Sol cat 15
The Sol cat 15 and 18 were part of the club in 1976 when I
joined. There were only Novice and
Skipper ratings at the time, and you had to get a rating in each boat. You had to have your C-Lark skipper rating
before you could even think about getting a rating in the mysterious, scary,
fragile catamarans. Well that was over
the top, but not much for some people.
The 15 was cat rigged, (mainsail only) and was designed to be
single-handed. The Sol Cat 15 had
centerboards whereas the 18 had daggerboards.
Sol cat 18
The 18 was sloop rigged and designed to be double
handed. Having the tiller crossbar in
front of the mainsheet block was normal for me at the time since this is the
catamaran that I first sailed, but it seems odd now since this is the only cat
that I have seen this way since then.
Most cats the tillers are behind the traveller, so you must throw the
hiking stick behind the boat to tack or jibe.
This frustrates many people that I teach. The 18 allows you to bring the hiking stick
forward, but you must have an extendable stick as it would be too short to
trapeze with or too long to pass through on the tramp. The Sol Cat poster in the sail locker at the
time claimed that the Sol Cats didn't pitchpole like the Hobie 16s. I'd never sailed a 16, but either the
advertising was wrong or it would have been scary to see me sail a 16 based on
the number of times I pitchpoled the Sol Cat. http://sailboatdata.com/VIEWRECORD_METRIC.ASP?CLASS_ID=4399
Sol cat 20
Sol Cat's high performance boat that was 10 feet wide. It's the only beach cat that I've sailed
without a watertight sealed mast, which means not self rescuing. I was sailing this boat to Mercer Island on a
club lake cruise when I noticed the lee bow was a foot or so above the water.
This is not normal cat behavior, the bows normally go deeper and deeper as you
apply more power. I started looking
around and finally noticed the crease in the deck where it had folded in and
let the hull bend up just in front of the crossbeam. I carefully nursed the
boat back to the club with very little mainsheet tension. When I repaired it, I drilled a 5” hole in the deck, glassed in
some stringers and put a port in. First
time it went sailing the port popped up into the air and the hull bent
again. This made me realize that the
curved deck needed to be completely glassed back together for strength which
the port did not supply. So back to
square one, and no port this time. When
the tramp shredded completely a spider's web of line to recreate a tramp was
made. It was a bit interesting to
maneuver across.
Shark
This 20 foot long, 10 foot wide wooden boat was designed in
62. There was no trampoline, there was
solid wood where a trampoline would be found.
The center of the tramp area had a piano hinge so the boat would fold up
in the center to make it 8 feet wide to trailer. This boat was considered fragile and wood
boats tend to not last a long time in the club, so this donation wasn't sailed
except by a few chiefs just to test it to make sure there was nothing wrong
with it. http://sharkcatamaranclass.org/WHAT.HTML
Supercat 20
The Supercat was 12 feet wide. Most cats are 8 feet wide so they can be
trailered without dis-assembling them or buying an expensive tilt trailer. Each
of he Supercat's crossbeams are of two different diameters such that one half
slips inside the other to make the boat 8 feet wide to trailer. The hull and deck is an elliptical shape. This is to minimize drag when the front of
the boat is underwater and reduce the chance of pitchpoling. It was 450 pounds
with 275 ft^2 of sail area. There was a
tall rig version made with 300 ft^2. http://www.thebeachcats.com/index.php?module=pictures&g2_itemId=2637
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