Fastest dinghy?

Originally posted by Barty Twin wiring at altitude!!!!.............I think I'd be wearing more than just a helmet.  If your on the wire six feet out the water and wipe out its gonna hurt  and at the speed that you could be going at, its gonna hurt even more!!!

 

We cat sailors spend a fair bit of time wiring out of the water

Originally posted by Phil eltringham Maybe you can help me out, I know the whole "wild thing" business of flying a hull to reduce friction, and thats fine.  But why by so much?, surely if the hull is just out of the water the rig will be more upright and so it presents a larger projected area to the wind thus producing more thrust.  Also the more you heel the less time you have before a possible wipeout!!

You say "wild thing" this is the term we use for flying a hull down wind, but, fastest is with the hull just out of the water.  But when sailing up wind in big waves, you need to lift the hull to be on top of the approaching waves, so at times it looks like an outrageous hull fly when in fact the lee hull is on a 6 foot wave and the windward hull is not.

Info from Emmett Lazich, top 18, 49er and Moth sailor.

 

Sailing the 12ft skiff in 20-25knot wind against tide breeze

Best speed Richard and I did today was 22kts. Shortly afterwards Richard

sat in because I was struggling to keep the boat under the rig, then

Bocko blasted over the top of us! That's quicker that I ever recorded on

49er to date. Normally today in the 12 doing about 19kts downwind with

two on wire, and 16kts with Richard sitting in for me. Avg 8.5 kts

upwind on lap2 tacking through about 100 deg - due to chop

In a GP18 (Collex) the best I recorded (in early 2001) was 28.6kts in

between the heads in a strong westerly and confused sea. It felt like

35kts so 28.6 was an anti-climax. In 25kts NE like today, a 1996

rules/formula GP18 (Collex) does 13kts upwind average and 15kts peak

upwind tacking through 90 deg. GP18s do about 19-24kts downwind in that

stuff gybing through about 45 deg. I'd estimate 2003 League 18s are

still a knot or three slower than the 1996 18s.

49er not too bad upwind in 20kts and flat water doing about 11kts

tacking through 90. 49er rarely exceeds 20kts downwind, but easily does

15kts in 15kts of wind, so feels very nice downwind in medium stuff.

Yeh, but with respect trapping from the cat (and our cat is similar in length to yours but lighter and has a taller mast IIRC) is like trapping from the side of a house, compared to trapping from a skiff.

The skiff is so much livelier and keeping it right way up downwind requires much faster helm alterations, AND on a big skiff you're a long way further from centreline (14 to 18 foot wingtip span) so the centrifigual force on those sudden bearaways and luffs is much more severe.

In the cat, in a lull you can just veg out on the wire (i'm catching that bad habit myself now I'm catting) whereas that's not an option on a skiff. You have to move in, instantly, or you're swimming.

Or at least that's what it seems from the cats I sail, against guys like the world A Class champs, the world F18 champ, and several other guys who got top 10 in the F 18 worlds (not bad considering they're actually Taipan 4.9 sailors!)

Originally posted by Scooby_simon Originally posted by Barty Twin wiring at altitude!!!!.............I think I'd be wearing more than just a helmet.  If your on the wire six feet out the water and wipe out its gonna hurt  and at the speed that you could be going at, its gonna hurt even more!!!   We cat sailors spend a fair bit of time wiring out of the water

hahaha!!! be nice!!