Hi all, let me tell you the reason I'm asking.

I don't have much cat experience yet but I just love 'em! My brother and I went out about a month ago in a Topcat K2 model (no boards). We were having great fun and even flipped the boat once just for the hell of it. Never noticed a tacking problem, although I tended to keep the weight forward during tacking as advised by the rental guy. So far, so good. So great actually, we were screaming! Well, no, we were cool, but the boat was screaming... Ahum.

Then we decided to go in so the ol' cumulonimbus' wouldn't catch us. When we got in it looked like the nasty stuff would stay much farther out to sea, so went out again. DUMB DUMB DUMB...
In the end we were caught out in a gale and I really had to pull out all the stops just to stay upright. But I couldn't for the life of me get the boat tacked. It was hard enough to estimate where we were going, because I couldn't see more than 30-40ft ahead. I didn't dare to put very much tension on the main sheet (even if I could physically have managed to) to get a tight enough jib luff. I was praying the mast top would handle the savage beating it was getting. So we jibed instead, but that cost me a lot of height because of the dramatic speed increase and the time it took me to time the jibes so as not to trip on any waves. Thank heavens for boomless mains or I wouldn't have dared to jibe an unreefed main in gale force winds.

Can anyone give me some tips I should consider in situations such as this. Not being there is one I already considered...


Dennis