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Multihull Sailing for Monohull Sailors

March 3, 2015 11:40 am

Sailing a catamaran can require forgetting some things and learning a few new tips

I eased a 45-foot catamaran out of the slip, stopped, turned and backed past a row of pointy anchors, past startled paddlers, right under a restaurant window and into the stream of outgoing weekend sailors. I handed the helm to all of my four guests, well-traveled sailors, and went into the saloon to forage for a snack. Showing off makes me hungry.

I found my ceramic pitcher and glasses in the sink. I didn’t think they needed washing. Then I remembered these guys are monohull sailors. They’re used to putting stuff away before it flies all over the cabin.

Tidy and shipshape is always good. But a cat lets you make a fast getaway. You don’t have to put stuff away. The boat doesn’t heel and stuff doesn’t go flying.

Whether it's taking the helm for a charter or you're planning to switch to a multihull, there are a few habits that monohull sailors need to change to sail a catamaran
Whether it’s taking the helm for a charter or you’re planning to switch to a multihull, there are a few habits that monohull sailors need to change to sail a catamaran

Something about docking

In catamaran sailing, an obsessive-compulsive need to stow every last thing is not the only old habit you can give up. A lot of the skills you worked hard to master in monohull sailing are not only useless, they might actually send you to the back of the multihull class. In fact, it is often easier for me to teach a complete novice how to dock a cat than it is to teach an experienced monohull sailor. Docking and maneuvering a monohull is all about managing momentum. You worked hard to have the confidence to bring a boat in with good speed against a crosswind. You might have to work just as hard to learn to slow down. Maneuvering a cat is all about balance against pressure. The slower you go, the better control you have.

My day on the 45-footer is a good example. It had tight quarters, hazards, two 90-degree turns, gusty crosswinds and spectators right up close. All these things are better handled going backward. With all the thrust and leverage in the back, and the breeze blowing the bow down, a twin-engine cat has natural balance in reverse. But go slow; the rudders are balanced the other way. They get dynamic help for easy steering forward, but water flow over them in reverse will slam them hard against the stops if you let go of the wheel.

Practice holding the boat perfectly still, stern to the breeze. Then inch your way back to a target and stop, hold still, go forward 10 feet and back up to it again. Do this with a lot of friends watching. It’s good practice, because in a busy anchorage or marina you will always have a big, rapt audience, like a NASCAR crowd, watching and waiting for you to hit the wall.

More motoring

We love to sail in and out of the slip, and you should master that because some day you will have to do it. But there are too many days when you just can’t make way without motors, so you better master them, because motoring behavior really is the biggest difference between multihulls and monohulls. Here are a some essential tips:

  • Watch your speed. Most cat helm stations are higher off the water than you are used to. Sensation of speed is less, so watch the knotmeter. Racing through a crowded marina can get you to unpleasant places fast.
  • Practice motoring with only one engine. Remember the weird old prop walk quirks you mastered with monohulls? In a cat they don’t exist when two engines are running, but when Murphy’s law shuts down one engine, you’re like a one-legged duck, swimming in circles.
  • All close maneuvering is done with the engines steering. Forget the wheel. But don’t forget too long. Remember your muted sensation of speed; if your speed starts to creep up to 2 to 3 knots, the wheel steers better than the engines.

Level-headed heeling

You might have worked hard to beat the fear of heeling. Maybe you don’t remember, but odds are the first time you powered up in a blow, you thought you might go all the way over. Now that you enjoy a steady 14-degree angle, you better learn fear again. If you heel that far in a cruising catamaran you’re in trouble. Now forget the fear again, because you won’t ever heel that far.

Until you learn some subtle signs from the boat, you have to watch the wind speed. When you get to know the boat well, you can sense it digging a hole in the water, straining every sheet, grunting under the pressure of being overpowered. Until you can feel those signals, you have to reef by the numbers. When the meter says 20, you probably should reef the main and jib.

Head up

Sailing a catamaran upwind, you have another frame of reference to discard. Most good monohull sailors tend to go slow upwind in a cat, and often blame the boat, because they pinch. I think they pinch because their visual reference is primarily other boats in view. A good modern cat will go upwind quite nicely, on its own terms. But if you try to sail too high too soon, you will choke off the speed you need, and you will never get there.

