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Congrats on a great start! All things will be learned with time and experience, and there is no better teacher!
That said, if you want to trim off a few years of the learning curve, I'd highly suggest picking up a catamaran sailing book. They all have about the same information, but I'd recommend Catamaran Racing for the 90's. It's got the most up to date information and really explains how to get the most out of your boat, what to adjust and why. For a boat like the 18, with all the possible adjustments, it really explains what everything does well. Some of it'll be information overload at first, but as you improve, more and more of it will "click" into place. The chapters on boat handling are invaluable to a beginner, and the boat tuning becomes more useful as you gain experience. I like to read it once a season or so, just to try and absorb it all.
A few notes based on your lessons learned:
1) Always point the boat dead upwind when hoisting the main. It becomes impossible if the wind starts to grab the sail. The only way you can hoist it on the water is if you're being towed upwind. The top few feet is always a bit tougher, but a non-greasy dry lubricant or wax on the boltrope/mast track will help.
2) Careful drilling into the mast or crossbar. You can end up with a leaky mast or a weakened crossbar. The best recommendation is to coil up the main halyard and excess downhaul line and stuff it in a tramp pocket.
3) Unhooking the main can be complicated by the "flopper." If you have an older boat, it has one of these devices that "flops" up or down. The idea is that when raising the sail, you'll want to get the ring just above the hook (but not above the flopper) and let it "set" down into the hook. To lower it, you just pull the ring up out of the hook, past the flopper, and let it come down. The flopper "flops" down and "covers" the hook, preventing the ring from hooking and allowing it to slide past. It makes lowering the sail easy, but raising it can be tricky - like I said, you have to go just past the hook, but not past the flopper. If your mast doesn't have one of these, or if it's been removed, you just need to raise the ring up past the hook and then let it "set" into the hook to raise it. To lower, you'll need to raise the ring out of the hook, ROTATE the mast CLOCKWISE so that the hook is rotated away from the ring, and then let it slide down the track.
4) Trimming the slot can be a little tricky, and proper jib trim is a subject covered at length in those catamaran books. Basically, you want the main and jib to have the same shape. If the main is in tight, so is the jib. If the main is loose, so is the jib. Tell tales help immensely in figuring out how to properly trim the sails. The book that I mentioned has specific recommendations for proper trimming and tuning of the Hobie 18, specifically.
Another highly recommended book is the Hobie 18 Performance Manual, available online at Murrays.com.
_________________ Mike  '79 H18 standard ' Rocketman II' sail #14921 RIP '78 H18 ( unnamed) sail #14921'08 H16 sail #114312'97 H21SC sail #238
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