Is a Hobie going to teach me Wharram skills?

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Anonymous (not verified)
Is a Hobie going to teach me Wharram skills?
Sadly, I'm far from the ocean and it will be a while before I can build or purchase a Wharram. Would picking up a used Hobie cat and sailing that recreationally build any useful skills that would be handy in sailing a small Wharram some fine day? I'm especially curious to hear from anyone who's sailed both. Thanks, --Rich in Colorado, USA
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Is a Hobie going to teach me Wharram skills?
Rich, Well, they are both sail boats :D , so I'm sure you will learn transferable skills. I say go for it!
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Is a Hobie going to teach me Wharram skills?
Kim- Well, I was hoping that they might have a little more in common than that.... ;) Beyond both being catamarans, the classic Hobie 14 or 16 is like all of the Wharrams I'm considering (and unlike a lot of other beach cats) in that it doesn't have daggerboards. On the other hand, the Hobie has a lot more sail area and narrower beam than Wharram designs, so there are clearly some big differences. (They're also apparently littering the countryside here in Colorado - I could probably pick one up for less than the epoxy bill on a Wayfarer or Tiki 21, which is what got me wondering.) Most of my sailing experience (I use the term loosely) is in monohull keelboats and dinghies. I guess what I'm asking is, * What are the skills that a monohull sailor has to relearn to sail a small Wharram effectively? * Which of those are Wharram-specific, and which are general catamaran traits? I'm thinking particularly of tacking, leeway, that sort of thing, but I imagine there are a lot of other examples I don't know about. --Rich
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Is a Hobie going to teach me Wharram skills?
[img]http://www.hitempo.com/hitemposail/images/hobie_16.jpg[/img] I doubt you will be doing this on a Wharram! ;) You could write a book on the questions you are asking, Rich. . .Let me say that learning the relationship of the sails to the hull(s) is the first task of either a monohull or multihull sailor. The rig and hull(s) are designed to work together (as the designer intended); performance will suffer otherwise. The running rigging has to allow proper sail trim for the conditions, and the sailor has to learn how to manage this trim. For example, the tragedy :twisted: of a hooked leech on the main when attempting to go to weather must be dealt with forthwith! :) Sea state is obviously important to all boats, and more so to a lightweight catamaran. I like the way one sailor I read recently says that you must keep the sea from transferring its energy to your boat: sailing head-on into waves is not the way to do so! Here is some info on tacking from an older forum: Tammy wrote: > You CANNOT tack a cat like a monohull, it won't turn on a dime. > > What experience we have on the Tiki bears this out. When you begin the tack, throw > the helm gently over. Don't throw hard over. Sail thru the tack, as it were, make > a big U-turn; as you begin the turn, sheet harder as you are essentially sailing > closer to the wind. As you reach head-to-wind, let out the main, LEAVE THE JIB IN. > The jib will help put you on the new tack. As the bows cross the eye of the wind, > let the jib backwind and blow the bows on over to the new tack. Once across the > wind, then cut the jib and sheet it first, on the new tack, then harden the main. > This is EXACTLY how it works and in doing so you won't miss a tack. some minor comments from my experience with a 26: 1,how fast you 'throw' your helm over, depends very much on wind & the boats speed and the waves. The magic word is slow and as said before sail your boat to the new tack. 2,Once on the new tack, don't push hard upwind in the beginning, get speed an then sheet in. 3,If you have missed (e.g. wind change during manouvere), do it like the old square riggers, reverse tiller, sail backward to your new tack 4, In case you have a traveller rigged for you main sheet, you can even sheet the main to windward and skip the jib backwinding job. Gerald *************** Having your sails well-trimmed (no hooked leeches!) will go a long way towards minimizing leeway, as will a clean bottom. I'll quit now, before I get too ahead of myself. . . [quote="corich"] Most of my sailing experience (I use the term loosely) is in monohull keelboats and dinghies. I guess what I'm asking is, * What are the skills that a monohull sailor has to relearn to sail a small Wharram effectively? * Which of those are Wharram-specific, and which are general catamaran traits? I'm thinking particularly of tacking, leeway, that sort of thing, but I imagine there are a lot of other examples I don't know about. --Rich[/quote]
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Is a Hobie going to teach me Wharram skills?
Kim, that's exactly the kind of info I was looking for. Thanks for taking the time to put that together. I had to look up "hooked leach" before I understood what you were talking about. But it makes sense now. I guess a good starting point is to have a clear mental picture of airflow and other forces acting on the boat. That's going to be harder if your prior experience was on a substantially different craft. --Rich
deltatango104 (not verified)
Buying a Hobie to get some sailing experience.

So, did you buy a Hobie and do that? You should have and joined a club to race frequently. However, a small Wharram will seem tame after a Hobie because their design purpose is so different. Cruising or racing, that is the question? There is much to learn.