Hi catsailors!

I just bought a used tornado and I need someone who owns one to give me some informations about :

What equipement I need to add a gennaker and where to find?

What about capsizing and if it is easy to recover .

A spare parts manual maybe like hobie provides?

I am alone in my area with this kind of cat and have no one to help .

Thank you all!
Martin-Greece

We just sold our Tornado after 7 happy years, and there are other Tornado owners/sailors both on the open forum and here. In addition, there is the TornadoCat e-mail list on http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TornadoCat/

I definately reccommend you to join on the TornadoCat list! It is free..

Equipment for a gennaker.. Bowsprit, snuffer, selftacker, some blocks and autoratchets and the sail of course. Track down any olympic teams and ask what they can sell you. If you are in Greece, you have an excellent olympic Tornado team. If that does not lead anywhere, you can use most F-18 gear or in a pinch build it yourself. Just read up on the class rules first so you know where the limits are.

Easy to recover? If it is windy enough to capsize you should be OK unless you are very lightweight. Just make sure your mast is waterproof from at least the boom and up. When we have capsized, it has been windy enough to right the boat by just pulling on the dolphin striker. But this depends on your crew weight. Using a righting line or at least having it installed is a smart move. If you worry about it, go out and do some test capsizes with a boat to assist you before you go out on your own.

There is no spart parts manual as there are so many different setups. There are some good information on: http://www.funcat-sailing.de/index0.htm but if you have questions about "best practice", just ask. If you want as many answers as possible, do it on the open forum.


Good luck with your boat! The Tornado is an excellent design, even today.

Thank you very much for the information .
I have already spoken with the greek olympic tornado teamtornado and they will help me with everything I need!
I will join the tornadocat list .

And I will post photographs of my cat as soon as possible!

Another question . . .
My mast used to have one trapeze wire and no gennaker fittings .

Can I add a second trapeze wire for my crew without any risk or new masts are different?

And where can I find help of adding a gennaker??

The latest models was supposed to be a bit beefed up, but as long as you always let mastrotation off while under gennaker and never let out the mainsheet you are good. Adding another trapeze should be no issue.

No luck with the olympic team? What do you want to know/what do you need help doing? Just ask..


What make and vintage boat do you have btw?

Rolf
you are assuming that his boat is not pre prebend!

A pre prebend mast would probably be even better? At least my pre prebend mast was stiffer (and heavier) than the Marstrøm mast I got. We converted that old IYE mast to prebend, square top and spi without any trouble. Ripped the hulls apart several times, but the mast was OK.