Well, I had to face the hard truth this past weekend...my cat is not a racer!
A local sailing club, Southwest Idaho Sailing Association (SISA), meets every other weekend for two days of informal racing. I've crewed several times on other people's boats, but this was the first time actually sailing my own boat. They had two starts, open catamarans and open multihulls. I finished dead last every time...I mean DEAD LAST! I trailed even the MacGregor 26's and Catalina 22's! I couldn't believe how much faster the other cats were. They were Hobie's, I guess 16's. I couldn't point near as close to the wind as they, and they had much more speed.
No one hooted and howled at me, and I gradually got over being so self-conscious about my slow going. It actually was good practice for me, learning at what point I should tack to make the next mark, coping with light winds, and learning a little bit about start strategy.
It turns out that the other cats have daggerboards...I didn't know that. I guess they make a huge difference in pointing. Plus, I noticed my hulls are much more "squattier" than the others.
You can tell that I haven't been around too many other cats. Anyway, I'm not sure I'll race again, but I'm glad for the experience. I'll poke around with my gentle Venture Cat this year and maybe next year I'll be able to add a race horse to the stable.
Anyone else learning that their boat is not really cut out for racing?
Also, here's a picture of one of the sunsets. I thought it turned out pretty nice.
whoa whoa whoa! It can't be all THAT bad....let's see:
A) you got out sailing (bing! = A+ always) B) you went sailing with other people and boats (bing!) C) look at that sunset! (need I say more?). D) nothing broke! (bing, bing, bing!)
Looks like a great day sailing to me!
On to the racing...I get reminded of it everytime I hit the race course: "There's a lot to this thing!". I buy new sails, fix up the boat, wax the hulls, etc. and I get my butt handed to me because I haven't gotten much practice seeing and working with windshifts. It's always something. To do the racing thing and keep your mind right, you have to go out with the attitude of "what can I learn today" rather than "win win win". While I don't think the venture cat is going to be the fastest boat in the fleet, I would bet you money there are a few things you can discover about squeezing some more speed out of your boat so you can pass those monodulls. Get someone to go for a sail with you on your boat - who knows?
Secondly, maybe it's time to step up to a Hobie 16 or similar (they do not have boards either). There are so many of them that they are a great resource to learn from and they make a great baseline to quickly tell if you've got everything right.
Don't give up racing. If you want to race your boat and not be left too far behind see if there is a portsmouth dinghy class. These boats are a lot closer in speed to a slow cat than say an I20. Keep in mind that you can't copy the techniques used by most dinghys. You have to sail your boat like a cat (check out Rick's books) but the other boats will close enough to your speed to see if you are improving (plus with an aggressive dinghy fleet you learn some really neat starting line tricks)
I've seen that old "dead class boats" can give newer popular boats a good work over when the crew has honed their skills. I'm sure that the Venture cat is just the same. One of the best stories in this contest came to life only some 4 weeks ago.
We had two days of distance races then. A fellow club crew had bought a new boat this and sold their old only 1985 of the same type. The crew who had bought the older boat came over and attended this weekend of distance racing only to beat the crew (former owner) on their new boat in both races ! Overall this oldie took 5th and 3rd placing in both races.
Message of this story ; improving sailor skills is always far more important than having the newest design and parts.
Best attitude is to "bring what you have" and learn, learn, learn to out manouvre the crews on the newer-faster boats.
Wouter
Wouter Hijink Formula 16 NED 243 (one-off; homebuild) The Netherlands
Thanks, all, for the encouragement. Very good advice! I actually did enjoy most of the racing. Looking back at it all, I think I see where some improved skills would really help.
One question I remember was the downwind leg. Do cats sail fine wing-and-wing, or should I have gybed down wind. I ended up going wing-and-wing, but it felt like I was just crawling. I tried shifting my weight in different directions. I even tried going off the wind at an angle to see if I went any faster. Nothing seemed to really improve the speed, so I concluded that going downwind is pretty cut-and-dried. I realize that it's going to feel very slow, since I don't have apparent wind to feel.
You are better off getting your hull speed and apparent wind up by gybing at 90 degree angles down wind. Not only do you get downwind faster but you get more wind to cool you off! That is, unless you are sailing a Hobie Wave - they sail better straight downwind.
Well, the Venture Cat has the overall Porthsmouth handicap of 90, just between the Hobie 14 and the Hobie Wave. I suspect that sailing with the Hobie Wave would be much more interesting than sailing with faster beach catamarans.
Speed alone is not the only thing of importance while sailing. If it was the case, nobody would purchase a Wave.
I suspect that on a downwind leg, the straight path is going to be faster than jibing at 90deg of apparent wind unless you are willing to sit on the downwing hull. I am not suggesting to try the wild thing but you should try to get the downwind hull to go deeper in the water to help tracking
Don't give up. When I started out it was just the same, DFL. Hell I was estatic(?) when I finally was close enough to see the 1st boat to finish. Racing forces you to sail in directions you normally would avoid, and hopefully learn to maximize your speed in that direction. I always liked to hang out and just sail. Racing was secondary.
