finally sailing the new Horizon Cat

[Subsailor637]

Took delivery of my brand new Horizon Cat in early May down here on the Illinos River at Peoria, Il.  River has been at its highest level of flood stage ever recorded so had to wait untill the launch ramp was even visable.  Brought the boat to my slip then had to endure another two weeks of off and on rain.  Finally river started to receed so took it ot under motor just to get a feel for the channel, current etc.  Then my daughter graduated (week before Memorial Day weekend) so too busy to sail.  River contined to go down but Memorial weekend brought temps in the 50's and more rain!!!!  Would normally go up to Kenosha Wi as we have a Carver 36 Aft Cabin there but wasn't going to make a 4 hour drive for rain and temps in the low 40's.  So FINALLY Tuesday night I drove down to the marina here and took the boat out.  Of course the wind was only 5 kts but just didn't care since I now own two boats AND HAVEN'T USED EITHER THIS SEASON!!!!  By the way the river is back up so half the parking lot is under water.  Even in this light air the boat sailed GREAT on a broad reach, getting almost 4 kts out of 5 kts true wind.  When I finally came back (4 hrs later) to drop sail and head in I got a little education!  With no auto helm (used to having one on my 34 Catalina) had a devil of a time keeping it pointed into the wind as I wrestled the brand new sail down and TRIED to flake it on the boom.  Keept thinking; thank God there isn't much wind right now!  Hope this new sail gets a little more pliant soon!  BUT I love the boat and sooo happy to be sailing again!!!!

[crazycarl]

please keep us posted on the the sailing in peoria.

i've often thought about heading down that way, it's only 2 hours south of us.

carl

[shamblin]

Great.  Next time you raise the gaff,  make sure the gaff hardware gets started right up the channel in the mast as it can get sideways.  The gaff can get in front of the shrouds unless you go carefully.


Good for you.

Bill Shamblin

[Subsailor637]

Carl, will do.  Where do you sail/homeport?

Bill, Thanks... didn't really have any problems raising the sail.  It was lowering it and trying to flake the stiff new sail but I will watch going up so I don't catch the lazyjacks or shrouds

[Craig]

Glad you finally got out! Re the sail.... Do you have lazy jacks? Big help...sail pretty much gathers itself. Even better is a Mack Pack or a Stack Pack both of which contain the sail and drop it into a zip up integrated sail cover. Combined with a Boomkicker to support the boom when raising/lowering sail, makes life easier. Have both on Kailani and they are worth their weight in gold! One final(and cheap!) addition is a gaff downhaul to haul down a recalcitrant sail. Glad you love the HC! As you discovered, they are surprisingly fast on a reach (and not bad on a run as well).     Keep us posted on your adventures! 

[Tbeeman]

Hey, how is sailing on the Illinois?  Whats the current like as well as depth?  I am in the quad cities and thinking about getting a cat for the mississippi.