Pacific Catamaran (P-Cat) 19

No Pacific Cat owners out there? Come on, I told mytlitl he could get some help here! 😕

Does anyone have any information on this cat?

The only pic I have of the Pacific Cat from the 1970's is here
http://www.thebeachcats.com/index.php?module=pictures&g2_itemId=73548

Would like to know more about them too.

Hey acorp, please check your email address in "My Account" | "Edit my information

because your email notifications are bouncing.

P-Cats were made in Costa Mesa,Ca, next door to Newport Beach, by one of the Minneys. Early ones were 580 #'s, but there were 2 more versions made which got the weight down a bit. Three of them used to drive up from Ohio to St Clair Shores, Mi to race against my neighbor who had one. Soon as I got a H-16 and beat him, he lost interest in the boat. Ran into them again in '73 at Namsa N.Americans in Spray Beach, N.J. where they would run downwind with full spinnaker. They were liked because of hard deck and foot wells making for more comfortable sitting and Harken hardware everywhere. Pete

Thanks for the info Pete, I've added it to the description of the Pacific Cat in Beachcats Identification. Were these boats usually called Pacific Cats, or P-Cats?

You don't happen to have any pictures of the boats for those days do you? The one in this thread is the only one I've got.

acorp wrote: Does anyone have any information on this cat?

acorp, why do you ask? Do you have one? If so I'd love to have some better pictures of it.

Sorry, no pics. They were called both, but P-Cat was the usual name. I see them all over out here, usually abandoned. I believe Warren Miller, the ski movie guy, used to sail one. The weight was the problem; hard on/off the trailer or moving around on the beach. But a smooth sailing boat and probably first cat with spinnaker (very full). Pete

I have one, trying to restore and sail it need a few parts and a lesson on how to nav. this site, let me know if you find any info. pics. etc. thanks mytlitl

I just picked up a Pacific Cat. It's in "project boat" shape, so it's a bit of an ugly duckling at the moment. But as soon as I have it sea-worthy I can provide more information (and photos!)

Tom

I just got one. I'm completely in the dark as to the history of the boat, so I'm leaning on the information in this and other threads about it for that. But I'll be happy to provide pictures! The boat I got was torn down for restoration by its previous owner (and, I suspect, by the owner previous to that), so right now it's a hull, some sails, a mast, and a collection of parts. As soon as I start getting it put back together I'll be in better shape to take pictures and post them.

Tom

There is a guy in St. George, UT who has/had one. I think he is selling it and it may be located at lake Mead right now.

http://lasvegas.craigslist.org/boa/2865442324.html

Two new Pacific Cat owners! Welcome to TheBeachcats.com both of you.

Did either of you happen to inherit any literature, brochures, or manuals on the boat? Anything related to the original manufacture?

Please fill out your signatures so we can get to know you.

Mail sent. Thanks for the pointer, Quarath.

I didn't inherit any literature or manuals for the boat, unfortunately. It came as a hull, a mast, three sails, two booms, and a box full of stuff. The standing rigging is all there, except for pins and shackles. The running rigging is... well, it's interesting. So far I picked out parts made by Harken, Lewmar, and an unknown manufacturer in Australia. I get the feeling it was being modified when it was taken apart. Now the task is to put it back together.

I took pictures of the hull this morning. The glass is in reasonable shape, but the gel coat has seen better days. I'm planning to document the restoration of the boat, so I'll be happy to put a photo set together as I go. Meanwhile I'm scouring the net to try to find anything that'll help.

Damon, I'll fill out my signature ASAP.

Tom

Back a number of years (more than ten or maybe even fifteen) this was contrct info for the guy who still had the molds for the Newport P-cat and a few parts and a great restored boat:

447 N. New Port Beach Blvd.
New Port Beach, California 92663-4210
telephone (714) 645-4520

Great guy with lots of info.

I bleieve he sent me a zerox'd copy of one of the original spec sheets.

He once told me that Hobie Alter's son used to mess around with sailing a solid bridge deck Pacific Cat (P-19), when the wind was up and the surf wasn't. The story goes that Hobie Alter got tired of fixing the rudders that his son tore off and the solid daggerboards he tore out of the boat by sailing and surfing the P-19 in and out of the surf and shoal water.

