Hi again



I found another problem. When sailing down wind my self or if my crew is skiper are trapezing off the back off the boat We just keep on losing balance or slip off. Are we alowed to put foot straps or is there some other way. Another thing is how do you have 2 people trapezing off the back? Well thanks for your help.



From Jules

I'm a bit puzzled why you would be trapezing while travelling downwind. I suspect you are probably beam reaching. If you are racing your cat and trying to get to the bottom mark and find a need to hold the boat down by trapezing then you are not sailing deep enough.



When sailing a Hobie 16 downwind you actually broad reach of course which is sailing at about 45degrees off directly downwind.



You achieve this by travelling out as far as possible and sheeting on to remove most of the twist in the sail. (I'm assuming there is a decent wind for this description, light air is a somewhat different story). You require a wind indicator of some description on the boat. I used a bridle fly. Whatever you use you then head the boat up until you get attached flow on the leeward side of your sail - watch the telltales on your sail and adjust the trim so that all three sets of telltales on the leeward side are streaming. You'll know when you've got this right because the boat will take off. As the boat accelerates you will notice that the apparent wind direction as indicated by the bridle fly will move more towards the front of the boat. As it does this you head lower keeping the bridle fly at about 90 degrees to the boat or just ahead but ensuring that you always have attached flow on the leeward side of the sail. You'll know when you go too low because the boat will suddenly not want to go.



You will not need to trapeze in these conditions. In the really strong wind you and the crew will need to sit as near to the back of the boat as possible on the windward side but in lighter winds the crew may need to sit on the leeward side. The important thing is to sail the boat flat or a slight heel to leeward, never heel the boat to windward. This is slow.



I think Hobie 16's can put footstraps on the boat without restriction. I used to have one footstrap on the hull about halfway between the tramp and the rudders. I have also seen footstraps on the frame for the tramp.



Hope this helps too.



Berthos.

Hang on, How come in almost every race i have entered i have seen them trapezing off the back doesn't this creat more power and speed?



Jules

Boats that carry spinnakers at times will trapeze downwind (broad reaching). This is because they have such a high speed that the apparent wind is coming from further ahead than slower boats. From a similar direction in fact from when they are shy reaching. So the boat is set up similarly to shy reaching (close reaching).



Berthos.

You do know where i sail we are lucky to have strong winds like 15knots and we are on a lake so there are no other cats which pull up kites and if we followed them for speed wouldn't that make us faster because this is how my coach is teaching us.



Jules