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Just been watching some of the 18' skiff footage on http://www.sailcam.tv/video_flash.php?vid=188 and it's left me wondering why we don't use bigger kite cats?

In the half-boat world, mast-top kites are common place, but seemingly not for cats. Obviously you'd have to come up with a way of keeping the mast in one piece, but the monos seem to manage it.

My first response is that the kite on the F18s/F16s I've sailed is quite big enough, thank you. But wouldn't a bigger sail just allow you to go deeper at the same speed?

Paul


Some of the big ARC cats do have masthead kites but also have baby stays that run from the mast tip to the ends of the rear beam. If you remember back to the early days of catamaran spinnakers, they were big and full and have been evolving rather quickly into the flat and smaller shapes that we have now. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing some sort of masthead rig come out for development, but I think we might find that our existing setup is pretty optimized.

I believe the answer will lie in the same reason we don't run masthead genoa's upwind (except for a few who do so in very light conditions).

Jake Kohl