A bit of advice please

After some advice please on what cat to buy I am in the U.K. sailing at sea with steep waves,Have sailed mono-hulls for a number of years mainly as crew.Have really been thinking about a hobie 15 or a dart 18 I am really after a boat i can sail solo or with my brother as crew we are both about 114kg(250lbs) but also take out a young family on nice summer days budget is £2000.
we do not intend race in a fleet just low level club handicap every so often
hope some of you guys can help
chris

Your total weight is 500lbs? N20 all the way.

where in the UK?

There is a substantial difference between the north and south UK.

I lived and sailed in Campbeltown Scotland for a few years. all 2 weeks of summer were glorious sailing, but after day 15.. winter hits hard

I would personally recommend a catamaran designed with the North sea winds in mind (Dart or similar) before you jump into a 20 foot beachcat that may (will) get overpowered in above 25knots. a 20' cat can be sailed in 25+ but really requires great skill and hopefully a fair amount of experience depowering such a powerful sail plan.

I have crewed on a dart 18 and dart 20 in pretty extreme conditions (through squall lines up to 45 mph) and both did very well (and did not flip)

There are a few people from the UK on this forum, hopefully they can help steer you towards a great first beach cat.

good luck

Hi Bacho
the n20 look fantastic but i really have not seen very many in the uk but i will look into that cat but i dont think u be able to sail solo

MN3 Thank you for your input here i am the other end of the uk between Brighton and Dover i have had great difficultly finding any cat forum based in the uk:( The dart does really look good but i do like the look of the hobie cat 15 as it seams a more forgiving but i really cant find out much about them even went to the RYA dingy show but was nice to see and talk to the classes but they really all said that there boat was the best for what i need

The problem is that anything with enough umph to have a bit of fun for 2 guys that weigh 230kg is going to be too much boat to singlehand.

You will singlehand a Hobie 15 ok but the two of you will be too much for it together.

An 18 footer will be the best compromise, the dart 18 is very underpowered and won't like those beaches! The Prindle 18 might be your best bet, not many about but they will be that sort of price. There were Pridle 18s at Bognor Regis SC I know.It might be worth a look in at Pevensey Bay SC to see what is for sale there

With you located in the UK I would not hesitate to recommend a Dart 18. Should fit the budget with no problems.
Its good for soloing and works well with two, will carry three in a pinch but you won't be going anywhere fast with your crew-weight.

I don't see why a Dart 18 wouldn't like beaches? With no daggerboards or boom to worry about it is an excellent all-rounder. OK, its no where near modern, but its a good and sturdy boat all the same. As you get more experienced you may find yourself wanting more power, then you could look into a F-18 cat, but most won't right solo when you REALLY need them to, and that can make the difference between a tall tale at the bar and a headstone, if you get what I mean!

Besides there's loads of 'em around in the UK and (used) parts are readily available there.
Personally I sail a Nacra 5.2 which would also seem to be in the ball park, has a little more volume than a Dart 18, but with your weight it should also work well (has daggerboards though).

Morning Paul
we are not far from pevensey so will go and have a look.The club we sail at we launch in to a river it will be very rare that we run up on a beach so the skegs should not be a problem
my crew did say about a hurricane 5.9 but i dont know a bout one of those solo they are a big old lump to get around on land as well

Hi Dennis nice to meet u feel like i know u as i read lot of your posts on here and it sounds like u had a very similar problem to me.I have crewed a dart 18 and it was good fun but i was a lot lighter and the helm was only light but i remember it was not really a handful and it was a fair breeze blowing

Thanks bicrider, that's nice to hear.
Seems like you have a fair idea of the type of sailing you are looking for. Hope you soon find a boat you will be happy with!

