Racing the catamaran

[mgoller]

Yesterday, the winds were steady and strong.  10 -15 knots from the south west.  No white caps, just good straight winds. 
A Catamaran was out doing back and forth reaches.  Not trying to be obvious, I got in line with him and tried seeing if I could keep up.
He was doing a circuit back and forth so it was hard to tell not being on the same reach.
Finally after he picked up some new passengers on shore we were on the same reach.  I put some good distance between myself and his boat, came about and headed back.  I maintained about 20 boat lengths and we made another tack.  He got stuck on his tack as Cats do.
My ComPac 19 swings around on a dime, the jib backwinds and pushes around quick.  Release the jib (fwap!) and sheet it in quick.  Its like a ride at the carnival if you do it right.
I was so far ahead at the end of the reach I turned to tack leisurely and got into some wind shadow from the treeline.  He Jibed downwind which is a better way to turn a Cat, caught some gusting wind and went up on one pontoon with his passenger hiked out. 
Nothing like some competition to hone your skills.
His was the faster boat and my CP19 hurt his ego.  Seeing a heavy cruiser pulling away sparked his effort to get the full performance out of his 20 foot jibbed Cat.
I have seen people water ski behind a Cat before.  There's a lot of power there.

[Bob23]

Marcus:
   Ahh....how sweet it is! We had a similiar experience while on the maiden voyage of my friends restored 1970 Morgan 30. As we raised sail, we couldn't help but notice that every other sailboat out on Barnegat Bay that day seemed to be towing drogues. We grinned from ear to ear as some wealthy skippers in thier big-bucks sailboats were beaten mercilessly by a couple of old guys on a vintage good old boat.
   Of course, we weren't really racing!

   Bob23

[curtisv]

A few years ago I noticed that when the wind picked up we could usually outsail a hobie that was frequently out there on the same water.  The only reason was the hobie was sailed poorly, dumping the mainsail in gusts and just not getting what they should from the boat.  Other days the same boat blew us away (as she should).

Quite a while later I figured out that it was a rental at a nearby resort and that is why the people sailing her were not figuring things out and some days she was sailed much better than other days.  It was different people each time.

Curtis

[Craig Weis]

Going fast on a catamaran is not necessarily having a lot of power as much as not having resistance from the water. [smaller wetted surface]

Our resident boat designer who sail's a cat boat says for every 1000 lb that the sail makes, about 15 lbs makes it's way down to the hull as push through the water. skip.