistral and Sunflower and windsurfers w/ Harken hydrofoils and god knows what else...
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Posted: Dec 13, 2019 - 01:54 PM
ladders are easy to carry and work well exactly as described. lots more people use this for beach cats vs gin poles (in my 20 years of beach cat sailing experience at least)
Gin pole loads - gin poles slowly move the mast from horizontal to vertical and about 70% of that time there are enormous loads on the mast hinge, the gin pole lines, and the trap lines that are used as a stabilizer. at any time ... any weakness in these locations will be tested. if you are solo and cranking on your winch you have no chance of "saving" your mast from crashing down. -
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Posted: Dec 13, 2019 - 02:07 PM
I'm not looking to beat this to death, but there's no magic in it - this is the stuff of first-year statics.
The mast base is subjected to exactly the loads it was designed for. The trap lines are (unless something has been screwed up) subjected to almost no load at all, since the tension on them only increases if and when the mast goes off lateral center - exactly what they're there to prevent. The gin pole is a member in compression, so any reasonable extrusion will do. About all that leaves is the gin pole lines, so don't undersize them. That's all. Hardly something to be regarded with fear and apprehension.
--
Southern Alberta and all over the damn place.
*
1981 SuperCat 20 "Roberts' Rockets"
1983 SuperCat 19
TriFoiler #23 "Unfair Advantage"
Mystere 17
Unicorn A-Class (probably made by Trowbridge) that I couldn't resist rescuing at auction.
H18 & Zygal (classic) Tornado - stolen and destroyed - very unpleasant story.
Invitation and Mistral and Sunflower and windsurfers w/ Harken hydrofoils and god knows what else...
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Posted: Dec 13, 2019 - 02:18 PM
no crank possible in this configuration unless you create a gin pole setup that has a turning block on it so it can redirect under the tramp to the trailer winch (my 6.0 came like this)
boat backwards allows solo person to step but it's still very advantageous to have someone upfront for the connecting the forestay to the bridal/furler or even better to help with the mast stepping via a safety line on the forestay
without that second set of hands you either need a spin halyard tied to the bridal so when the mast is stepped you can secure the mast via the spin halyard until you get down from the tramp and walk to the front to secure the halyard to the bridal
OR
you need to carefully walk off the tramp forward while holding thehalyardforestay - this can be sketchy so it's best to make sure you have gravity workin in your favor (bows tilted down a bit)
Edited by MN3 on Dec 13, 2019 - 08:05 PM.
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