Looking for solutions, Hobie Alter came up with the famous, kick up rudder system he eventually used his first hobie cat and the boardless design.

When he looked for ways to market it, he noticed that the design and weight made righting and shipping the boat more complicated (or impossible) and more expensive.

That's when he hit on the idea of a de-mountable beams and a trampoline instead of the solid bridge and the boardless design of the asymetrical hulls.

I used mine for years, inlcuding dragging it down to Mexcio's Sea of Cortez.

We often put four scuba divers, lunch and equipment on it for the day.

We even hung a 35 hp outboard on it, to push it when the wind didn't blow.

A few times, minus the four guys and equipment, we even used it to pull a water skier.

I blew up the fully battened main a number of years ago. I've thought of trying to modify a sial from Minney's (Southern California) or cutting the boom and using a Hobie 16 sail.

I'm also thinking of letting the boat go to a worthy new owner, now that I've been using a Stiletto 27 instead.

Right now it is sitting on the shores of Bear Lake, Idaho.

Edited by scubasail on May 11, 2012 - 10:09 AM.

Hey, thanks for posting all this!

I've got an original main, complete with wooden battens. It's still in remarkably good shape for a sail that's as old as it is. If you decide you want something made to original spec, I'd be happy to take measurements off my main and send them to your sailmaker. The main I have was made by North.

I also have a short boom and a second main that may well have come from a Hobie. The smaller (less roachy) main came from Frank Rice. I'm pretty sure it's a newer sail, despite its more decrepit condition (this one NEEDS a cleaning). The shorter boom looks well-used, so I'm pretty sure the idea works, if you decide to go that route.

If you have any photos of your boat, would you mind posting them? I think I have almost everything sorted out at this point, but every bit of information helps.

Thanks again, scubasail!

Tom

I'm not sure I know how to post photos on the beachcat forum.

The old Newport Pacific Catamarans were great boats.

Wikipedia states that 1960 brought another "original" beach cat appeared in California, the Pacific Cat. The Pacific Cat was designed by Carter Pyle and was first built in 1960 just slightly smaller than 19' by 8' solid fiberglass catamaran with a solid core deck and traditional catamaran sail plan. The design's chief flaw was weight, with Pacific Cats weighing in at over 500 lbs. with approximately 300 square feet (28 m2) of sail area. The design was also a traditional design from the naval architecture view with dagger boards and a hard deck... the Pacific Cat demonstrated that is was adept at handling the daunting Pacific coast surf, probably due to the momentum it carried even with the limited [for the time] sail plan. The Pacific Cat boats were (are?) made by Newport Boats / Mobjack Manufacturing.

References
^ [1]
^ American Sail www.AmericanSail.com
^ Yachting Magazine, July 1970
^ Time magazine, "The Cat that Flies", September 1968

I always worried that someone could get killed by one of the original metal daggerboards, if the boat ever flipped.

I can say from personal experience that one couldn't sink that boat.

I personally have (unintentionally) tired a few times.

Though the hulls fill with water, the solid bridge deck has more than enough floatation to keep the boat afloat.

Even loaded with that old 35 hp outboard, four scuba divers, lunch and all the equipment strapped to it, it wouldn't sink.

It floated at an angle of about 45 degrees, bows up, due to the 35 hp outboard. It remained pretty stable and we thought we'd just ride the drifting boat in, de-water it and sail it back to our beach camp, while exploring areas of the Sea of Cortez.

However, out of no where a passing dive boat appeared and towed us in to a marina, where we sunk the trailer and put the submerged boat on it, then slowly and carefully pulled the trailer up the launch ramp.

That allowed the water, trapped between the double hull to slowly escape, without blowing the hull apart.

We thoroughly dosed the outboard with fresh water inside and out, let it dry over night, changed the fluids and it fired right up.

That resulted in another few days of fun in the Mexico sun, using the P-cat, minus the main that we blew out causing the original mishap (if you can call an over-loaded P-cat and goofing off, a mis-hap).

