Tom,
One more thing...congratulations of finding your beach to launch from. I didn't think the Big Island still had any beaches left!.
I'm certain that the beach is not very long....but 500 lbs. is still a lot of boat to push thru any length of beach...will you be alright?
Should be. The beach is on Hilo Bay. I talked to some of the folks from the sailing club there, and they said with 4WD you can back the trailer right into the water. Thank goodness I tow with a Jeep!
If we wind up going there a lot, I wouldn't mind making some heavy duty beach wheels. But until then this'll do just fine.
Tom
Hey, thanks for posting those pictures. That explains a good bit I was scratching my head about. I knew there was some kind of bulkhead inside there, but I couldn't see what it was. Looks like a pretty massive piece of wood that's been glassed over!
And thanks for posting the page out of Royce's from 1968. I've got a more recent edition, and that page was substituted with the P-Cat2 rigging. It's different enough that I had to make some guesses on how ours is supposed to be set up. I'll go through the boat fore to aft:
First off, we don't have a forespar. We have a forestay. I don't know how it is on your boat. After lugging the mast and boom around, I'm glad we don't have a forespar! It looks like it's as heavy as the boom! Less weight aloft = good in my book.
What Royce calls the "luff spar trim line" I'm treating as the line that runs the roller furler on the jib. I'm guessing this was the original intent, even with the forespar. Our jib zips onto the forestay, similar to the jibs on most beach cats. Right now we don't have a jib halyard. The jib is shackled to the top of the forestay where it attaches to the top roller swivel, and the luff is set with a 1:1 jib downhaul line at the foot. This is almost identical to how it was set up on my Prindle.
It looks like we got the jib sheets right. (Yay!) Right now ours is in an almost stock configuration. Two differences: First, the rear jib blocks have a bail on them, so the jib sheet is tied off to the bail and not to a padeye on the inside of the footwell, the way it's drawn in Royce's diagram. Second, instead of having the jib sheet cross the deck on a diagonal, we run it to the cam cleat on the same side of the boat the sail is on. This makes it operate a lot more like a contemporary beach cat. It makes for a bunch of taut lines inside the footwells on the leeward side, but it makes for a cleaner deck. (I'll take pictures tomorrow when we go sailing.)
The mainsheet that came with our boat was aftermarket, as far as I can tell, and had been left out in the sun too long without enough love and attention. I had to replace it. I picked up a Hobie mainsheet off of Ebay that fit the bill: Three independent upper blocks, just like the stock mainsheet, but the lower blocks are all one unit. I attached this directly to the traveler. It means the mainsheet is coming out at some unspecified location on the rear crossbar, unlike the stock mainsheet that always comes out on the centerline of the boat. But again, this is how it was set up on my Prindle so I'm used to it.
The traveler also appears to be aftermarket. It's a 3:1 (Royce calls for a 2:1). But on the P-Cat2 diagram he shows a 3:1 system. I'm guessing someone at some point decided to stick a P-Cat2 traveler on this hull. I like the 3:1 because you can sheet the traveler in and out even under pretty heavy load. But it makes for a lot of line pulling to get the thing to move any appreciable distance.
Our tiller is completely stock. (I love the idea of having teak tiller arms on a beach cat. It seems so... decadent!) But I wish Royce had put a little more detail into how the rudder blades are held down. ARGH! That was a major confusion point for us. It looks like a previous owner came up with a couple of modifications to the rudders and rudder housings, so I don't know what's stock and what's not. We ran with what we had and came up with a bungee system that works. But I'd like to see what Carter Pyle originally intended when he designed the things.
I wish wish wish wish wish Royce had detailed the spinnaker setup. I have yet to see a spinnaker on a P-Cat. I'd love to see how it was set up. For the life of me I can't figure out how to get a spin pole onto the thing that won't either foul the jib or stab oncoming waves. There's just not a lot of vertical room up front. (If you have your spinnaker, I'd love to see photos!)
On the halyard, here's what I ordered from Murray's:
33-0012 #2 Swage-It Kit
01-0034 3/32"-1/8" Stainless Thimbles
02-0033 Wire Rope 3/32" 7x19 Bare
If you have swaging tools and thimbles, skip those bits. I got 110' of wire rope. When I measured the leftovers of my old halyard it looked like it was double the length of the mast (I have a 26' mast on mine, if I remember right.) So I got twice as much as I needed, threaded it through the masthead sheave, ran the free ends to the base of the mast and cut it off there. Now I have spare halyard material for the next time I jam it in the winch and destroy it. (Ugh.) I think 55' would give you plenty to run a single halyard and still be able to cut it to length.
What I learned when I disassembled my winch is that the halyard passes in through a hole in the winch drum, after which a stopper knot is tied in it. The knot is then jammed back inside the hub of the winch drum and the excess halyard is pulled back out. It works, but it's kinda ugly. Anyway, the extra length on the halyard means you always have at least eight to ten wraps on the drum. So that knot never actually takes any load.
Sorry for the long rambly post. Figure the more we P-Cat sailors share, the less guessing and head-scratching we'll have to do in the end.
Fair winds to you!
Tom
Tom, I sent you a PM.
Bill
Thanks Tom....
No worries about the length of the letter, I feel exactly like you about the information...and I am grateful to you for taking the time to share it with us! The man who works on our sails has a neighbor the use to own a P-Cat for quite a while. I've asked him to pass my phone number along to him when he sees his neighbor again. If his neighbor is knowledgeable I'm hoping to have him come out with us some time...so he can pass on any more knowledge to us....which we will share with you, post-haste!! Of course, that makes it sound as if we're getting together with his neighbor soon....when in fact...he might not want to share anything with us! But...pray God...he'll turn out to be a wealth of knowledge and a fantastic tutor...and we'll all be on the ground floor of a huge P-Cat come-back!!
Thanks for the info about the halyard cable, that's useful!!
I see that Bill has posted that he's sent you a PM...I'll talk with him soon and see if he has given you any additional information, that I would only be duplicating....so....I'll hold off writing more, until later.
Here's one thing, though...I have a question in regards to the 'luff spar' and what probably we both have on our boats now, the jib furler. Our jib zips onto the forestay, as well. Here's my question...well...its more like an observation, but....I'm questioning my observation....It seems to me, that if you were to have a Luff Spar, when you needed to furl your jib, it would wind much tighter around the diameter of the spar then (as we have) around the diameter of the forestay cable. The advantage of that would be seen if you were in need of 'reefing' the jib, to reduce sail in an ever increasing wind...that the wound sail around the spar would hold against the pressure against the sail's, exposed surface....as opposed to what I might imagine, on our version of the furled jib, which is only furled around a cable. (have I explained myself well enough with that scenario??)
I'm glad the pictures were helpful to you...I'll try and take some more up-side-right pictures early next week.
Until later...
jt
No, I think your observation is right on the money. And I think this is why most roller furlers on monohulls include a rigid forespar. With the wire rope forestay like I have on mine (and it sounds like you do, too), I've got two settings: sail furled / sail unfurled. With a rigid forespar it seems like you'd have everything in-between, too.
But I'd still take the lighter weight and what seems like easier setup the flexible forestay offers.
Tom
P.S. Wind is looking questionable today. I might be able to get out this afternoon, but it's looking a little sketchy. Sailing is no fun in zero mph wind. π