You could consider a Nacra 5.8, heaps of them around, you have the weight to hold it down in a blow, you could start with the old smaller jib and stiff battens tied in loosly just leaving a slight wrinkle in then pull on heaps of downhaul. Will carry whatever weight you put on it, handles beaches fine, just paint an epoxy paint on the last 2 inches on the bottom as a sacraficial layer if your dragging it up the beach. I sailed my 5.8 in heaps of wind as a novice and had great fun, here's an old video of my 3rd time out on the old one with a novice crew if your interested, it was blowing with steap enough waves to jump over one through the next for a while and we didn't go over.
http://youtu.be/X70tEeWpDrY

Hi Jeff thanks a lot i do like the look of the nacra and dagger boards as we have a mile of river to get up be for the sea where we sail so dagger board will help if the wind is an non preferable direction but the nacra is not as popular in the uk as the dart and hobie brands dont konw why? but if i find one up for sale i will have a look have u tried any solo sailing on the narca 5.8?

There isn't a single 5.8 in the UK
Some 5.5s about
Quite a few 6.0s about, certainly were one or two at Pevensey Bay. That would be a great boat for the two of you, but not a single hander.

hi Paul
Got a feeling a narca 6.0 would be over budget but i am leaning to wards a dart 18 and maybe in a few years move up to a hurricane 5.9 as i always had a soft spot for them and they are a reasonable price but on a nice weekend i can see a trip to pevensey bay do u know if they still run the royal Sovereign race could never get my dad to do it when we had the 470 i did read that it was the only offshore race for dinghys

The sovereign race was run out of Eastbourne sc. haven't heard of it being run for a while
Pbsc have the Martello race as their long distance event

I've sailed a bit on the 5.8 solo mainly in lighter wind, once with the spinnaker, jib and main on the wire but heres a recent video you'll find funny as my wife goes of head first in a bit of a blow and I tack and gybe in plenty of wind to get her, we both go over at the end
http://youtu.be/qDEbzavQOOg

hi paul same i have always wanted to do that race we norally sail out of rye harbour are u local to us?
will have a trip to penensey bay for a good look we have a couple of dart 18 at our club but they not been out for ages and a couple of hobie 16 but i think thay are not as good sea boat mot with my crew weight

Hi jeff great vids but looks like narca 5.8 is out of the question as there never been any imported in the the uk does look very simalar to a hurrican we have over here

There is a tidy Hawk F18 on e-bay for the right money at the moment.
It's a first generation design F18 but was the last of its type and was in good nick last time I saw it. Might do for you?

Had a look can only seem to find a f18 sail any chance of a link?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CATAMARAN...Sailing_Boats_ET&hash=item20d02561f9

thanks pual she does look the buzz

The F18 is not going to be that fast with your weight nor can you sail them single handed as the sail plan just is not designed to be that way inclined.

The Hurricane 5.9 although a big lump is not much heavier than the F18, is 2 ft longer to take the additional weight and at your weight can be sailed solo without the jib. The big plus they are a lot of boat for your money, have a very strong class which is getting larger ( its very competitive and yet there isn't the usual arms race which the F18's have gotten into )due to the boat being relatively easy to sail with the new sailplan that is now available.

The other thing is that although you will likely pay a little more than your 2K budget, you won't have any trouble selling it nor will you loose money as they seem to be rising in price at the moment.

The other boat you may wish to consider and there are plenty about in the UK is the Prindle 19, bang for bucks they are mega cheap and yet a Hurricane 5.9 clone.

Hi wayne thank you for your advice will keep an eye of for any info on them and for sale and have a look at one
Thank you to all you guys for the advice i am get so much helpful info

HI everyone there are a few hobie 18 on the net at the moment with wings are these worth going to have a look at? with the weather here in the uk being poor i put my hunting on the back burner

I loved my TheMightyHobie18
it is very solid & robust cat (and heavy)
lots of spare parts (at least in the USA) and still very active fleets for racing or learning

I would take a look for sure

Back in 1996-98 I used to spend a lot of time laying over in Brighton, they had a bunch of Hobie Tigers on the beach right across the street from our hotel, the Metropole. Have you driven over there to see if any of the locals have some old Tigers for sale? There was a RYA club in Hove that I walked down to, rented a Laser Pico for some fun, they might know where you can find the cat racing guys around Brighton.

