Flying cat,

Were I sail I ALWAYS have to go out through a surf encountering about 3 sandbars before the bottom drop to a comfortable 2 to 3 mtr (and more) deepness.

At worse tide I also have to sail through a few hundred meters of shallow water. More often then not with some breaking surf on top of that. We do have easy days but I can count them on on hand per season.

I can assure you that I'm by no means a dock launcher.

I found that the conditions I'm sailing in, and Dutch conditions in general, are grossly underestimated by foreign sailors. I don't exactly understand why.






So people keep telling me. However, based on my personal experiences, this doesn't seem to be the case. I'm also of the generation that learned the sail any sailboat by the sails alone. No sailor overhere can use their rudders for a sizeable portion of hte road to deeper water while traversing the breaking surf. No hobie system, no nacra system, no system period allows you to partially set a rudder in our conditions. Hold down systems with a bungee cord pressing the tip of the rudder board to the ground are quickly disgarded overhere as in our surf condition you WILL be thrown (pushed) back by the surf. If your rudder is tounching the ground than the boat will ride up on its rudder and cause major damage to your sterns or break your rudders.

The motto in our surf is "Speed is everything !" . Pretty much we try to build up enough speed so that we punch through each (breaking) wave in the surf without coming to a full stop. All of us do this without locking down out rudders. We set out jibs relatively tight and with a very open mainsail. (alot of mainsail twist and the main traveller far out) We round p by sheeting in the main and we bear off by sheeting it out again. Pretty much all race catamarans are setup with some weather helm so the boats are balanced with a tight jib and a relatively open mainsail. We hold on to our tiller bars to engage the rudders when absolutely needed, but we steer mostly with sheeting our mainsail. Please note that we are often sailing with several meters a second like this. That is quite fast. Sailors of boarded boats set at least some 15 to 20 cm board as soon as they can. Without it a boarded cat is very difficult to put through the surf as it slides away to lee so much.


I trying to express that I've sailed for about 3 years with the line system as depicted (Ricks) on a KL18 Warp when I was a sailing instructor on this Dutch coastline. The KL18 was a skeg boat and these are more easy to sail through the surf than a boarded cat with round keellines. I can really say that I didn't notice any help from this system when going through the surf. The skegs, yes, rudder setup, not really. I did notice that the bloody hold down lines where always slipping through those ronstan cleats. We keep all our boats on the beach during the summer time and these lines become hard and smooth on the outside pretty fast. After several weeks of being out there the V-cleat would be insufficient to hold down the rudder when sailing at speed. You would notice this because the helm would get progressively sluggish and heavy when sailing. Eventually I would just park the boat out side of the surf, pull the rudders really tight, cleat the line and then tie it off behind the cleat really tight as well. The line would not slip anymore (nor would the rudders kick-up !) but I still would get some sluggisnes in the steering because the line would stretch a little bit with time. From my perspective you get a few bad aspects for hardly any good aspects in the surf. I also sailed the Cirrus Ocean (Recreational version of the Cirrus F18) with a similar system when I was an intructor. Same experiences there although the Cirrus system was better implemented. It also used those ronstan kick-up V-cleats.




What does BFD mean ?





Luckily we don't have any reefs or rocks formations at our shore line, however I have never walked my boat in our out in any conditions except total windlessness. And even then I most swam or peddled it in.

It may be wise to not make any assumptions in these cases. As far as I can tell my conditions pretty much mirror yours with a few minor differences like having sandbars instead coral reefs.





Please read my other posts on this topic more throrougly. I can do something with my rudder setup that can not be done with many others. I actually have far better garantee of steerage then any nacra/hobie or comparable system without risking my damage. Also the kick-up force with the rod engaged is alot more dependable than what I experienced with line systems. I found that line systems and this ronstan kick-up cleat can require quite alot of force before disengaging due to friction in the system and the build up of salt and dirt in the kick-upcleat. My rod system setup really doesn't have this problem.

Really, I have had experiences with several implementations of both systems and the post 2003 AHPC setup of the rod system is really better then any hold-down-line system with kick-up cleat I ever experienced. Without a doubt. With respect to shallow water and surf near the beach. Learn to sail and steer your boat without depending on your rudders much. No matter which lock-down system you use steerage is always slow and heavy when the rudders aren't fully down. Steering by using your sails effectively is both faster and more dependable. Learn to sail like that. Bungees to hold down your rudders so they are scrapping the bottom is in my experience a receipy for damage and worn down tips. And it won't give you the steerage you are looking for most of the way any way.

Wouter



I'd like to see more pics of the solution.. Thanks