Paul Henderson, the outgoing president of the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) says he is partial to catamarans because they do not benefit from kinetics as monohulls do. (Kinetics refers to the crew being able to manipulate their weight fore and aft or in tacking and jibing maneuvers to make the boat go faster.)

When I was sailing monohulls, like Thistles and Lightnings, many years ago, we used to use kinetics to “ooch” the boat forward and help it to get onto a plane or ride a wave better. In today’s dinghies the sailors are trained to do roll tacks and jibes in such a way that the boat comes out of the maneuver with more speed, and there are rules prohibiting this, but the rules are difficult to enforce.

My question is: Can kinetics be used to enhance the speed of catamarans? Most catamaran sailors I have talked to about this seem to think that kinetics CAN be effective with catamarans although to a lesser extent than with monohulls that are capable of planing. (And, of course, some catamaran sailors think that some catamaran designs ARE capable of planing, but let’s just assume we are talking about catamarans as displacement boats, which most of them are.)

So here are my two questions:
1.Can crew weight movement be used effectively to increase speed of the boat in certain circumstances? I know I was moving my weight forward and aft on the downwind legs in the Turks & Caicos to help me catch and hold onto waves. Is this legal or not legal? Does it help or not help?

2. Also, if you have water in your hull, can you use the movement of that water fore and aft to have a kinetic effect that could improve speed in certain circumstances? I know that if you have water in your hull, and if you are going downwind and the boat tilts forward as it is going down a wave, the water rushes forward and increases the potential for a pitchpole. But if that forward rush of the water could be used somehow, in much the same way that monohull sailors use their crew weight to ooch the boat forward, is there a way to make that forward rush of water beneficial? (i.e., increase the speed of the boat but not to the point of pitchpoling?)