Return to Hobie.com
Hobie Forums
It is currently Tue Mar 19, 2024 1:56 am

All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 519 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 31, 32, 33, 34, 35  Next
Author Message
PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2018 3:08 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:18 am
Posts: 3057
Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
One thing you will find out is upwind in light winds the main by itself luffs too easy and has almost no power, (just flops in the wind). With the jib upwind I could direct some wind over the mainsail, kind of forcing the mainsail to do work in lower winds, better than with just the main, and the ability to point higher. Which was pretty much my main reason for using jibs.
I had several streamer ribbons on my jibs, (near top, middle, and near bottom), making it easier to see exactly what it’s doing with the air.
Your jib looks pretty stretched out.
I like your 2/1 jib control lines, I also had two control lines, makes self tacking very easy, ( usually no need to adjust anything between tacks when working upwind.
Pretty cool setup
FE


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun Aug 12, 2018 12:41 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2018 2:00 am
Posts: 25
Yes you are correct the jib "helps" the mainsail upwind.
Directing wind is one factor, the other it pushes the boat to one side, main catches the wind better that way (mainsail only: point and hike out leeward, does the same).

Thanks to all the info here I could get this setup done fairly easy. Basically I only used a carbon pole instead of PVC, hobie topper and used a different control lines setup.
Now i can buy a new jib (but even with this old streched out jib it works fine).

Next.....
- Tandem mainsail (I just swap the mast holder, with jib it will be even better balanced)
Speed ..... not sure it will go faster (hull limit), so rudder foil or planing hull otherwise it does not make sense.
- Rudder foil (but winter job, need to reinforce the back and rudder setup, so need it in the garage for some time).
So this will be a combi project.

- Spinnaker (just need to find a smaller bag, want to mount it on the nose), not sure i really need the spin (small lake)


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun Aug 12, 2018 3:03 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:18 am
Posts: 3057
Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
The hullspeed on the TI is 8.6mph, (sqrt(18.5)x 2.0= about 8.6mph). However that’s a soft number because of the 8/1 length to width ratio of the hull. The AMA’s have no hull speed limit, but it’s better to to try to keep AMA’s completely out of the water, (less drag).
The horsepower requirements start to go up exponentially at anything over 9-10 mph, so it’s hardly worthwhile shooting for higher cruise speeds on all points of sail. Obviously downwind is a different story with a huge spinnaker, with enough wind the boat holds pretty well to 1=1 to the wind, in over 20mph winds we have had ours over 20mph speeds many times, but we have a long bowsprit that angles the foresails so they create quite a bit of lift to the boat, when pushing very hard the bow is a good foot or two above the water. Basically the sail is dragging the boat, so the hullform means very little, what we call crappy planing, (only works downwind).
To get true planing upwind, you have to modify the hullform.
Without a bowsprit you have great risk of pitchpole downwind, ( just be careful).
FE


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 3:30 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2018 2:00 am
Posts: 25
Small update on the JIB.

It works really good up to 3 bft (up to 10 knots).
Above: furl (21/22 knots, furl 75% and use as tacking help). Furl early is the advice (you loose to much speed, rudder and nose).

The Jib puts extra force on the mast, bending it more then normal.
Yesterday I had full jib/mail (10 knots), but suddenly I got over 16 knots on a beam/close reach.

And almost all the wind spilled over the mainsail (looked like it folded !), jib pulling to much on the mast (side but also front).
Speed gone, quickly recovered, no damage.
Will start testing with stay lines that stretch a bit and then are fixed, to prevent this.


Mainsail/Jib:
- if you look at the mast under sailing conditions: surf sail position (a bend mast, and spilling over the top, same setup).
- Thinking of adding an extra line to keep it bend always (tension a surf sail and it bends the mast), I will try some of my windsurf tensioners and see what happens.
- Then the jib can pull as hard as it wants (in fact it will counteract the bending forces on the mast, so less force on the mast) and with streching side stays the mast can handle higher forces.
- Jib and main pulling means the pin below will hold much easier and not snap.

I still have this crazy idea:
- pull the surfsail over the hobie mast, tension it, use the boom, connect end of the boom to the standard mainsail line........ up to 100 sqft sail (high power stiff sail....) on an adventure... :o
- If that works it will be better then a jib. Better balanced boat, pointing upwind..... windsurf sails does that better by design, downwind.....just flap out the full sail (it has a boom)....
- I will test it with 65 sqft first (got one lying around), just for fun.
- And maybe it turns out to be a not so crazy idea......


