It was a good night to race a catamaran

After a month of light air on the Wed Night Races on Clear lake, we finally got a little wind. (Racing monohull dinghies in 5 kts sucks) Last night started with 8-20 and settled in to 12-16.

It was fun. Start high with speed and roll the fleet. Get caught by some friends in a V15 in the lighter air at the offset gate and then feed them dirty air and pass them on the downwind. After that just keep increasing your lead, trying not to do anything stupid, avoiding getting tangled wit the . Finish it off by passing the leader in fleet that started 3 minutes ahead, 200 yds from the finish line.

It could have better if there were 3 more Waves behind me

Carl,

We have been sailing our Hobie Wave on Lake Buchanan (NW of Austin) and Texas City dike for over a year now. Last weekend we had a blast in up to 23 mph winds with the std jib on a 7 1/2 pole (like you suggested). Interestingly, the pole makes the Wave about as long as a Hobie 16 overall, but after this wild weekend we are ready for a larger head sail.

I have never raced before. My older son now lives in Pearland, so if you are planning on racing this Wed night(July 18), we will drive over to Clear Lake to watch and learn. Where do you launch on Clear Lake?

-Mark Rooke
Round Rock, Texas

You mean something like this?

What the hell is that? Bat-mo-wave?

Jack,

Perhaps... and since you asked, I do have some questions about your beautiful sail

1. What material is it made of and how large is it?

2. Since it does not overlap the mast, can you easily sail solo from the stern (e.g., like with a large jib you don't have to roll up to tack)?

3. Does it need to be all out or all rolled up, or does a partially rolled Hooter act like a smaller jib?

4. Under what conditions do you find you need to roll it up?

5. How well does it perform upwind and on a reach/downwind versus the std Wave and/or a Hobie 16?

Thanks in advance,
-Mark

3/4 oz spinnaker cloth

Made by Joe Waters at Waters Sails, Columbia, SC. Joe will make it any way you want it and it is scaleable. My pole is 10' which is a little radical. 7.5' seems to be what others are using. I am working with Joe on a semi-standard design for that pole length.

You might want to call him at (803) 957-5638 if you have any questions about the sail itself.



We designed it to sheet to a rachet block on the shroud chainplate. That way you do not need to cut a hole in the boat. Everything controls from your normal position. It does not need to be furled to gybe. Since I don't use it upwind, I haven't tried tacking. I'm going out today and will try that.



I have not experimented with it partly rolled up. That is a possibility. See above. I'll try that and report.



It was not designed as an upwind sail, but surprisingly, it can sail pretty close to the wind. I suspect that it would not be faster upwind that a well sailed conventional Wave.

I have only used this rig on a 38 mile distance race (Mug Race, Jacksonville Florida) and it was all down wind in light air. It was very fast...faster when there was more wind.

I will be doing more testing this week.

Take a look at this story and all the links in it. That will explain a lot. This was the Hooter system I developed for the Wave about 10 years ago. The concept was to make the Wave a two-person trainer boat for youth. Still has possibilities.
http://www.catsailor.com/waves/superwave_overall.html

I sell the Calvert Hooter and the entire system on our store. Here is the link:
http://www.catsailor.com/store/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=9335&idcategory=0
http://www.catsailor.com/store/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=8049&idcategory=0

About four years ago I had the sails built for the Super Hooter, which had a roller furling, self tacking jib, and a roller furling Hooter on a 9 foot pole.
I was passing a well-sailed Hobie 20 when it imploded. Since then I have beefed up the bow sprit.

What Jack has done is make an even longer bow sprit, however I am pretty sure 9' is plenty.
Hope to have the Super Hooter in the Sandusky Steeplechase coming up in a couple of weeks.
Rick

OK, I just got in from sailing in about 10 knots.

Pointing and hooters should not be in the same discussion. A Wave is faster upwind (VMG) with its mainsail only. Neither a jib nor a hooter will give you enough extra speed to make up for the lower pointing ability.

However, I found it was very easy to tack from reach to reach if that is what you want to do . Gybing was even easier.

A hooter has value when close to broad reaching. It does not do well DDW or pointing.

I also think that it is not a tactical sail so much as a strategic device and is lots of fun just sailing around and showing off.

It is more suited to distance races where you can stay on a reach for long stretches.

Around the buoys I think a well sailed conventional Wave could be just as fast.

Jack, with my original Hooter I could point as high and go almost as fast as a hobie 16 going upwind.

With the longer pole and bigger spin you may not be able to.
Rick

Right...we didn't want a sail that flat. It could be made flatter, but it depends on what you want to do with it. Actually, I can flatten it a lot with more halyard tension.

Last night I did't have it set that way. I will play around with it and see exactly what it is capable of.

At the Clear Lake Wed Night races yesterday I was reminded of how beautiful spinnakers can be flying in the wind.
It would be great to see some photos or even videos of Waves with these Hooters actually in action

We had our local fleet races last night around the standard Wave triangle with a windward leeward course.

I tried to stay out of the way of the rest of the boats, not passing to windward or contesting mark roundings.

Wind was 6-12 and shifty.

Upwind the boat clearly makes better VMG with the sail furled. The added windage makes it slightly slower than a "clean" Wave.

On reaches it is clearly faster, the windier it gets, the more the speed advantage.

Dead down wind you cannot make enough VMG to catch a Wave running free.

Any advantage I gained on the reaches was lost at mark roundings because there is so much extra to do.

In my opinion, these sails are great for showing off and reaching back and forth with a lot of excitement. On a distance race with mostly reaching, it will outsail its handicap.

