Thanks for all the tips guys... We took her out today hoping for a nice day out on the lake but some sudden violent thunderstorms rolled in quickly on us. I gotta say that having sailed a hobie 14 on my grandparents lake down in South Florida I would be ready for the Nacra.... I was WRONG!! The jib sheet makes a huge speed difference and the whole boat is like a formula one race car in comparison to that hobie. When the wind picked up it took off like a rocket and honestly scared the crap out of me for a few tense moments. I regained control and managed to keep my family and I on the trampoline. I told my poor wife to pull down the jib even tho she did not know how and from the sounds of your description I had it on wrong anyways. She managed to get it pulled down and kinda folded up and sat on it while I tried to get the boat to come about for a tack back towards our boat launch point. That wind was pretty wicked for a little while then it started raining and we were all soaken wet. The kids started crying and to my astonishment my wife was grinning from ear to ear. I kinda had a moment of what the hell has she gone mad and then it hit me.... this was pretty damn exciting!! I aimed the boat for a break between the two thunderstorms and tried my best to sail her into the wind to get there and managed to get us thru the least dangerous area without any lightning and torrential rain. We managed to get it back to a boat launch that was not where we started but I REALLY wanted to get everyone off the boat until the lightning went away. We sat there and a nice fellow drove me and the kids the half mile back to our launch spot and picked up our van and trailer. Drove back to the other launch and picked up my wife and the cat. We were laughing our butts off while we tidied up the mast and lines for the trip home talking about how scared we all looked when the wind really started to rip. I guess we survived it and nothing broke and nobody fell off and we did not perform any boat acrobatics like a pitchpole or anything so all in all it was a great time!!

I got the boat home today and realized that the rudders were not setup right. The fellow who owned the boat basically tightened the crap out of the pinch bolts on each rudder so they would stay upright during trailering. I started looking at the rudders and saw that there is a thin bungee chord broken inside the tube. I removed it and replaced the line that secures the rudders in the down position. The problem is how to keep it up without the bungees in there. I fashioned a keeper from some heavy gauge tig welding stainless wire to go from the other hole in the rudder to the end of the steering arm pivot. It seems like it should work fine and will hopefully keep me from grinding my rudder tips into oblivion while going down the road. Then when I get to the water it is easy to remove them and toss them into the van.

I am also unclear about the dagger board setup. They are long and heavy and wing shaped and they have a large knot in the top to keep them from falling thru into the depths below. They also have a small bungee chord that goes from a little line going thru two slits in the trampoline to the daggerboard. I was under the impression that there should be some sort of tensioner bungee that makes it possible to set the depth of the dagger board via friction? Is this incorrect?

So the jib sheet should be zipped around the forestay steel line that keeps the mast from the bridle in the front then? I was not aware of that( I know I don't know what the hell I am doing). SO you hook the jib sheet to the little stainless pin on the bridle that goes between the hulls and then using the zipper work the jib sheet up the forestay cable using the halyard to pull from the top. Then once it is up you secure the part nearest the mast bottom to that double sided rigging.

SO a block is a pulley on a line, what do you call the little line cleats/one way gates on the jib and main sheet adjustments?

The main sheet on my boat is kinda different looking from the ones I see in those youtube videos. The boom has two pulleys that are not attatched to each other rather they are attatched fore and aft of each other. Then there is the typical block and tackle looking setup on the traveler. It has the large ratchet pulley, a one way gate setup, and above the large pulley is a double row pulley. So far I have tied the main sheet line to the bottom of one of the boom pulleys and then routed it around one of the paired sheives on the traveler and then back up to the other pulley on the boom and then down around the ratcheted pulley and thru the one way gate on the traveler. The traveler has another line that goes from the bottom of the ratcheted pulley actually underneath it and thru the fixed gate on the crossbeam that runs from the front crossbeam to the rear crossbeam. Then I put it thru the one way gate for it. I understand it is to allow you to tack without having to keep changing the settings. The traveler will just rock back and forth as you tack.

I apologise for all the stupid questions and improper terms. I know how to sail the boat just not what all the terms are for everything. The Hobie 14 I sailed did not have a jib sheet tho so that part is new to me. Thanks for all your help and ideas. Where is a good place to buy replacement lines for the main and jib sheets since they kinda look worn out? Peace

Pete