Not only is she excellent crew, she can sail a cat. Show this to your "wives", girlfriends" "crew".......A female is capable of sailing a cat.

Count my blessings that I have a wife that loves (and can) SAIL!!

Dave

mine made all sorts of noise the first time she went out on the wire (about 2 months ago). she kept getting nervous when the hull lifted out of the water and coming in. once i got her to realize that it was more likely that the boat would flip from her coming in without me knowing as opposed to a heavy puff, she decided to stay on the wire (she still complained). she wants to know when she can do it again.

See you guys have to train your girls before you tie the knot... like I'm doing.



Actually, next spring I'm proposing to her on an uninhabited island via hobiecat. Hopefully by then she'll trust the boat enough to get on :P

(Robert don't you say a F$#@$#% word)

Dave,



That photgraph is a thing of beauty as of course is the skipper in it! Here's one of my gal righting a capsize with a Mystere 6.0, solo.

somehow, this picture may not be very reassuring to those you're trying to impress - doesn't it look like two very hard sharp objects are about to hit this person in the head?

My wife is not much into sailing , but she always gets a grin when I tell her we're doing the wild thing.



Dale

Jim.



I am sorry if you thought that I was trying to impress you; I was not. I can remove the picture if it is so disturbing.



I have to wonder what you would do in the same situation. Would you be frightened?



GARY

BOO! Happy Holloween!

The photo is misleadingly scary looking. The sharp thing at the stern is the rudder and it's going to be some distance away from you if you are in the water amidship. The other sharp thing, the dagger board, is not coming down on you like a ton of bricks.



The boat comes back up gently enough that it's not likely anything is going to easily pierce your skull. It's a slow motion kind of movement when everything comes back right side up and you can simply put your hand up to push yourself away from the hull as it comes to you.



If the boat comes back up hard it usually keeps on going and capsizes on the other side. That's when you learn to point the bows into the wind before you try to right it.

On that first righting after the first capsize with a new crew (or girlfriend)...be sure you tell her that it's desirable to stay between the hulls as the boat comes up right. That way she doesn't get hit in the head with a hull never sail with you again....

In the "old days" when catamarans were selling like hotcakes and when dealers were into providing service and helping people learn how to sail and use these exciting sailing machines, dealers like Tom Tannert in northern Ohio (Sailing Spirit, long defunct), used to actually go out with their customers on the boat and show them how to sail it and how to capsize and right it, on the water, so they would be comfortable with capsize and knowledgeable about how to right the boat. Not many dealers, if any, do that any more. Who wants to go out and get wet doing that? Tom was also the guiding force in getting fleets going in his area. Not many dealers do that any more, either. I don't blame the dealers, they have to change their programs and sell what sells. But it sure was nice in the "old days" to have someone who really cared and wanted to make sure you had the right boat for you, and that you knew how to handle it, and that you got hooked up with a local fleet to give you additional support.



I had been sailing for 30 years before I ever capsized. I was very intimidated about the possibility. I sailed a Shark Catamaran for several years, and it had never occurred to anybody in our family that the boat would ever capsize. And it never did. We sailed other catamarans, and they never capsized, either, including the Tornado. Rick and I got our Hobie 18 in 1980, and we had been sailing it for a couple years when we first capsized. It was up at Traverse Bay, Michigan, where the water is an unreal swimming pool blue-green and very cold. The wind was "blowing" about 5 mph. We were just lounging around waiting for a race to start. A little puff came along, and, boom, we capsized! It was very embarrassing. It was also the first time either of us had capsized a catamaran. And since there was so little wind, we had a very hard time righting it, because there was no wind to help. (And we were a lot lighter ourselves back then, too.)



Anyway, it was the best thing that ever happened to me, because after that I was not afraid of capsizing. The boat just went over on its side so gently. Nothing scary about it. Nothing scary about righting it, either.



