Can you fly a hull on a Wave . . .

Can you fly a hull on a wave. Just curious!!!!!

Happy Sailing,

David

You Bet you can! However, there are some limitations.

I have only been able to fly a hull by myself, not with someone else on the Wave. I suppose it might be possible if your companion was a small child. Otherwise, not enough sail area to fly a hull with 2 adults aboard.

My father-in-law just bought a Wave and I spent three days on it this weekend (does that mean I love this boat?)

By myself (200 lbs) I could fly a hull with no problem around 20kts.
With a partner I couldn't get it up at all (except that one time, but htat was hardly "controlled sailing").

The one thing I will say is that it tends to bury the bow once you're up though. I never pitchpoled, but I did manage to submarine the leeward hull to the point that I slammed down teh windward hull and buried both of them, coming to a slamming stop. Scary more than anything.

I tried to get as far aft as possible, but eventually you're hugging the tiller bar. I also raked the mast back as far as it will go (eventually the blocks were almost touching but I was just reaching back and forth in front of the cottage at that point anyway). These seemed to help somewhat, but I was still focused on teh leaward bow everytiem I got up.

Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

You can hike out in high winds and fly the hull and in low winds it is possible to fly if you shift your combined weight towards the middle or leward side, and, the wave will fly.Practice always makes perfection and the hull flying on any cat takes a lot of practice.
Sailing connects one to ZEN

Last week I was flying the hull on my Wave big time in 15 plus winds, even did it a number of times with my 10 year old daughter (90 pounds) aboard (I weigh about 170). Never even came close to burying the bows. This is my second season on the boat and I couldnt do it even in higher winds, alone, last year, so it seems like practice is definitely the key. (I probably didnt have the nerve to sheet in sufficiently in the higher winds last season!)

I was able to fly a hull pretty easily this past weekend. Two days of 15+ winds helped a lot but I was surprised seeing as I'm 200lbs. It was only my 5th time out and I ended up pitch poling as well!!! I have now started to learn the differences of sailing a cat. With some good winds you should be able to get a hull out of the water.

Rake the mast back, and get your weight back aft as far as you can, and pitchpoling the Wave will be but a distant memory - the only time I NEARLY pitched was on my very first sail, after sailing monohulls for years - the mast wasnt raked very far back, and my weight was definitely not far enough aft (funny, I thought those seat pads were supposed to be showing me where I ought to be sitting!) With those two changes, its never since been an issue, even in much higher winds.

I raked the mast back and shift my weight back (sitting under the tiller) last year and it helped to keep the bow up. This spring I drained a surprising amount of water out of the hulls and was able to rake the mast forward a bit as a result.
Just something to check if you're still having problems burying the bow.

I love seeing white caps 11 knot wind and up and getting my wave on a broad reach and seeing how long I can fly the hull. I posted a video on youtube.com check it out by searching my name joe hanneman with the space after joe. you will get my posts of my wave hull flying and my trifoiler foiling. I also like my new adventure island for the lighter wind days. I just love to sail. SAILING MAKES ME HUNGRY, EATING MAKES ME SLEEPY, SLEEPING MAKES ME WANT TO SAIL.

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Trifoiler #44, Wave w/spinnaker, adventure island w/sail

If you get really bored go to the leeward side in light wind and trapeze... you can fly a hull in almost any wind.

It takes some practice but you can have alot of fun, but before you do this make sure you can swim and right your boat.

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Nacra 5.2 "Elsies"
Hobie 14T, "Blazin" I guess I am keeping her!

Thanks for the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iupiJmIWu1E - nice bit of hull flying. it was great to see the trifoiler as well. Why don't they put 2 sails on more cats?

I have only had my Wave since September and, once I kick some freeloaders off have managed, even with my limited experience, to get the hull up - fantastic! I'm hooked.

I'm also considering an Adventure Island since I just bought a shack on a beach just north of Sydney. Guess I should try a test sail first.

stevo

Well, I have owned this boat for a year now, and previously owned a 14T, as well as a few monhulls. I have NEVER flown a hull on either of the cats, at least not intentionally. For some reason I had this 'fear' of going over. I just went in when winds got crazy, or just simply sheeted out.

I decided, no more. I need to push the limits.

Yesterday, we had what I would call 'ideal' conditions to experiment with hull flying. With air temps in the mid 80's, and water temps not far behind that, 15-18mph winds , I decided I was going to see how far I could push this baby, maybe even see what it is like to tip and right.

