for those who sail with GPS... how fast do you go? I know it depends on wind speed (duh) and conditions, but I am curious. In decent 10-15kn light chop?

top speed so far is about 19 knots on a tight, twin trap reach, no kite, 20 knots of breeze.

Here is a Polar Chart for 10 knots of various boats.

Polar Chart

I once clocked 25mph. I looked at the forecast for that day and at that specific time the gust in the area was 17mph. This was in Key West around this time last year.

It was two up on a reach.

18.9 knots, Mosquito Cat rigged, beam reach, 22-25 knots.

My zimmer frame and I get to about 2 kmph.. but you wait till I get the turbo-powered electric one!! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Sometimes as quickly as 30 seconds.......

I once was clocked by GPS going 19.4 knots on a F28R on a reach in 25 knots. It didn't feel as fast as on a beach cat.

yeah, you need the spray to sting... then you know you are going fast.

Today while racing an F28 tri in some decent winds we were doing 14knts on the upwind leg. That was pretty intense. I can only imagine 19.4

The only thing that raised the hairs on the back of my neck was when I didn't have my hand on the traveller sheet and got hit with a pretty good gust. We went up on one ama. All I could think of was "not my boat, not my boat, not my boat!" The landing went fine however. The owner loved it.

To update, finished up the regatta on the F28 today. That thing is wild! Winds were slightly lighter than saturday, still hit 12knt upwind and 13-14 downwind with the spin up.

I have very little experience with the boat and the other crew had never flown a spin before. So it was interesting setting the spin, by the end of the day we were doing better.

I've raced the F28R against monohulls twice. I found it steered effortlessly-like a dingy. The difference in pointing ability versus an Etchells made for some interesting starboard/starboard crossings. If I could afford it I would definately buy that tri. The owner paid $60K for it 5 years ago.

GPS is not very reliable for speed measuring. you need to interpolate the measurements and discard those obviously wrong. Just look how fast my Garmin eTrex think it has gone <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I've had the Velocitek S-10 model for two years now and it's been great. It gives speed and VMG on a big display and is housed in a bullet proof case. It is especially handy on a cat since seemingly minor adjustments can reep 2 knots of boat speed. Learned some interesting things the first day I had it. Went out xmas eve and came home to lay the tracks down on Google Earth and GPS Action Replay, both are free downloads. If I was good at this computer crap I could attach the tracks but I'm not so I can't. Anyway here's the link. Great piece of kit. Ed

http://www.velocitek.us/

Where do you mount your S-10? Have any pics?

On their web site they have "bar clamps" in the accessories. These fit the A Cat and Blade booms. They are pretty tight on the Blade boom but work fine. Easy to remove from the boat that way. It sounds wierd but to see it from either side you just rotate it around the bottom of the boom. On one tack or the other it will be upside down. It takes very little to adjust to reading it upside down then on the next tack its right side up again. Ed

Was hoping you worked out a position that didn't require rotation when tacking/gybing.

yeah there is one, its call on tied around your neck, placed under your life vest. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

They keep rolling out new models and I ended up with two at one time. That took care of swapping sides, then I sold the old one. Would mounting it on the spin pole between the mast an the snuffer work? I haven't given it much thought since that would involve effort on my part. Ed