New H18 questions

I recently bought a Hobie 18 and I've got some kind of dumb questions, but I don't know anybody else that has one and I haven't ever been on or around another one ... so I'm hoping someone here can help a little. By way of background, I've got ~10 years of owning and sailing keelboats on the Great Lakes, so I'm not a total newbie to sailing. The boat I bought was owned by someone who sailed it very mildly the last couple years - he told me he never rigged the trap wires, and only set the jib once or twice.

-Where do I tack the jib to? I pinned it to the forestay tension adjustment but that didn't seem right to me.

-What is the shroud tension supposed to look like? Even at the maximum adjustment they still seem very loose to me - I didn't put a Loos gauge on, but I bet you it'd read 0. Are my shrouds blown out or did I get something else wrong here?

-Are the daggerboards supposed to be held in place by being kinked against the edges of the board well by the shock cord? In both the up and down position?

-The rudders are meant to be parallel, right? If you line one of mine up with the hull, the other one has about 10 degrees of toe-in. I didn't seen an obvious adjustment for that

I think there's probably more, but that's all I can remember at the moment. Thanks in advance!

Jib should tack at the furler as low as possible.

Shrouds should be snug. You can hang from the trapeze wires to pull the mast over to move the shrouds to a lower pin position in the adjusters.

Yes, Daggers are held forward by the bungee running between the top of the board and a hole in the rail forward of the front beam.

Rudders should be close to parallel. 1/8" to 1/4" toe in is optimal. You may have the mounted on opposing hulls. The tiller arms should angle inboard when sighting from the aft and rudder aligned with the hull.

Support: https://www.hobie.com/support/hobie-18/

Assembly manual might help: https://static.hobiecat.com/digital_assets/H18%26SX_Manual.pdf

_________________
Matt Miller
Former - Director of Parts and Accessory Sales
Warranty and Technical Support
Hobie Cat USA
(Retired 11/7/2022)

Welcome, and congrats on the new boat! I love my H18, it's much faster than most other dinghies and keelboats!

Where on the Great Lakes are you? There are a couple of clubs that you should check out and introduce yourself! They can help you figure out how best to rig your H18 as well, and help with the nuances of cat sailing. CRAM (Catamaran Racing Association of Michigan) has sailors all over the states of Michigan & Ohio, CRAW is all over Wisconsin, Fleet 119 near Buffalo, NY (WNY Catamaran Association on facebook), and Fleet 204 in Syracuse, NY. All are pretty active clubs with very inviting members, and all except Fleet 119 race actively. They each have their own websites, but they are also very responsive on facebook.

I had a lot of the same questions my first time! Take a look closely at the assembly manual that Matt linked to, that helps a bunch!

These videos were very helpful for me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl7kZOQ5WQk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QLltz31cy8

To expand a little on Matt's responses:
The jib does pin to the jib furler & forestay adjusting plate at the tack. The lower of the two holes in the furler is for a pin and ring to pin the forestay to the furler, the upper hole is for a shackle to pin the jib tack to the furler. The jib halyard was a bit trickier to understand at first, but it's pretty simple... you run the free end of the forestay down through the shackle holding the tack of the jib to the furler, then up through the sheave at the end of the jib halyard wire, and then back down through the jam cleat on the jib.

The shrouds should be snug enough that your mast doesn't flop from side to side if you rock the boat. The leeward shroud will always be loose when sailing, but if you grab and pull on the trapeze wires in the parking lot/on the beach, the mast shouldn't move much.

Daggers are just jammed against the dagger well by the bungee in order to keep them in place (up or down).

Switch the rudders/tiller arms for the port & stbd rudders. I didn't get it at first, but as matt said the tiller arms on each rudder are bent just slightly inboard. If you get them backwards, your rudders will be toed in quite a bit. I marked mine with red & green vinyl tape so I don't get them backwards ever again. There is a way to adjust the rudders slightly, by loosening a screw and sliding the adjuster at the end of the tiller crossbar in or out, but if the arms are switched, you won't have nearly enough adjustment.

_________________
Mike

'79 H18 standard 'Rocketman II' sail #14921 RIP
'78 H18 (unnamed) sail #14921
'08 H16 sail #114312
'97 H21SC sail #238