Originally Posted by Headhunter
Originally Posted by Timbo
OK, here's another thought, take a look at the tramps on the AC or VX 40 cats. They use what looks like a big fishing net, about 3" square, open weave type tramp, vs. what we use on our beach cats, a much tighter weave.

Why? Does nobody make a huge roll of our tight weave? Or, is there 'less drag' with the open weave, where the wind can blow right through the entire tramp?

And why are no beach cats using it? I was seriously thinking about trying to buy a square of that 3" open weave stuff for my Prindle replacement, or something like they use for bow nets on a Corsair, or what they use on the bows of the big cruising cats, it would be very cool for my kids to just look straight down on the water rushing by. Like this: http://multihullnets.com/product/opendk.htm

Yeah, it might hurt your butt more to sit on it, but hey, just sit on the hull and there won't be a problem.


I usually sail in shorts and that crap tears your knees to hell when tacking/gybing. One of our local sailing crew has it for a tramp on his Super 17 and he hates it.

I have the usual tramp in back and 2" net in the front. The front's not bad since I'm not usually up there when sailing. But when I'm working on something and have to kneel on the net for any period of time... wow is that stuff miserable. Also, there's no getting the net as tight as a regular tramp and keeping it there. You sink a lot deeper into it, which probably contributes to tearing up your knees.
I believe the reason for using the net tamps is that light boats with large tramps that extend beyond the main cross beam can flip over backwards when tacking in high winds if they use the standard weave tramps.