Hi all,
New forum member here with some questions and a short progress report. Got into sailing last year with a couple of foam boats - an old Formex boat and a Snark. Lots of fun at our small local lake, and minimum hassle not counting breaking stuff in high winds.
I don't have a lot of catamaran experience. Did some cat sailing about 20 years ago on other peoples boats, but we didn't do any of the rigging back then. So I'll put up my questions first:
1) Shroud tension - how tight should they be? They have to be a little loose for us to be able to connect the forestay. Then when we crank the jib halyard tight, we can still push the mast side to side a little bit. If I move both adjusters 1 hole tighter I can make that go away, but we would need to loosen them up for stepping and dropping the mast.
2) Rudder cam tension - we had a broken cam and replaced them both. The guys over at the beachcats forum let me know I had to grease the cams, which I did last night. When down and locked, it seems easy to push on the bottom of the rudders and get them to unlock. We have the delrin screw in as tight as it will go. Is this normal/OK? I am worried the drag on the rudders will pop them back but I don't have the experience to know.
3) Mast stepping - when raising the mast, the ball on the bottom of the mast seems to go forward of the socket. We always need two people, one to push the bottom of the mast aft to get it to drop into the mast base. Are we doing something wrong?
4) Mast base - the hole for the stepping hinge is cracked. Not all the way through, but I think I'll want to replace it sometime. Do I need to replace the mast base and step as a pair? Or would a new base be compatible with my old step? I don't want to change the rake if I don't have to. It seems that I'd need new shrouds and also it sounds like the 5:1 mainsheet is not optimal for a more raked mast. Hard to justify a $400 6:1 on a $400 boat/trailer.
5) Jib Halyard - it seems to bind at the top. Is there something to look for or am I just not used to how it tensions up? Hard to see what is going on with the little pulley when it is up that high.
6) We have one trap harness and for the life of me I can't figure out how to wear my PFD and the harness at the same time.
Thanks in advance for any advice and help. Here is the story of the boat and what we have done to it:
We bought the boat and trailer for $400. Definitely a rescue. This has not been on the water for a long time and had been passed around a few times. We put all new lines on it. The hiking straps were shot, so we pulled off what looks like the original tramp and I sewed new straps on it. The left hull had the classic Hobie crack on the transom. We made some flox out of sawdust & chopped fibers to fill it in. We put new rudder cams on. The main and jib were each missing a couple of battens and most of the tensioners. I bought some used battens and we 3D printed the missing tensioners and luff end caps. The #1 main batten had a bad delam in one spot. I sanded that down, glassed it over, and shaped it back to the original profile and stiffness, or close to it anyway. The cleat for the traveller was missing the bullseye and also was bent down. The gooseneck was missing the vertex and one of the forum members gave me one. The cheek block for the downhaul was trashed so we riveted a new one on. I think that is what we did on the boat. For the trailer we stripped it down & painted it. New leaf springs (one was broken), wiring, and hubs. I made an aft mast support using a 2" receiver so we can remove it to get the boat off.
It looks like the forum does not host pictures, and I've not gotten any pics on hosting sites since I was burned by photobucket. But you can see some pictures over at the beachcats forum and here is a short edited video my kid did from one of our practice rigging sessions.
https://youtu.be/yxnXHrzOkf0
_________________
Bryan
Poplar Grove, IL
1977 Hobie 16 (died a spectacular death
https://youtu.be/Y7O22bp2MVA)
1978 Hobie 16