From these and other experiences, I can pretty well say that no one would EVER be able to right a Newport Pacific (P-19) catamaran after flipping it.

The mast isn't water tight and even if it were, it would never keep the boat on its side.

The boat would come to rest either swapped right-side up or up-side down and there it would stay.

In our case, had we not had the 35 hop outboard on its stern, I think we could have used our scuba BCDs to float it high enough to get the eater out of the hulls.

Boy have we had fun on that boat.

A number of years ago, I saw one other Newport Pacific (P-19) on a Utah lake.

It was new looking and the sailors made that boat sing across the water...double trapped and flying the windward hull.

Man did they make that boat go, sailing it like I do on my other more modern beachcats.

I never sail P-19 that aggressively, fearing I'd never right it, if capsized.

Here's some photos that look exactly like my boat, only mine was set up for a spinnaker and roller furler. Mine also had chicken straps (foot straps stretched across the foot wells (bow to stern) to hang out on when sailing fast. It also is equipped with trap lines for hiking out when sailing even faster. A nice feature was a pad that snapped onto and covered the entire solid bridge deck.

Talk about "comfy" lounging and sailing.

I also always though the boat could benefit from having a front tramp installed for lounging at anchor or while sailing or motoring slow. We had a 1 1/2 hp Cruise-n-carry (a weedwacker type engine but an outboard weighing only a few pounds) on it for a while, but the 35 got us places lots faster when the wind wasn't blowing.

(If you can't view the photos in this post, then go to the following website and see them there
http://www.sailingtexas.com/spacificcat18a.html )

Tom House (aka scubasail)
Farmington, Utah and Bear Lake, Idaho

Great write up!
Here's the active link:
http://www.sailingtexas.com/spacificcat18a.html

I own a P Cat - registered in utah

It is a great catamaran to sail ... yes I've flown the full Symetrical Spinaker also ...

I dont' think this boat can flip - I've never come close.

John Haydukovich

p.s. perhaps we will see a revival of the PCat

p.p.s I want to construct a square top main sail with even more sail area - I think the boat could handle it.

Edited by Haydukovich on May 11, 2012 - 03:14 PM.

Philip, I just read the description on that link you posted. That boat at the Sailboat Shop in Austin was last registered in Hawaii?!

This is WEIRD!! I used to buy all the hardware for my Prindle 16 from Claude at the Sailboat Shop. We sailed that thing all over the Highland Lakes in Texas. Then I moved to Hawaii and had to leave my Prindle behind. Ten years later I pick up a P-Cat from a guy on the other side of the island. While trying to get the boat registered, I learn the whole history of the boat from the guy picking it up as it came out of the mold at Mobjack all the way until it reached my doorstep.

Turns out a guy from Honolulu picked up a whole bunch of P-Cats, stuck them on a ship, and moved them to Oahu. Mine was one from that set. He and a bunch of other guys raced them all around Diamondhead. Eventually a guy here on the Big Island bought it, and the owner previous to me bought it from him. Four owners total.

I'd love to find out the sail number on that boat at the Sailboat Shop. I have no idea if the guy who picked up that shipment from Mobjack back in the day got consecutive hull numbers, but there's a good chance that thing is only a few off from mine.

Gotta love it when things come full-circle!

Tom

On the hull construction of the P-Cat:

I installed a pair of 5" inspection ports in mine just forward of the deck. All manner of humidity wafted out of the holes after I cut them. (24 hours later they were bone dry.)

I stuck a camera down into the hull and took pictures:

The inside is filled halfway with closed cell foam blocks. The blocks hadn't absorbed any water, and were still quite light. The fiberglass was moist to the touch until it dried out.

This is a second set of photos stitched into a composite, looking aft:

In the upper quarter you can see the cavity of the forward beam arcing up and to the right. In the lower quarter you can see the foam blocks extending aft underneath the foot wells where the daggerboard trunks go.

As far as I can tell the boat is solid fiberglass. No foam, no balsa. That might be different under the hard deck, but I haven't managed to get a camera in there yet. There are reinforcing ribs in strategic places (visible in both photos) that appear to be made of hollow fiberglass that had been draped over some sort of mold.