Now, pitchpoling is a whole nother story. A pitchpole can be very quick and violent. I have never been involved in a pitchpole. That's mostly because when I was sailing, I would not allow it. We always sailed sloop-rigged boats, and I handled the jib. The jib is the main character in a pitchpole scenario, because the jib is the front man that tends to pull the bow down. I've heard so many stories about the crew flying forward and out around the forestay and causing pitchpoles. I have never been able to understand that, because I KNOW that the number one rule is DO NOT GET THROWN FORWARD (and my sub-rule is IF YOU ARE BEING THROWN FORWARD, AT LEAST TAKE YOUR SKIPPER WITH YOU).



The most likely point of sail for a pitchpole to happen is a beam reach, where the apparent wind is radically shifting back and forth. So when we are on a screaming reach, I do not look at the sails, I do not look at other boats, I concentrate totally on the leeward bow of our boat. I know exactly how deep that bow can go before I have to ease the jib to bring that bow back up again. And as soon as it starts coming back up, I bring in the jib again so we can accelerate and keep going fast. But that leeward bow is what the crew has to watch like a hawk when you are on a reach.



Every boat will be different as far as how much you can allow the bow to submerge on a reach, but the person manning the jib has to know where that fine line is, and when to ease the jib and when to sheet in.



For a crew, knowing how to control the boat on a reach is a very empowering thing, even if it is only done in self-defense. It is the ONLY point of sail where the jib-handler actually has a lot of control over the fate of the boat.



Women who are crewing, even as novices, need to know that they can have some control. Nobody likes to just be a passenger, totally depending upon someone else (like a spouse). I think it would help a new woman on the boat to know that if she releases the jib, it will make the boat settle down. And then, once she understands the power she has, she can learn how to use it in more suble ways than just cutting the jib loose and letting it flog itself to death. Women like to know that they have control, but they also like to be subtle about it.

I had a huge pitchpole this year with my Tiger and I agree, it was impressive.

We were screaming on a reach, my crew was handling the main and I was bearing down in each puff, we were really smoking: I had one foot in my footstrap on the back (behind the tiller bar), my crew with one leg betwen mines, so we were maximum back, when a good gust hit. I shout "easy with the main" to my crew as the boat accelerated hard and the bow began to burry. There was only less than one inche of the bow left out the water, when, inside the gust there was another one, bigger.

The boat instantly stopped by going to the bottom like a submarine. We flew in the air, vertically. I remember feeling the bungee cord of the trapeze breaking and I said to myself (flying) "something broke". When I got out of the water to get a breath, I WAS AT THE TOP OF THE MAST!. What a flight. My crew was even further. We looked at each other, and realizing that nobody was hurt we laughed a good time. A fisherman passing by (he must have think that we were crazy) could bring me back my crew as he was separated from the boat drifting too fast.

I have to admitt it was scary, but it was fun too: good experience. Nothing except the trap bungees got broken, we had some house cleaning done on the boat then got back to the beach.

Well, now, on a reach with a gusty wind I am more carefull.

Mary,

You know......you have brought up a very valid point. Like yourself, my wife has an "active part" in the "control" of the boat. She watches that lee bow like a hawk and will either move aft or "play" the jib sheet to adjust the boat's attitude. When we are out playing in the Gulf, I intentionally drive off a bit to see if she is paying attention. I have yet to catch her sleeping. It is so comical to watch her in action when I try to "hip move" her forward while we are double trapped. I get this "look" and then the hip check puts me back where I belong. There is nothing like the bond between a man, his wife and their boat....three harmonizing as one.

Dave

hobiegary - we descend deeper into tongue in cheek :

When I'm taking pictures of my wife and my catamaran, I try to make sure she is wearing as little as possible. I posted a few of these picures at hot-ckicks-on-cats.com, but you may have to buy a subscription to view them. I guess I don't understand your fascination with posting shots of your wife mostly underwater. Maybe you are amphibious!

Actually as a owner of a Mystere 6.0 I am more interested in the fact that one person is righting a 20' cat. My efforts at it have failed.



Mike Catley

I'm registering that domain name as we speak... err... type.

