Rescue of a dead Cat

I have been out of cat sailing for years and had the fever. Found an ad on craigs list offering a H18 "for parts". Scraped a few inches of leaves and mold off her and bought her on the spot with trailer for $500.00. Had a sail repair guy patch the 6 holes a squirl had chewed in the leach, set her up and sailed her a few times last year. This winter, my project was to strip the anti fouling paint from the hulls, prime and repaint, replace rigging and get a new sail and get her ready to race. Here is what she looked like when cleaned up.

stripped and sanded off all the god awful anti fouling and sanded

primed

Used Brightsides Sapphire blue after sanding both primer coats with 220 grit.

sanded 1st coat with 330 grit and applied 2nd coat using the roll and tip method. Thinned paint with 1/10 brushing liquid.

used Brightsides white on decks

new foot padding, Ebay used white tramp, new 6mm Dyneema tramp lacing, new shrouds and pins, new trap wires, used harken 6:1 main sheet system, new Robline sheets (9mm main & 7mm jib) and a name. My GF thought of it. its a cat, its 28 years old, hence a dinosaur, Catasaurus.

Joined the Rudder Club for the mast up storage and to sail the Mug Race. Ordered a new square top main from Chip at Whirlwind Sails. Thanks Chip, awesome sail. As an aside, if you get a sq. top, use a 8:1 main sheet. First sail with my new crew Brad went awesome, 15-20 and gusting to 25 and nothing broke.

thinking of doing the same down the road with mine. What do you think of the square top for the H18? I see you recommend the 8:1 mainsheet setup. Any reason to go with the crosscut as opposed to the radial for the 18? Cash or lack of any real increase in performance on the catasaurus?

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Dan St. Gean
'82 H 18
'96 H Wave

looks nice. just painted mine the same colors, except lighter blue. i noticed that you didn't take off the cross beams. is there a reason, or was it just easier to monuver?biloxi,ms

I prefer the square top sail with the traditional panel cut to the radial design, esp. in light air. I didn't remove the cross beams, just had to tape them. It wasn't a problem and saved the reassemble time.