Thanks for showing so much interest for my sailing spot. You now all start to have a better idea of my problems. And there are still much more:


Somewhere in the middle of the video with which I have started this discussion, you can see that I'm catched by a sort of little freakwave far away from the coast. This wave hits the jibsheet (through my nettramp) so hard that the sheet loosens itself from the cleat. You can see that all on the video (after that I jibed and changed from portside to starboard wind).

Now this little video was taken in moderate wind 16-20 knots with side shore wind which was just arriving after many days of no wind. So low profile circumstances.
When the wind stays there a few days more or is turning to more onshore direction or is increasing, all these effects like shorebreak and freakwaves further grow instantly.

Often I find myself on the limit of my cat just by the seastate and not by the windforce. I can sail on flat water up to 30 knots (unreefed).

But when the waves are higher then my beamsize (2.5m) then I have already to avoid each hit side-on, because it will turn the cat over. So what to do? More cross in the wind, but than ending to high for the course back? Or try to ride the wave and fly more off the wind?
The last choice is at the moment itself definitly more scary then the first. But the first solution is delay of trouble, because I can not tack with my cat, so than I have to jibe in high waves anyway.

During sailing I always want to have this feeling of control, each second. And because of that I wonder how modern cats behave differently in those circumstances.

ronald reeder