Please note in this set of communications, there was no mention of the "WIFE SAVER" otherwise known as the Chicken Line, which is often the Hawaiian-Style righting line. New sailors and skippers---PLEASE practice with this line from the transom bungeed to the front of the boat. It is stretched fore and aft down by your feet, and is held by the crew to avoid personal damage by being flung forward... which also AVOIDS THE DREADED PITCHPOLE. My wifely crew was unflung for many years, but now claims to be too aged. Shoot, I say 58 isn't that old. 8^)

The first day I ever went sailing on my own boat... I was 15 and sailing a Hobie 16 in perfect conditions, around 10 knts of wind. A few other catamaran sailors showed up and helped me rig and adjust everything. I took one of their daughters out sailing and let her skipper the boat for a while. It took her 3 tries but she managed to capsize us. Her dad came sailing up on his TheMightyHobie18 with a heck of a grin on his face and helped us right the boat. I've been hooked ever since. I never did manage to pitchpole the H-16- isn't that odd?

About 3 years later I was sailing my G-Cat 5.7M with a friend (and much more expierienced sailor) crewing for me. We were sailing in some great conditions, around 12-15 knots of wind and smooth water. We were headed upwind and I pulled the tiller to bear off. The whole boat squatted to the aft starboard corner where I was sitting and I rolled backwards right off the boat! I was holding the mainsheet and being dragged along behind the boat as I pulled myself along the line. John asks "why are you sheeting in?" and looks back to see me gone! He puts the boat into irons so I can climb aboard and we have a good laugh about it. We tacked around and were going downwind on a pretty broad reach when I saw a nice gust coming up on us. I waited a fraction of a second too long to head down in the gust, and the jib-sheet got stuck (in the 20 year old Ronstal cleats). The boat pitchpoled to verticle. I have those garden-hose-and-3/16th-line style footstraps on my boat (3 per side) and was holding onto one so I stayed firmly planted to the hull- John went flying. I let go of the strap, slid down the tramp and put my foot onto the mast, then rolled into the sail. The boat settled over on it's side and John came swimming up- we had it righted in no time.

A few months ago my cousin came down to visit and I took him out on the boat a couple times. This was his first time ever on a sailboat. The first time we had pretty nice weather and I could stick him on the wire and fly the hull as high as I dared, or double-trap and just skim above the water at a decent speed. While he was trapped out alone, standing at the mast beam, I managed to nail a wave pretty good. The forward beam smacking a wave tends to slow the boat quick, and Kyle wasn't prepared for this and went swinging forwards. I'd expected him to land at the bow and just walk his way aft... but instead he just kept on swinging! I waited until he'd pulled the back of the boat out of the water to dump the sails, and he landed on the opposite side of the boat, just fore of the mastbeam. I dragged him for a little ways before putting the boat in irons so he could climb aboard. He had a sort of scared grin on his face and went right back out on the wire again. I let him know that if he stood further aft it wouldn't happen again.

A couple days later I took him and 2 other friends out sailing in a small-craft advisory. Winds were about 15+ knots and the seas were 4-6 feet. I didn't do any hull-flying or trapezeing, but we'd get 4/5ths of the boat airborne when flying off the waves. It was a heck of a lot of fun!

The first time I flew the hull was about two years (I was 14) ago with my crazy uncle. We had been out on the lake will mild winds, but not enough to really get the hull out of the water more than two or three inches. Well, we are getting to the other side of the lake where there is kind of a funnel made by the inlet from the river coming into the lake and I am, of course, not paying attention to the wind because I had only been sail for about 2 months and was still totaly oblivious to my surroundings. Then, all of the sudden, I hear "Are you holding on?" and whoosh out of the water with the hull. You can just imagine the wild arms swinging around because I had no balance yet. After repremanding him, to say the least, the first words out of my mouth are "lets do it again!" And that is how I became addicted to sailing.

I only feared tipping the boat and pitch poling until I did them both once. Sometimes my brother and I just tip the boat for fun. I still don't like to pitch pole because it is alot of work to put the boat back together afterward.