This is my first year at sailing the H16 and I am now getting somewhat frustrated with the poor pointing ability of the boat. While close hauled, I am only able to sail at what I am guessing is 50-60 degrees from the wind direction; I remember, many years back, being able to sail at about 45 degrees with a laser. Is this the norm for this boat? (haven't had too many opportunities to sail against other cats)

In efforts to increase pointing ability, I have raked the mast back to approximately 11 degrees... I can't rake it back any further, there's no more room on the stay chainplates.

If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them

Tim

I had a similar problem when I sailed my Prindle 18. I found that rakeing the mast as far back as possible is important. The goal there is when you sheet in hard on the main, you should almost be block to block. So you probably need to add another chain plate to the forestay to get the mast a little farther back.

first of all get use to the fact that your 16 is not going to point like a laser .pointing is not the strength of a 16.But lasers and hobie 16,s (I own each) will point different under different conditions.A laser when you can go block to block (10+ knots of wind)should be able to point higher then 45 degrees.Similarly with a 16 once the wind gets up and the water is fairly flat you should be pointing higher than 60 degrees.the big thing on the 16 is make sure you have lots of mainsheet tension you want to bend that mast and flatten that sail.unlike the laser where to go up wind you can get away with pinching the 16 you need to foot off for speed then work up to bleed off the speed .It takes a lot of finness and concentration to drive the 16 upwind,The other thing with the 16 is do not get so caught up with how high you point .I was at the nationals one year and rounded the leward mark with the leader I was out pointing him while he footed off and went for speed. He ended up easily beating me to the weather mark. Pointing is all relaitive to the type of bost you are sailing. The laser will point higher but a 16 will easily beat it to the weather mark. If you want a boat that points pick yourself up an old 12 meter a america's cup boat that will point 30 degrees from the true wind and for a million dollars you end up with a boat whose top speed is 8 to 10 knots.

we sail with the lee bow down so its barely out of the water. in light air my crew sits on the lee hull ahead of the pylon. my friend al has his crew trapped out to leeward and as far forward as possible. in heavier air we keep our weight as far forward as possible without driving the lee hull under.the flat side of the lee hull contributes to lateral resistance so you want as much of it in the water as possible. also reduces resistance of the windward hull which is barely in the water. h16s can point surprisingly high, i was able to pinch off a couple of mc scows yesterday on a beat, tho i normally would have footed to go faster- except there was a dock to leeward.

Hey dude well it come down to every thing. Im 17 and i have had this same problem (at 14) and i kept on saying it wont point what so ever. The hobie dealer here took the boat out for a sail and pointed alot higher than i did and went faser. how could this be??

well he said to me it mainly comes down to how you sail to boat but all the other things help a hell of a lot. This is what i have found in the last 3 years after racing and trust me for 17 im not doing bad!!

Having the main on all the way isn't always the best in light airs it just spills air like nothing else, trust me i was the only boat moving at the Combined high schools regatta out of 300 boats.
If you power up the creap higher and go up and down it will help a hell of alot.
Mast rake does make you point higher up wind but can kill you down because your not really getting the pull power of the hobie.
in the heavy air it isn't keeping the boat balaned forward of back even though i have heard at the back does make you point but sail the boat as you normally do and as you get better you will learn it reallyy does come down to how you sail the boat.

Just get out there and have fun. If your racing and having trouble then give me an email and i can give you a much better idea!

From julian


Well