Thanks Andrew, it is great to finally be out sailing.

I don't think I described it well enough because I don't think we are talking about the same thing here.

I'm sure it would be much easier if I knew the terms for the parts of my cat.

My Nacra has two very small battens up near the top and are not what catches when it swings over to the other side. The sheet itself catches on the mast. It snags on the turnbuckle for the spreader line.

Turbocat had made a temporary fix by taking bungee cord, tying one end to the front cross beam, routing it up through the top of the turnbuckle, and then back down to the other end of the cross beam. This helps somewhat but not enough that it isn't a problem.

Let me try to explain my friends Hobie a little better. It has 2 tracks on the front cross beam, one on each side. The two pulleys that the jib sheet goes through before going up to the jib are attached to these tracks, one on each side. The pulleys can then be adjusted out out and in the length of the track and then tightened down so that it cannot travel at all.

When we are sailing into the wind he tightens it down close to the mast. When we sail downwind he tightens it down at the outer end of the track.

I'm not sure that this is considered a "self tacking jib" as I don't think it does anything by itself but gives you more options to control the shape.

Here's a picture of an old SolCat put out to pasture that I visited when looking for a boat. It has the same type of thing on the front cross beam.



Hope I did a better job describing it. Sorry again