I am a Laser sailor looking at older prindle 16. Is it a a single hander? I know it will need some work, are most parts available? What areas on the hull go soft? What is the deal breaker? Is there a prindle resource on the web? Thanks MartyD

The Prindle 16 is a great boat! I had one before moving up to the Prindle 18. Easily solo-able; I also solo my 18 most of the time.

I haven't had any problems getting parts, either from Murrays or Sailing Pro Shop. Never have had any soft spots of interest either. My current 18 is about 16 years old.



Sheldon

P-18

I am a newbie sailor with a 1984 Prindle 16 that we bought this summer. I can only compare it to the Hobie Wave and the Sunfish, the other two boats I have sailed, but I like it quite a bit.



I have had no problem getting parts, people on this board are good at answering specific questions about the Prindle, and once you learn to set it up, it's not too bad, though I'm still kinda slow at it. It's easy to tow with even a small car like a Ford Escort.



So I'm a happy camper.



Jonathan

I started out on a P16 and later bought and sold a P18 (had it 3 years). I'm ugrading to a faster 16 footer now (F16) but I still have the old P16 and to be honest I just can get myself to sell it. I have owned that boat for 7 years and I love it as a throw around boat in the heavy stuff.



Bets part is that I found it to be a good singlehander while it is a doublehander design. I have the replacing forestay jib setup and love that to bits. I prefer it over the zippered jibs. When I singlehand I have a special wires that I hoist instead of the jib and thus tension my rig works great and very fast. Even setting and dropping the jib takes seconds. Thy that with an old zippered jib.



The P16 will be fun with agreat to although the crew should not be to heavy. The P16 design was intended for doublehanders weights of less than 325 lbs.



As a fast catamaran I can advice that boat it is a good compromise ( doublehanded / singlehanded) for often a very affordable secondhand price. Hell, like I said I still sail it when I'm out on an evening just having fun.



Wouter

Hmm..you replaced the standard zipped jib with a Hobie type, wire in the luff? Does it still use the ring at the top to hang from? What an interesting idea. Sure would speed up the rigging process and make life a bit easier when do so on a dock.



Sheldon

P-18

Actually I won a pre 1978 P16 and it came with the "Hobie 16" style jib setup. =(replacing forestay jib)



But yes it has a wires in the luff and is fitted on my P16 in exactely the same way as a Hobie 16 with one exception. Hobie uses a (permanent) pully system with lots of line. My boat use a steel wire with a block on its mast end. I pull the jib up without purchase by a line attached the the block and which runs trhough a turtle block or something on the bottom of the mast. Than when the jib is up but not tensioned I have to run the line through the block on the wire and run it trhough the guiding eye of a standard cleat. (no fancy stuff like cam cleats , picture the old T -shaped cleats). I then have 3 :1 purchase and with the modest size jib (compared to the H16 jib) that is enough to set the tension my my jib /forestay.



The forestay that was there no hangs slack.



I had the zippered jib on my P18 and with the zipper shot It took heaps of time to get it fitted.



Last weekend I had to decide on the jib setup of my new boat and wanted something with the ease of a replacing forestay jib and without the [censored] that comes with the standard hook and ring. I also didn't want the old forstay to flap around my jibs leech when sailing. That would not be performance oriented.



Then I remembers the way things are done on skiffs and figured that the same thing can be done on cats. Ergo use a trap wire as a stay holding up the mast when parking the boat and unhook it when the jib is hoisted. When singlehanding I will just hoist a stell wire instead. This will leave me without an old forestay flapping around.



Now I didn't want the jib halyard to run down the leading edge of my mast and I certainly didn't want to sacrifice the sealing of the mast by leading the halyard through the inside of the mast.



Than I thought that if I hooked the jib on something up the mast that than the halyard wouldn't have to transmit the big rig loads while sailing and that I could use a small diameter halyard and just let it run don one of the sidestays, away from the sails and mast. Put a bungee with plastic hook on the chainplate and the halyard would always be tensioned resist flapping. Can only be done with 3 mm specta of dyneema line but I have done this already and it worked very well.



But how to hook it up the mast and not have the hook and ring blues when lowering that jib at force 10. I spend 90 % of the time trying to figure that out. I draw a few force diagrams out of boredom and lack of inspiration and found that I had drawn one wrong. The hook system could never sit that way because the halyard tension would pull it away from that position. WHAM ! it hit me. By manipulating the halyard tension I could move part of the system towards or away from the jib !

Than it took me a few hours to get it just right and simple. Turns out that I can use a standard chainplate with holes, two pins, one wheel, two shackles and one sail hook to make a hooking system that could be manupulated to hook or release with one movement of the arm.



Ergo the new "forestay replacing jib" was born. It look almost certain that it will go on my new boat. I'm still looking for something to act as a hook in my test setup.



Anyway. That's what I've been doing last weekend.



WOuter

Wow. Quite a job you did there. I'm not sure I could duplicate it though. My only real problem with the standard set up is that when I have to launch from a dock, I put up the jib while still in the lot (forget hanging over the bridle if the boat is in the water...too much balancing to be done!). Considered roller furling but then that means I have to re-work the battens and possibly lose some performance.



Thanks for posting your details. It's made me start thinking about what changes I could make.



Sheldon

P-18

Sheldon,

I angled the jib battens on my P18 and tested it out yesterday. I had been using the jib without any battens since I switched to roller furling. We didn't have great winds, but I noticed that the jib definetely fluttered quite a bit less and I could point higher than before. I did the sewing myself and it was really easy. The trade off for roller furling has been more than worth it to me. I would think that since you usually go solo, it would be even more important to you.

Later,

Jack Hoying

P18

Jack,



I'd like to hear how you re-angled them. New pockets? I'm hopeless when it comes to sewing! (hmm may have to hit Gary up for that). Did you also cut down the size of the battens? Since I have an extra jib, I could experiment with that one. You're right, being solo I sure could use that little bit of extra help, especially with the dock setup, etc. One less item fluttering in the wind!



Regards from socal!



Sheldon

Have a new Jib from Smythteam I ordered it with everything; mylar/pentex sandwich etc. We discussed how to roller furl it.



1. rolling battens

2. angled battens



1. Rolling bats, sez the man, don't lie down neatly when they're not full length.



2. He likes and recommends angled Battens for my application. (15' leach, 16'6" luff, 2 short battens) Says there's no appreciable loss in performance.



Here's my experience:



I love this jib!



Two tornado sailors (I'm not a t-sailor) on my beach are angling their jib battens over the winter, after seeing how well mine does. One of them now uses rolling battens. From the furlers, you can tell these guys don't compete in the Class. But still.



The sail rolls up in an extremely neat little tube, with minimal effort, even when spanking new and stiff as he-double hockey sticks. Granted, I upgraded my sails dramatically at the same time, but it's not just me who loves the way this jib sets and sails.



The battens intersect (and therefor interupt flutter wavelength in) the leach at about the same places as the old battens do. In my case, this is almost exactly one-third and two-thirds. From those points, they travel parallel to the luff, for quite some distance. The other end is, when measured perpendicular to the leach, about as far into the sail as the original short battens went; you just need longer battens to get that far into the sail due to the oblique angle of penetration.

Jack,

I got the picture you e-mailed me. Looks nice. The previous post made me wonder about the length of the battens. I take it you didn't cut them down at all? To lengthen the battens would mean enlarging the pocket. I prefer your approach, just moving the existing pocket to the other angle. All of this because the less elements I need to change, the better chance I have of being able to do it! I'm going to pull out the old jib this coming weekend and look it over.



Sheldon