Oh how I miss the Firk and Forth, the Fiddler's Elbow, Browns, and many other great spots in The Lanes of Brighton! And the beach was nice too!

I didn't think much of it as a racing boat, the wings add weight and windage but as a day boat it was great. I enjoyed it, frequently sailing with a friend, his girl friend and her little one. She and the little one often took naps on the wings.

The wings also let me single hand more than I would have otherwise, in those days I could still trap off the wings which was a hoot.

I wouldn't want to try and right one single handed though.

mn3
I do like the robustness of the 18 and the room with the wings
much prefer sailing boat to fixing them!lol

hey timbo
Good thinking mate will do i am a couple of hours drive from brighton think i will do a trip to brighton and pevensey sailing clubs just to have a chat to some sailors i always think u can never get enough info about things b4 buying one

hello Pete
yes it will be mostly for blasting around the bay with two 120kg (252lbs) guys on it but the crew situation is a but questionable u know what its like bothers says i will crew but when time comes "Am busy this weekend"

That's exactly why I got an F16 instead of an F18; crew reliability issues.

I have got another lined up crew wise but not very experienced but does a lot of windsurfing so should not be to difficult to train up where as little bro like me has been messing about in boats for years but he now very under the thumb!

+1 on the TheMightyHobie18, for all the reasons mentioned above. Despite getting a fancy boat recently, my TheMightyHobie18 is still my first love.

Just remember that single-handed righting is simply not possible without an aid (e.g. another person, a water bag, a solo right, or the perfect combination of wind and waves).

Fixed it for you Timbo!

At 120 kg (and wings) you would be able to single hand a lot. But, righting is still a safety issue for one person alone and I'd pay serious attention BEFORE you have to do it. Another thing, a lot of the 18s I ran into here in the states had soft (delaminated) hulls. Imo, those are non-repairable and also a safety issue. Thirdly, the boat is heavy for one guy to move around on the beach and that is the primary reason I sold mine and bought a H17. All that aside it's a great boat!

I would not purchase a Hobie 18, most are older and going to take some TLC. Also very heavy and difficult to move on the beach. My F18 is much easier to deal with on the beach (and F18's are supposedly pigs by some standards).

If you're just blasting around and not trailering the Prindle 19 and maybe even an older Tornado are good boats. Don't know much about the Hurricane, not a U.S boat.

hi rehmbo we do normally have a rescue out but not always so i is a problem sometimes so maybe a hobie 18 is out there one at the club asked my dad tonight who knows the owner and he does not sail much due to hard work in righting it:)

maybe they are getting on now and the 3 i seen on the internet are all over a £1300 so maybe a few more quid on a hurricane 5.9 maybe well spent!!! god its so hard trying to get this right

hi sam very true have not see any prindles for sail here in the uk i have been told the 19 is perty much a copy of the hurricane 5.9 i did sail on once it was fun

it is important to think it though, but it's not like buying a house. You can typically resell your used cat for the same you bought it for (assuming the condition is the same) next year if it isn't the perfect fit

Every boat I've sold I've taken some loss on, even if condition was the same or better than when I bought the boat.

My #1 piece of advice is buy the best boat you can afford; something that has been used a bit rather than sitting idle for years is worth more. Also save some $$ for parts, things break.

sorry to hear.. let me narrow my statement, around here in Florida .. legacy boats typically can be resold for the same value (or more depending on time of year and demand) since most of the depreciation has been realized.

For a first boat, and new skipper, I typically suggest you purchase something in old but good shape... why invest "all you can" on a new hobby before you know how dedicated you will be... and the difference between beach cats is not so significant that a novice will benefit from.