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 4:51 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:18 am
Posts: 3057
Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
Where I always launch there are a bunch of windsurfer people typically there setting up, some of those guys have 5-6 different sails and boards that they use dependent on the conditions that day. We usually chat a lot. Some of their masts are near identical to our Hobie mast, and some of their sails are bigger than my main sail.
If I had one of those sails I definately would have thrown it on my boat to see what I could do with it, ya never know until you try.
Actually on another thread, (about booms) I thru out a furlable windsurfer type boom design that would probably work. The furler part would only be relevent for ease of boom setup/breakdown, (not while underway).
Always wanted to try stuff like that out, just for fun.
FE


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 10:38 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2018 2:00 am
Posts: 25
Almost sure it will work (idea in my head already, have surf sails lying around) and then i ran into this thing:

http://www.fulcrumspeedworks.com/UFO/

You gone love love the design fusioneng......it is a fusion (cat, moth and surf) with a self leveling foiling system.
And a very clever lines setup for mast stiffness.

If he can put a surf like sail (84 sqft) on that small thing it will work on an island.
I just need to figure out a good tensioning point on the base of the island mast without breaking something......a lot off force on a surf sail tensioning system).


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Nov 30, 2018 11:18 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:13 am
Posts: 1182
Location: Nepean S.C. Ottawa, Canada
UFO Foiling....I know this is a Hobie Forum.....
However, you have to hand it to Steve (the dad) and Dave (the son) Clark, they have conceived and built an amazing foiling cat.
I've been in a regatta with them (different class) and I was lucky to drive the camera boat for the demo afterwards.
The engineering is so simple and elegant, especially the foil trim tab.

Go to the gym to upgrade your hip flexors, and try one.

_________________
2015 H16, with spin,
SOLD 1989 Hobie SX18 Sail # 1947 "In Theory..."
'Only two things are infinite, the universe, and human stupidity. But I'm not sure about the former.'


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Nov 30, 2018 12:30 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:18 am
Posts: 3057
Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
The sail on that boat is a wicked nice design, (way more powerful than an island sail). We never got our island to foil upwind without motor assist. The fun for me was all the design and construction, and working out issues, then testing every weekend....fun memories.
FE


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2018 8:53 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Sun Oct 02, 2011 8:59 am
Posts: 49
Location: Cleveland, OH
An Australian called Frank Bethwaite literally wrote the book on planing dinghies. He empirically tested all the key ratios etc. to come up with some rules of thumb for weight to righting moment, weight to wetted surface area, etc. needed to sustain upwind and downwind planing. he did it mostly in the '70's via direct measurement. The foiling era was just starting has he aged out. His son is an accomplished skiff racer and designer too. I have a Laser2 dinghy he designed, but modified with a TI style rig and Hoyt boom. It's an ageless thoroughbred of fast sailing fun. You won't get that kind of experience on a TI- different purposes. A TI won't ever truly plane, but it will get you from point A to point B faster than many 'high-performance' craft because its own ratios are pretty extreme. Esp. with a haka for righting moment and pedals for light air / high point, pretty hard to beat. OTH in four foot waves, downwind in 20kts of air? A pure dinghy is almost like seated Hawaiian surfing with beer in hand. Also hard to beat :D

https://www.amazon.com/High-Performance ... 4806&psc=1


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Jul 09, 2020 1:02 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Tue May 19, 2020 2:01 pm
Posts: 103
Location: SW Florida
I have read all the pages 3-4 times.
Is it basically
1) add a jib, with or without bowsprit
2) add a motor mount for a small motor to get out (or into) trouble.


Last edited by winfield100 on Thu Jul 09, 2020 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:45 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:18 am
Posts: 3057
Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
Definately if you add a jib or spinnaker, the bow sprit helps by angling the sail so it also creates lift to the bow, (the boat really needs it, especially on downwind, where you will likely pitchpole without it if you push the boat really hard, (like I did almost always, lol).

Since we were divers we mostly open ocean sailed off key West, (a really tiny island), you would be a fool to go out in the ocean without a pretty powerful backup system to get you home safely if the wind changed or died, (we even had an inflatable lifeboat). I know first hand all about those wind changes, and 15 or so miles is too far to pedal against the wind, (you end up going backwards, mostly because the basic TI can't point worth a crap), or no wind at all. Just saying the keys are really really dangerous, I don't recommend anyone going out down there without years of local knowledge and lots of experience.