Don’t look at the other boats. Put your boat on a close reach and look only at the knotmeter, with an occasional glance at a wind-angle gauge if you have one. Trim sails for maximum speed. When you have it, head up three degrees and repeat. Keep trimming for speed, waiting to stabilize, and then creeping up higher. Before long you’ll surprise a lot of monohull sailors, getting to an upwind destination ahead of them.

Tacking

The same rule applies to tacking: don’t mess around, just keep your speed up and then toss the helm over, hard. I’ve seen monohull sailors reach to start the engine in the middle of a tack because some prankster told them cats tack into irons and stay there. It should be clear that you can’t roll tack a cat, it won’t just flop and go like a dinghy. You start your tack from a higher wind angle, and you end at a higher angle on the other side, and you are bringing a very wide boat through the wind. It only makes sense that the whole process should take a little longer. Practice. Learn to tack well and smoothly, because some day you will really need to. Surprises happen in sailing, like everywhere, and sometimes you have to tack and go the other way, pronto. But don’t expect it to be quite as pronto as you’re used to.

Catamarans have a lot of deck hardware in places you may not be used to. Hatches, cleats, winches, mast steps and all sorts of snags are waiting for jib sheets to wander by. I’ve seen a flogging jib sheet grab an open hatch and fling it 50 yards out to sea like a frisbee. Before you tack, pay special attention to the lazy sheet. Being slack, it may already be partially looped around something. Take out the slack and try to foresee the path it will take when you release, and the jib pulls it over.

OK, stuff happens and you snagged the lazy sheet so completely that there’s no answer but to sit there in irons and deal with it. If you take your time to fix it safely, no one gets clobbered by the flogging jib, then how to get out of irons? There is no one answer, with the design, sail plan and balance of each boat being different. Release the main sheet and backwind the jib. Release the jib and power up the main. Try various ways to get the sail plan out of balance in either direction. If you have daggerboards, pull them up. If you get the boat moving forward, trim gently for speed. As soon as you get just a little speed up, nurture it and you’ll soon be able to bear away for more. With a little speed, be shy of bringing the main on too soon, remember that moving center of effort aft tends to increase weather helm and you don’t want to head up, and back into irons.

Monohull sailors will need to adjust their thinking a little, but they'll be sitting back and relaxing on a multihull in no time.
Monohull sailors will need to adjust their thinking a little, but they’ll be sitting back and relaxing on a multihull in no time.

Just jibe

Jibing a big cat is different for a number of reasons: They usually have a big, full-batten main, they have a long traveler, they reach at great speed but are slower in deep downwind angles.

With all that traveler length and yards of mainsheet out, you have a lot of winch grinding to get the boom close to center for jibing. Start early. Experiment with steering to find a wind angle that makes this easier. When the big boom comes across in the jibe, you will be glad to have maximum boat speed (for minimum apparent wind speed) and minimum distance for the traveler car to race across before it bangs to a stop. Keep taking the slack out of the traveler lines, keep your winch area well organized, make sure all lines can run free without grabbing your crew by the foot.

Reef early and often

You’re smart to practice reefing at the dock, in zero wind. Many modern cats have all reefing controls in the cockpit, but if you try to reef when sailing downwind you might have to go to the mast anyway. This is an important skill to learn. There will be times when it is too uncomfortable, or even dangerous, to head upwind to reef. But there is a lot of pressure on the main, and it won’t want to come down. Grab it by the luff, or anything attached to the luff (like the reef line) and pull hard, while bringing the main sheet in.  You will find a combination of sheet angle and steering angle that relaxes the pressure just enough to let the sail start down. Hold those angles, make sure the halyard is running free, and inch it down while taking slack out of the reef line.

A last word about heeling

There is so much talk about catamarans staying inverted when they flip, that you may be terrified when it heels the least bit. Like monohulls, each cat design has a heel angle that is optimal for sailing balance and efficiency. That angle is seldom zero, so don’t panic when the boat starts to roll.

The cat has a heel angle that is far smaller than you are used to, and very kind to your body. It has upwind and downwind sailing angles that are greater than you are use to, but produce greater speed. It has uncanny docking and maneuvering powers. When you understand these boundaries, you find you can apply all your good sailing skills and have a blast with these amazing machines.

Don Margraf is an experienced sailor who has focused on multihulls for the last 15 years. A catamaran specialist, he has also been a surveyor, builder consultant and dealer for major catamaran builders.

Source: SailingMagazine

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