Anything you buy "Brand New" is going to start depreciating the minute you walk out of the store with it, wether it's a car, boat, airplane, laptop, cellphone, etc. For a First Boat (cat) you'd be much better off to find something old and beat up, and CHEAP. That way you can learn without doing any more harm, and once you do learn and decide what you really want, you can sell the beater for about what you have into it, as it's already fully depreciated.

Every boat I've ever had I was able to sell for the same, or more, than what I paid for it, but they were all used boats when I bought them, and I did put some fix'n into them, but I always got my money out of them at the sale.

It takes 10 adults to sink a H16 to the point that it is unsailable. So two big guys could blast around the bay in blustery weather or one guy would be able to sail solo and right it alone.

last year our friend's son and his friend had a h16 hull fail and the catamaran was 95% underwater.... i wouldn't call that sunk, but it surely wasn't afloat either

I had written a hobie 16 off as being a bit light weight for two fat boys always had a soft spot for the 16s

get a Wave and tool around on it for a year. You probably can't break that thing, and you could always sell to someone or even a boat rental place...

I've never bought a brand new boat. When you look at what I've actually spent taking boats and restoring them to nearly new standards it's A LOT more than it usually is worth. I'm OCD on these things. Luckily I broke even on my TheMightyHobie18 transaction.

Pete might be on to something the H16 is inexpensive, robust and a fun platform. Also not mentioned is the Prindle 18, simple, fast, fun, lighter than the TheMightyHobie18 and may be able to find one in better shape (newer design).

hi water bug been looking on and off at cats for sale here in the uk for most of the winter and not seen a wave for sale most of the schools tend to use darts 16 a uk boat but from what i have read on them people dont really seam to like them

H16 are pretty common and picking one up wont be a prob but i am a but worried about the weight a we sail were the waves are quite steep i know all will pitch pole but i might be a prob? any h16 men know?

I agree - great boat but weight and waves will add to the challenge of mastering a H16

this was a sound boat loaded with people and beer.

H16s will pitchpole but that's part of the fun. If you don't pitchpole once in awhile you aren't pushing hard enough. My most radical pitchpole left a purple stripe from my ankle to my arm pit that lasted for weeks. First aid required an extra beer or three...

The Dart 16's and 18's are pretty well proven boats in the UK, have large class orgnaised meets and races, good backup on spares and the 18 easily handled with 1 biggun. Got to be looked at as they are great value for money and you often see them under a grand with trailer and all the kit.

If you really want a blaster then how about

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/330902305977?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

got to be the ultimate big boys blaster and people do sail them single handed.

The Dart 18 is a great boat!

hi wayne seen that tornado but think i might be a bit much for us nice boat at a good price at the mo dart 18 are nice crewed one a few times u had any experience of the hobie15 like the twin wires

maybe i am learning something already about cats

Mmmm sailed a Hobie 14 and 16 and really was not impressed as I have really only sailed the more modern generation hulls which don't pitch pole quite as easily. However a friend runs a 16 in the solent with a 21sqm kite and just loves it to bits.

These guys over the years have done a lot of adventuring with the 16 and been places including across the channel a couple of times, on them. Simply drag them up the beaches and camp or sleep over night if needed. Tough little boats.

Stick to the Dart 18 as they are a very well organised association and will give lots of advice plus there are plenty about to sail with and learn the ropes. In a couple of seasons sell it for the same money and buy something like the Hurricane 5.9, you wouldn't be disappointed.

morning wayne i think ur right a dart 18 would be the sensible choice from looking at the handicap list the hobie 15 is not that quick

You may want to have a chat with a local Dart owner and get a ride before fully committing as you may just hanker for a spinny of some kind with your combined weights.

Ya know, reminds me of the time me and Dean Paukune were double trapping and flying a hull off the wing of 'Double Trouble' (a TheMightyHobie18 Mag)in Galveston Bay.
That sure was fun wasn't it Dean? Dean?

hi Wayne i am planning a trip to some bigger clubs along the coast and up to the national in june that are only about an hour away

morning Todd sounds like fun