Hi, my name is Paul and I joined “the dark side” this summer, this is my story...

I ended up with a Prindle 18-2 and love it. I don’t know why it took me so long to see the light.

Here’s how I arrived at my decision:
I grew up with wind-surfers and occasionally sailing on small mono’s like Scott’s or SunFish. I decided I wanted to get back into it and bought an M scow mono hull. While this boat is relatively quick and was a blast to sail, it quickly got boring… even more so watching a particular H16 blow past me every time I was out on the lake. I enjoy playing fast sports like hockey, water skiing, snow skiing to name a few, and I enjoy a good rush of adrenaline more than I enjoy a nice relaxing game of checkers, so I decide a cat was in my future.

My requirements:
I don’t plan to ever race in organized events, but I want a decent boat that is quick and won’t get boring. I need to be able rig and handle the boat myself for solo runs, but also be able to take my wife or friends with. While a boat with a spi might be great fun, I think it will be over kill for the recreational type stuff I’ll be doing on smaller lakes, so a spi is not required. The boat needs to be in decent shape, I want to spend more time sailing than fixing. Limited budget, I’m into enough other sports, I don’t have 10-20k to throw into this hobby.

I bought my P18-2 in great shape for $1900 and only had to drive an hour to pick it up. I did have to replace a few lines and figure out proper rigging, but that didn’t take long to do (thanks to this forum). I spent quite a bit of time rigging up a sling system to keep the rudders stable while trailering (now I don’t have to remove them every time), but I don’t consider that to be repairs to the boat, just innovation.

With ½ of a summer under my belt on this boat I certainly haven’t gotten bored with it. It seems like I barely know the boat yet. I’ve been doing a ton of reading and playing/trying things on the water to make it quicker and get a good feel for the edge, but there’s definitely so much more adjusting and tweaking that I haven’t even had a chance to try yet. It’s a great 2-up boat, but not quite the 3-up that I thought it would be or read it would be. Maybe that’s because I expect it to handle and fly with 3 like it does with 2. Suffice to say, with 2 buddies and myself averaging around 180 lbs, it doesn’t have the zip that it does with only 2 on it and doesn’t give quite the same adrenaline rush.

I know with my 15 yr old boat and hardly any cat experience I’m nowhere near as fast as the guys on this forum who race regularly, but that’s ok, I’m not looking to race them heads up, I’m looking for a fun exciting day on the water and that’s what I get every time I’m out… unless of course you count the evening the wind died on me and I paddled for over an hour to get back to the landing… that wasn’t so fun and exciting.

While I am certainly happy with my decision, if I were to do it again with my same requirements, I would probably look at the P19 or something else just a little bigger than the 18, just to be able to carry a little more weight (read 3 people).

Sorry for the book, hope some of that rambling helps you with your decision.