Rick claims his "hooter" will sail as fast and point as high (which isn't very high BTW) as a Hobie 16.

I don't believe it, but we will do some one on one testing, perhaps next week.

Rick and I at Put-In-Bay yesterday ready to go "mono on mono".

However, Rick is still in the developing stages of his new rig and had trouble getting enough luff tension on the hooter.

He needs to lower the pole and I think it will be fine.

Mine has a shorter luff so I can get it pretty tight. That is needed to get it to furl properly.

Someone asked if you can sail with it partly unfurled and the answer is NO...absolutely not. It is either all in or all out. That is because the top tends to roll out more material than the bottom which is restrained but the furler drum. Trust me, it doesn't work well partly unfurled.

After Rick came back in to reconsider his design, I went out in 8-12 knots and sailed for several hours.

It is really amazing the speed that develops on a beam to broad reach. The boat literally leaps out of the water and skips over the waves. Note that this is in the famous Lake Erie chop.

There is no hope to gain an advantage upwind compared to a uni-rig Wave, opinion.

I picked this up off the Hobie Forum.

Trinomite wrote:
Based on the simple idea of economic return for your investments, would it not make more sense to buy a Hobie Wild Cat and consider other means of 'flying' as simple as looking at a pilot's license and leave the 'toy boats' on the beginner's circle?
Regards
Tri

Both Rick and I have been sailing high performance cats for 40 years...Sharks, Tornados, Hobies, Nacras, etc.

We are not interested in faster and more complex boats anymore.

We are Wave sailors and we race them..several times a week, in fact.

How many folks that read this forum really race Waves in one-design fleets?

However, we also like to play around a little, that's all.

WE DO NOT CONSIDER THE WAVE AS A "TOY BOAT"!!!

_________________
Jack Woehrle
Wave #100
H20 #287 "Tallahassee Lassie" (down in FLA)

Thanks Jack,
Very interesting summation.....I bet it is Fun to Play with on reaches....How did you do on the Mug Race with it on handicap???

I havent' done much sailing, other than the Wed. night wave racing....We had some bad luck...We went Paddleboarding on Lake Austin, and my wife Tammy decided to Swing off a rope swing, but forgot to lift her legs and Hit the lower set of Rocks, Breaking her leg...she could feel the lake water going in her leg...she also broke her wrist and had to have a 8 hour surgery on it to rebuild it.....so we are sort of shut down for 8 weeks at least....Full titanium rod from Knee to ankle.....She ain't a happy camper.

Mark Milam
Lafayette, La.
Wave # 113

Any news from the Put in Bay races ?

Got stormed out the last day, but still got in 9 races. Doug Seib and I tied for first, broke in his favor. Jim Glanden was 3rd, followed by John Sherry, Ray Matuszak, Jack Woehrle, Betty Bliss, Mark Scarpelli, Steve Abbey, Michelle Marman, Mike Powers, Peter Murray, Dick Bliss and Matt Wirth

Parties were awesome as usual.

Thanks!

Any updates on Rick vs. Jack? I'm close to pulling the trigger on a Wave and need info.

TIA

Neither ofus working on it. However, my original Hooter System worked far better than either Jack's or my Super Hooter. Took 2nd overall in Conch Cup with around 55 boats and passed most of the H16 fleet.
Won the Around the Bay Race (60 boats) by 15 minutes on corrected time.

With the Super Hooter a few years ago I was passing a H20 when it exploded.., or imploded -- bow sprit was not beefy enough for all that load.

I guess I need to chime in here.

MY system is far superior to what Rick has now (sorry Rick)! Why not go back to your old system then?

He is convinced that he outsailed Hobie 16, 18, 20, etc. I am not calling him out, but those must have been some poorly sailed boats or Mars must have been aligned with Pluto.

When we went out last week to go mono-a-mono, Rick had to bail because he couldn't get any luff tension on his rig, but I sailed half way around the island and back and had a ball. Even tried the AC45 thing in front of the restaurants and bars.

Having said that, my hooter or whatever you want to call it works perfectly and goes very fast reaching back and forth.

I cannot sail upwind as fast as a standard Wave and never thought I could. Two things prevent that:

1. You would need a very flat (code zero) cut which I don't want.
2. With the sail furled, you have weight forward and windage that the simple Wave does not have.

So....where does this leave us? My intent was to have an arrangement that I can use in distance handicap races where the chance of long reaches out weighs the chance of a long upwind leg.

I took a lot of detail photos last week and I will try to post them tonight or tomorrow.

PS: It would be much easier if Rick would add a direct photo uploader to this forum. It is very easy to do, BTW, Rick.

Thanks for your views Jack.

Flickr is a good place to put photos and supply links to either individual pics or sets.

I know...However, I have my own UBB forum and I simply had my adviser add a direct uploader.

I haven't forgotten about this, I have just been real busy.

No problem. I'm in Ohio getting soaked by the remnants of Issac. Can't wait to get to LA/Catalina.

You're planning to sail a Wave across to Catalina?
That's serious water for a Wave. However, I always thought a Wave would be a great way to explore the rough coast of the island.

Maui to Catalina????

No, read his messge. It's OHIO to Catalina!

Wasn't there an annual catamaran sail to Catalina from LA? I remember something about boat inspections and having to add a second set of standing rigging.


Too much beating to weather. You'd have to head due north and make a right turn and reach to Catalina. And then there's the Pacific High...

It's funny, I just talked to a guy on Maui yesterday, who called my office completely by mistake. He was planning to fly into Indy, on his way to Muncie. But I was able to help him with some business and tax questions to prepare for his trip. I think flying would definitely be better than sailing in from Maui.