I sail a 15' Venture Cat, made in 1972 by MacGregor Yachts. Anyone else have experience with this boat?

This is my second year of sailing, so I'm a newbie, very interested in do-it-yourself modifications and sailing tips and techniques.

Right now I'm modifying my mainsail, putting in reefing points. I hope to start racing next year.

I've turtled my boat once, very hard to right. Had to have a sheriff's boat flip my cat, snapping a shroud and bending the side rails. I've fixed it up and it seems fine, but I sure don't want to turtle it again!

There were two models of venture cat 15 produced by MacGreggor.
The first one had very small hulls and the trampoline was above it like the Hobie 14. The second one had the crossbeams bolted directly on the flat deck on the hull and the hull had a bump (seat!) between the two crossbeams
I think that the older model was better even if it had almost no flottason.

I do have a few pictures of the old model and I owned and restores the latter one. I still have my mast, boom and mainsail from my Venture Cat 15 and I was planning to build an iceboat around it

Understant that these are "project boats" I am having difficulties finding part and informations for my Nacra 5.2 so the Venture Cat will require extranwork to replace key components.

My advice is not to put to much money on the boat and sail it ASAP. If you like it, you can start to upgrade it and put some major repairs on it.

Charles, thanks for the reply.

I bought it (sort of, it was considered part of my yearly bonus at work...my boss had it sitting in the boneyard. I asked him to consider giving it to me as part of my bonus, expecting him to count it as $500-600. When he filled out the bill of sale, he marked it for $100!).

It had a tetherball mounted on top of the mast. He said it was to prevent turtling. Of course, being a newbie, I trailered the boat home and promptly removed the tetherball!

Since my turtling, I've replaced it!

I'm handsewing reefing points about 25% of the way up the sail. I'm getting the impression that small cats like mine do not normally reef the mainsail. Is that right?

Correct, most beach cats sold today do not have reef points.
Apprently, older Hobie 16 sails used to have reef points.
I noticed my boss' new Hobie Wave sail actually is reefable - it is boomless, so the design is quite interesting. It has a zipper that connects the top ~3/4 of the sail to the bottom ~1/4 of the sail. Above the zipper are two eyes, one for luff/downhaul attach and one for leech/mainsheet attach. When zipped together as the full sail, there is also a webbing strap at leach & at luff that takes up most of the stress at those points, I think it actually goes up through the eyes & back down to a buckle. It did not seem to be easy to reef on the water, it looked a lot easier to rig on the beach before sailing.

Thanks, Jim.

That's interesting...in my surfing the net I found reference to a "bonnet" style of reefing the main, and it sounded just like what you're describing. The bottom 25% of the sail was held on with a series of looped ropes. It doesn't sound easy to operate, but it's certainly simple and direct.

What do make of my phobia of turtling? Are most new masts filled with enough flotation that they won't sink? Why is my Venture Cat 15 so hard (impossible) to right once turtled?

I think the turtling incident is the motivation for trying to find a way to reef the main. I've sewn reinforcing patches at the new tack and clew. I haven't been able to find grommets that I feel are strong enough. I'm considering riviting a 1/8" plastic reinforcing plate at the clew and making my own grommet of a short piece of 1/2" copper tubing. Using a round-headed carriage bolt as a driver I can round over the ends of the tubing.

As you can probably tell, I'm short of funds, so I'm trying to figure out a dependable way of doing this myself. I suppose the best way would be to send the sail off to a sailmaker, or at least order some real grommets...but I'm stubborn I guess!

Easiest way to reef main with hand-sewing is like you say - a series of loops of line hanging from sail, ready to be tied around boom, when halyard is dropped a bit. Beware of stresses on the sail, however.
Monohulls have variations of this where a line is pre-arranged through blocks on boom and through eyes (grommets?) on sail, so pulling one end of line results in reefing entire sail - called "jiffy-reefing, I believe. Here's an illustration of a dinghy reefing system. Notice the reinforcements at leech, luff & some of the grommets.
http://www.imagic.demon.co.uk/openboat/yerbury.html
I guess this could be adapted to a catamaran sail.

I think you should consider getting over your fear of turtling, through a series of improvements.
1. Seal the mast - make sure there are no way water will get into mast when it lays on the water. Even add flotation at top to prevent it fromgoing under, if you think it's needed.
2. Don't tip over - Usually new sailors tip over for two reasons - they don't know they should be unsheeting before it's too late, or when they try to unsheet, it doesn't go quick enough. Make sure your mainsheet cleat angle is easy to uncleat from whatever position your sailing, and that the mainsheet runs *out* through the blocks easily.
3. Learn how to right the boat. On day with low wind, near beach, with help nearby, intentionally turn it over, and learn what things make it easy or hard to right it. Then when you *need* to right it, you'll have the experience and confidence to do it.
4. Don't tip over - become better sailor, able to anticipate gusts and read the wind - e.g gusts on the water - are they headers or lifts? - is the oncoming gust more likely to suddenly push you up & over (change course upwind or release sheet a bit), or will the gust just temporarily increase your speed without overpowering you?

Remember, those of us with boats that have more powerful sailplans may be impressed with your ability to find enough power in your sailplan to turn your boat over!

Another thought - does your boat have a traveler? If not, you might consider one.

