I am here to revive the SolCat thread. Hopefully some of the original contributors to this thread are still around....

I rescued a Sol Cat 18 a few weeks back and have been able to piece her back together. I was able to still get new rigging and a tramp from Salty Dog, and score some used dagger boards in decent shape for spares.

The rudders were complete garbage so I fitted a complete rudder / tiller setup from a H16 to the hulls. This was a bit of a challenge as I had to fabricate new grudgens and tweak the tiller, but over all they seem to work very well on the boat. (On a side note, I have the original rudder castings, grudgens, and tiller parts if someone is looking for replacements / spares)

We got her on the water last week in light air and she sailed well. Ran into two snags however. She is taking on more water than I would have accepted as normal in both hulls and the dolphin striker which was damaged by previous owner tailoring actually broke when putting her on the trailer.

I am making a new spar for Dolphin Stiker as no spare could be found. Only place that in my mind she could have leaked that much was through dagger board wells. Can anyone tell me if this is common on these boats?

One last question, I had one person tell me that they believe that is was common for masts to snap under high wind conditions and that diamond wires should be added to this boat if we plan to sail her hard (we do). My mast does not have diamond wires, and as far as I can tell, never has. Can anyone confirm the Sol 18 Mast as being problematic, and have any recommendations for retrofitting diamond wires? I understand the very basic physics concepts behind how these would strengthen the mast, but up till now have only owned / sailed H16s.

Thanks in advance for any help.