If I had to do it all again, I would do a jib rather than a spinnaker, (you would use it much more), we seldom went downwind, and seldom used any of our spinnakers, (though they are really cool and fun). Keep in mind if you fly downwind 10 miles you have to pedal back against the wind, (an 8 minute Adrenalin rush followed by 4 brutal hours to get back to shore, completely exhausted).

Don't bother with a motor unless your going way offshore, with these boats it's best to stick with casual day sailing once in a while.

Just have fun with the boat as designed, don't try to make it into something it's not.
I over did mine, and it wasn't fun for the rest of the family anymore once it got really complex.

Keep it simple, and just enjoy the boat, (they are awesome)
FE


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Jul 09, 2020 4:32 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Tue May 19, 2020 2:01 pm
Posts: 103
Location: SW Florida
Thank you FE.
I’m in Cape Coral in SW Fl, 400 miles of fresh and saltwater canals, plus gators & manatees, 20 miles N of Estero.
On a canal with no bridges to Caloosahatchie
Found a 16ft revolution, 2019, it’s a maybe, $2,200
Looking at a 2016 AI with no reverse 180 and old style seat, basically 10% less than new if upgrade seat and drive.
About 2-3 hours experience sailing, did learn to right a sunfish.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Jul 09, 2020 7:46 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Sun Apr 26, 2015 3:13 pm
Posts: 655
fusioneng wrote:
...Don't bother with a motor unless your going way offshore, with these boats it's best to stick with casual day sailing once in a while...

Casual day sailing very close to shore in excellent weather may be acceptable without a motor, but for anything else, I personally wouldn't think of going out without a motor anymore. I went one season without a motor when I first got my TI, but never again. Even close to shore you're taking a chance. I once could not make it back into the bay on a day where the winds picked up to over 20 knots and were going the wrong way for me to get to safety. There was not enough room to tack upwind into the narrow bay opening so the sail was useless. I then tried pedaling as fast and as hard and as long as I could but I was going backward against the wind-driven waves. I could see right where I needed to go just a few hundred yards away but there was no way to get there. I was exhausted and had to beach it far from where I needed to be.

After that, I bought a motor and never went out without one again and never will. That motor has saved my hide time and time again. I highly recommend a motor, either electric or gasoline, to everyone using a TI for their safety and confidence as well as much greater use and enjoyment of the boat.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2020 6:59 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:18 am
Posts: 3057
Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
Good point, I too have been caught out many times with an offshore wind and couldn’t get back.
But that’s offshore, I was kinda inferring to the 90% of the ‘mostly‘ inshore/ nearshore casual family sailers who are mostly on small lakes/ very near shore/ inter-coastal waters and only use their boats occasionally.