Here are my personnal collection of Venture Cat pictures:

http://cf.f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph...done=http%3a//cf.f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/

http://cf.f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph...done=http%3a//cf.f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/

If not you can try to browse directly to:
http://cf.photos.yahoo.com/leblancc_99

and choose the appropriate folder to see the pictures.

My mast was not watertight but is had foam poured in the top to help with flottason.

I didn't sail the boat alot since I found a Nacra 5.7 for sale only days after I had finished the restoration of the Venture Cat.

If you have questions about the repair of the late model, I can help you

Even your venture cat should be able to recover from a turtle based on a couple of things:

a) your mast is sealed and does not leak. As long as the mast remains filled with air, it will want to float.
b) you place your weight properly to get the boat back up from turtle.

To right the boat from turtle, you need to get hold of your righting line (usually tied to the middle of the front beam or mast base) and sit on the corner of the boat that is farthest downwind. This might mean on one of the bows or one of the sterns. Using the righting line, lean your torso out as much as possible to try and sink that corner of the boat - and wait. It will take a minute or two, but the boat will slowly start to come up. Once it begins moving, it will move faster and faster and - stay on that corner as long as you can. Pretty soon the boat will but up and laying on it's side. There is a trick to getting it pointy end up from there too - let us know if you would like more info regarding that.

I sail a 20' Nacra6.0NA and have turtled a couple of times (I do not have any sort of a mast head float). It was no problem to get it upright again (probably about 3-4 minutes).

Jim,

That's exactly what I needed to hear. The jiffy-reef page you linked is great! I spent quite a while surfing for that kind of simple, direct instructions with photos, and I never found info as good as that.

I'm for sure going to seal my mast...I hadn't realized how heavy the water-filled mast would be, and I didn't know that most newer boats had sealed masts.

I think a traveler would help a lot. My mainsheet attaches directly to the rear crossbar.

Thanks for the help!

Charles, great pictures! Thanks for the links. I really enjoyed the original ads for the Venture Cat. My boat must be the earlier model...it lacks any kind of "raised area" on the hull. My mainsheet attaches to a single point on the boom.

One of your personal pictures showed your boat (and you, I guess) in what looks like the ocean. Was it off the coast of France? The nearest coast to me is the Oregon coast, and I've never seen it as calm as that seen in your picture...I'd never be able to take my boat offshore!

Jake, that's good advice. I didn't know about the "righting line". I think I remember seeing reference to it before, but I didn't know where it would be tied off to and how you used it. Do you keep it tied before you need it, or is it something you attach once you've tipped over?

You need to have the righting line attached around the base of the mast before you go sailing. How you store the rest of it is up to you. My G-Cat has a 3-sided rear-opening pocket on the trampoline just aft of the mast. It is just large enough to stuff a floatation cusion into, and I stuff the rest of my righting line under the cusion to keep it in place. My righting line is a piece of dock-line from Wal-Mart I think. It came with a loop in one end for use on mooring cleats. I put the loop end around the base of the mast.

Find the book "Catamaran Sailing: From Start to Finish" by Phil Berman. It is the book to own when you're starting out in this sport/hobby.

Great advice! That sounds easy to do.

By the way, I've never been part of a discussion group before, and I'm finding this very interesting and motivating...I guess that what it's for! I think I tend to get the mistaken idea that experienced sailors have little patience or incentive to give simple advice or tips. This open forum of Catsailors.com is great!

It's always been my policy on my Tornado to not use the mainsheet cleat when there is anything more than a few knots of wind. This way, I can release it in an instant to prevent capsize. Another thing to consider if the wind comes up, you might want to try dropping the main entirely and sailing on Jib alone. Tacking will be quite tough, but you should be able to gybe around to the other tack if necessary.
From seeing the Venture cat photos posted earlier, I think it looks alot like a Hobie 16 or 14...in terms of hull shape. Personally, I've never liked these low bouyancy designs...very sensitive to where you place the weight and always seem to have the leeward hull submarining.

Mike.

Mike, thanks for the advice. I'm becoming much quicker at slipping the mainsheet cleat and keeping it in hand like you say. The times I've dropped my mainsail and tried to sail jib alone have been rough...impossible to tack...I didn't think about gybing...that's sounds like the way to do it.

You're right about the weight sensitivity. With two adults aboard, the hull gets very low in the water. I'm fighting a strong lee helm also. I don't know how large my jib is, but I think it's 115% or so. I've tried reefing it to reduce the lee helm, but the boat just won't sail very well with the jib reefed, very hard to tack, little power. Just this week end I experimented by shifting my weight. It seemed that the further forward I sat, the less lee-helm there was. If I sat completely forward, on the front crossbar in fact, I could almost keep a heading without touching the tiller. Otherwise, sitting midship, as soon as I let go the tiller to tend to something else, I fall off the wind. In a strong wind that's not very good...makes it easy to overpower the main and possibily capsize.

Milt,

To reduce lee-helm try raking your mast farther back (wait...I think we talked about that already didn't we?) Put it in the last hole on the forestay adjuster and then adjust your shrouds lower one by one (while someone holds a trapeze wire to keep the mast to that side). That should help with the lee helm.

Jake, I'll try that. I've seen it referred to in other posts, but haven't yet tried it. Thanks!