Pushing this fear aside, I was able to repeatedly fly the hull, and actually surprised by how stable it felt, even heeled way over. I felt like I was 8' up in the air! But of course I wasn't. But I was over like 45deg quite a few times. It seemed that if you want to prevent going over, you can quite easily, even when you seem to have reached the point of no return. Funny thing is, every time I got really close to going over, I would chicken out, and let the sheet out. This excercise was quite the confidence builder. And what a blast!

Finally, wanted to really push it. I held the sheet, and over she went, dumping me off in the process. It kind of happened in slow mo. Almost surreal. So bobbing there next to the hull, I am thinking, that was not bad at all! Kind of fun actually. So next step, ketting her back on her feet.

So I swam the bows around sort of 45deg off the wind, the mast pointing too it, I grabbed the righting line and stood on the hull. I leaned back as far as I could, limited by the length of the righting line over the upper hull. Nothing. Would not budge. Even bouncing it, it just stayed there. I am like, ok, this thing is suposed to be the easiest cat to right, what is the problem? I weigh 150lbs, so that should be adequate. At this point, my father in law sees this going on, and jumps in his boat to see if he could offer some help. Great. Now an audience.
I was determined to do this unassisted.

It occured to me, after about 10 min, to check the main sheet. Sure enough, I had forgotton to uncleat. Doh!

So, try again, this time I swam the boat around so the mast was pointed almost directly in to the wind. Again I try, almost no movement. All the while, I keep thinking that righting line is way too short. I could not lean back hardly at all. Finally, and very slowly, the main, which appeared to still full of water, slowly started to come out, and it finally popped back up righted. Defintely not as easy as I would have thought.

So why was this so difficult? I am thinking I should have untied the righting line on the lower point so I could use the entire 15' over the top of the upper hull, and lean way back. Was I supposed to untie?
Or perhaps I need to re-tie the righting line loops so that they are much smaller, to fee up a little more length.

One other thing that might have compounded my issue, I have a ratchet block, maybe under these conditions, it just would not allow the sheet to flow out. Does this make sense? I was sheeted in tight. So next time, I will first uncleat and manually free the sheet way out, to eliminate this possibility again.

Bottom line, anyone see any problem(s) w/ my methods?

Thanks!

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Jim

2007 Hobie Wave

I've flown a hull a few times in my WAVE, too. Pretty dawgone exciting, that. Wannahobie's right...one does feel 8 feet above the water.

Actually, one's head is probably close to that far up.

I haven't capsized yet, but figure my day is coming. I would appreciate it, as well, if anyone has tips on righting a WAVE. I don't want to be struggling like our Wanna Homie.

We don't want to embarass ourselves in front of the bikinis, we are men, after all.

I am going to try it again next opportunity. Lookng over the tips from here and the manual, I will point the hulls 45deg to the wind, make sure my main is uncleated (duh!) and feed plenty of mainsheet out, I really think that ratchet block was holding the main, consequently, a lot of water ballast. Also, I will untie the righting line so I can use all 15' of it, and lean way back. (I really found that thing too short. If it were 17' it would be much better.)
Maybe even tie the other end to the rear crossbar temporarily, so that I can pull more evenly against the center of gravity of the boat (the same way you right a 14, 16, etc.), instead of dancing off the tapering portion of the hulll like I was towards the bow tips. Man those things can be slippery!

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Jim

2007 Hobie Wave

When I've capsized my Wave, I didn't have any problem righting it. I'm at about 205 lbs; and with the sheet uncleated and the righting line over the high hull, it popped right back up, very quickly! Both times, it was in strong winds (20+), so that may have helped.

After uncleating the sheet, I climbed up on the low bow (and let it pivot around to the wind), pulled the line out of the pocket, threw it over the high hull and leaned out. It popped up so quickly, I had to dodge the hull coming down and grab the other end of the righting line to keep it from rolling on over the other way.

For me the toughest parts were climbing onto the slippery bow, then getting back onto the boat after it was righted. I posted a solution to re-boarding the boat on Catsailor's Wave forum.

Since yours was so uncooperative, you might make sure you don't have water in the mast holding it down. Mine was filling up with rain water (from a leaky seal in the comp-tip joint) till I drilled two TINY holes in the luff track near the base. Water trickled out for hours. Now I can tell the boat is lighter when I pull it up on shore, so I'm sure it helped with righting also.

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What - Me Worry?


2006 Hobie Wave 7358
"Ish Kabibble"