The ocean passes here have a 6 knot current it seems most of the time, the basic TI cannot get thru those passes, and I can certify if we launch with an offshore wind there is no method to get back to shore, the best I could ever get sailing the basic TI upwind was about 4-5 mph speed tacking/pointing about 50 degrees off the wind. Yea your sailing like crazy but going backwards even in 8-10 mph wind.
I agree with you if trying to use the boat offshore.
Lol, that bring up another funny story,,, we bought our first TI in April 2010 on a thursday, picked up the boat around 3 and the wife and I went out for a sail just offshore, we wanted to sail past Siesta Key beach and back ( about 5 miles) just offshore, (what could go wrong). We had been using our Oasis and revos with sail kits For several yrs by then and enjoyed going snorkeling just south of siesta at point of rocks, (for those familiar with the area). We bought the TI so we could bring scuba tanks with, (which worked out very well eventually). We went down had a swim, (like normal) then tried to get back into sarasota bay ( we always launched at city island park by longboat key, (a very nice place to launch).
We got washed out to sea and couldn’t get back in, we finally got in around 9:00 totally exhausted, (we ended up walking the boat along the shore most of the way).
The wife said never again and suggested we buy an outboard, I ordered it that night, lol.
I went out the next morning by myself and the exact same thing happened, she ended up picking me up miles from the launch roadside because I couldn’t get back to city island if my life depended on it, ( of course beyond exhausted from pedaling).
That night the ultimate tandem island was born. I worked thru the night designing and building the motor mount and mast topper. Modified one of our many hobie kayak sails to use as a jib, (we had 3 mirage kayaks at the time and had worn out and replaced several kayak sails by then, so I had bunches of them on hand).
I picked up the outboard saturday morning from the factory up in st pete and went out saturday afternoon with an outboard and jib. Had no issues at all. Since then we sailed most every weekend year round from either here, (Sarasota) or our other house in Key West. Since the first two, (failed) times out the boat was never again launched without at least an outboard and jib. By June I had designed and made the 135sq ft spinnaker and the bowsprit shortly afterward, (don’t recall exactly when). It was just dumb luck all that crap worked.
We wore out 3 TI’s over the years, each time I just transferred the same old motor mount, mast topper, bowsprit, and sails to each new boat, And used the crap out of them. All that original stuff is still good and still hangs in the garage but looks to have survived WW2, (lol). In 2013 I got into wing sails and modified the original jib into a wing sail, it was pretty awesome, added the second outboard around the same time period and re- enforced the boat for extreme offshore use.
Had lots of fun but got too old, and by then the rest of the fam had lost all interest so I was by myself most of the time.
That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
To be perfectly honest, I bought the boat originally on the promise that a jib was in development and would be released shortly after initial release, (I had one of the first in this region, and went in to the dealer to buy a new H16, he had just got these in and sold me on the TI instead, (cost me around $3 grand with my Oasis trade in). Well the jib never came, (still really pissed about that). Sure I ended up with a really great boat, but I had to come up with all that myself. If I had known, what was going to transpire I would have designed and built my own boat or bought something more suitable for offshore use ( class ‘C’). Just being honest in retrospect. Yea I made it work but shouldn’t have had to out of necessity.
I’m not knocking the adventure boats, ( especially the TI), for the casual weekend sailer family mostly inshore, or near shore, they are the best thing on the market, and continue to be so. It has a class ‘D’ rating for a reason and purposefully kept simple but can still be upgraded for some hard core stuff, ( as I did), but your on your own to do that. I still wish Hobie had come out with a hard core ‘C’ version, I would have bought one in a heartbeat, Or at the very least offered upgrade kits, ( I assume for liability reasons they couldn’t), but alas their wouldn’t likely be enough sales to justify, that’s reality in my humble opinion.
FE


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2020 1:09 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Sun Apr 26, 2015 3:13 pm
Posts: 655
fusioneng wrote:
Good point, I too have been caught out many times with an offshore wind and couldn’t get back.
But that’s offshore, I was kinda inferring to the 90% of the ‘mostly‘ inshore/ nearshore casual family sailers who are mostly on small lakes/ very near shore/ inter-coastal waters and only use their boats occasionally.

The ocean passes here have a 6 knot current it seems most of the time, the basic TI cannot get thru those passes, and I can certify if we launch with an offshore wind there is no method to get back to shore, the best I could ever get sailing the basic TI upwind was about 4-5 mph speed tacking/pointing about 50 degrees off the wind. Yea your sailing like crazy but going backwards even in 8-10 mph wind.
I agree with you if trying to use the boat offshore.
...

"Offshore" has no set meaning, some consider it to mean simply significantly away from the shore, while others may take it to mean ocean-going. I sail my TI on a very large lake, 134 miles long and around 7-10 miles wide. I don't necessarily consider what I do as "offshore" sailing but I can tell you that this lake can easily overwhelm a TI when the weather kicks up, often quickly and without warning. There are many sunken wrecks of very large boats in this lake, some having gone down quite close to shore. In very bad weather, you might be within a hundred yards of a shore but you might never be able to get there with a motorless TI. Without a motor, anyone caught in bad weather on a TI on this type of lake could be in very serious danger. We're talking 25-30 knot winds and 4-5 foot waves and currents with rocky shores and cliffs. If you can't get to safety quickly, you're in for a hell of a ride and you might not make it back. Even with a motor, it can be dangerous. I could tell you some stories.

So my recommendation to get a motor extends well beyond what can be considered "offshore". Anyone who sails in any body of water that is not adequately protected from high winds, waves, currents, and the effects of dangerous weather should have a motor. This covers far more than only those sailing offshore.


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 519 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 31, 32, 33, 34, 35  Next

All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Jump to:  
© Hobie Cat Company. All rights reserved.
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group