Having learned to sail in the Pacific Ocean off the coats of Long Beach, California next to Hurricane Gulch (I wonder why they named it that), high winds and swells are all I know. I probably wouldn’t know how to sail in flat water and low winds here are booooooooooring to me. At one point, it would take me sometimes 20 minutes to tack successfully, if I didn’t capsize first. Then I started studying the anatomy of the tack, particularly involving the H16. The hull shape of the H16 is one of the primary reasons they’re more difficult to tack than other cats. Cats that have hulls with round bottoms are a lot easier to tack. The hull shape of the H16 is like one long dagger/center board.
It’s difficult to say what I did exactly that made tacking my H16 just part of sailing. First, I converted my standard jib halyard to an Aussie halyard. This prevented directional mast compression allowing symmetrical mast rotation while tacking to either side.
The second was mast rake. This allowed me to sail closer to the wind so that the distance from close hauled to head-to-wind is not as great.
The third was to learn (and it took practice) to get the timing right in releasing the main sheet after bringing the boat to head –to-wind by sheeting it in. With the wind blowing harder, this transition happens much quicker and your timing is much more of an issue. If you reach head-to-wind with your main sheeted in, you can forget about making the tack. You will not complete your tack as the main being sheeted in gives your boat the weather vane effect and you will surely end up in irons. You also have to remember that once you start to turn the rudder (remembering not to turn it more that 45 degrees) it should remained turned until the boat goes through the eye of the wind. Make the turn smoothly and do not allow the rudders to straighten until the boat has changed sides. I will usually remain on the windward side of the boat until the boat goes through the eye of the wind. This gives me more control of the rudder during this process. .
Roll tacking – It would be so much easier to tack the boat if you could get one of the bows out of the water. Roll tacking just might be your answer. While executing the tacking process, move to the rear of the boat and have your crew move right next to you. How close they come depends on their weight. You wouldn’t want a 250lb crew sitting on the back of your boat with you (especially if you too weigh 250lbs) unless you want your boat to turn over. H16s are crew displacement sensitive. I have to relearn how to sail my boat every time I sail with a different crew if there’s a big difference in weight. Anyway, this will bring the leeward bow out of the water leaving only one hull to turn in the water. As soon as the boat changes sides, (and not before) instruct your crew to go to the new side to prepare to bring the jib to the new side. Make sure that they don’t go too late either because you’ll still be on the old side going through the process of bringing the tiller to the other side. Also, if you’re sailing in swells and you see one coming, wait until your boat is on top of the swell before beginning your tack. This will also aid in the removal of the bows from the water during the tacking process.
I made these changes and modifications in my sailing technique all in the same week so it would be difficult to say which part of what I did made the biggest difference. All I can say is that I now have no problems with tacking, unless I’m trying to break in a new crew. I have typically sailed solo in the past but it looks as though I have finally found a crew that’s going to work out.
These have been my experiences. Hope this helps.
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