There are also some reinforcing crossbeams down inside the hulls. The upper photo shows one of these in the foreground, with foam nestled beneath it. That's not burlap. Just moldy fiberglass. It's hard as a rock.

All the lighting for these was sunlight shining through the fiberglass. No artificial lighting was used. So the colors are characteristic of the fiberglass the light is passing through. The lower parts of the hull are a different color from the upper deck, which has more of a green tinge. The deck has an intermediate gel coat layer that looks like a funky green. I'm pretty sure this is what's causing the color of the light passing through the glass on the deck.

You can see this green gel coat layer in this photo where I was filling in a bunch of old screw holes:

Not sure why the deck was coated different from the rest of the boat. In any case the hull is all one color now, upper and lower halves alike, except for the stripe at the waterline that all P-Cats appear to have. In my case it's red.

Tom

Hey cool! Thanks to a Craigslist posting for a P-Cat, I found out the Pacific Catamaran makes a cameo appearance in the movie "The Endless Summer". Right around 59:00 there's a nice segment on sailing (and surfing!) the P-Cat in the waters around Waikiki. Hulu has the movie in case anyone is interested.

Tom

EDIT: Hey, even better! The Endless Summer is on Youtube. Go to about 6:49 here and you'll see the bit on the P-Cats:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-8LbAG0wtI&feature=relmfu

Good to see the old P-cat alive and well. I worked with the original builder for over 10 years. raced the boats heavily. You will also see the P-cats in many seens of the Disney Film "Boat niks" some of the sailors where also the builders. Newport Boats the original builder and Westport boats are now gone but you can find parts around. Construction of the boats varied alot over the years with competition of new boats but the boat is still very competive with the addition of the P218 rigg. Enjoy!

Hey, thanks for chiming in on this thread! I'm still trying to piece things together from hints and photos. I hope you don't mind if I occasionally barrage you with questions.

I was looking in Royce's Sailing Illustrated, where he had a diagram of the original P-Cat rig, the P2-18 rig, and a Tornado all side-by-side. It struck me how similar the P2-18 and the Tornado rigs are. I don't know if I'd have much luck finding a P2-18 rig lying around, but a Tornado rig might be possible. Am I barking up the wrong tree here?

In any case right now my main goal is to get my kids out and sailing. They've all been pitching in on refurbishing this boat, and can't wait to get it out on the water. This will be their first experience on a sailboat under sail, so I'm betting the speed will be plenty exciting for them. If they get into competitive racing, I'll probably revisit the rig. Though if they go so far as to start racing, they may set their sights on another boat entirely. (Which is cool, 'cause then I'll get to give them a run for their money!)

Thanks again,

Tom

We took our P-Cat out for a second time last weekend. This time we remembered we'd packed a camera, and actually used it!

We put in at Kawaihae Harbor on the west coast of the island of Hawaii, and sailed down to Puako, about five miles away. Here's a shot across deck as we passed the Mauna Kea Resort:

We did a number of MOB drills, which gave us some opportunities to photograph the boat from a distance. So here are two ID shots (Damon, I'm planning to take more in the very near future. Once I get some that give better light and angle, I'll post them in the ID gallery):

That's me sailing away after my wife and son jumped in for a MOB drill.

And that's us sailing back, just starting to dump sail to turn into the wind for the pickup.

The wind had dropped by the time we turned around to go home, so we had a very leisurely sail back to the harbor. This stretch of coast varies from about 50' to 0' deep, with coral reefs the whole way. I kept us deep enough not to stress about rudders or daggerboards, and my daughters decided not to stress at all.

Next time I'm bringing my mask and fins, and it's MY turn to go overboard for the MOB drill!

Tom

Great job! Glad to see it back in the water.

Hey Tom, I noticed in your 1st pic that you have no downhaul on the main, is that one of the "next on the list" items, do P-Cats have downhaul? Awesome job on resurrecting an old cat...... :prost:

CONGRATULATIONS Tom! Can't wait to see more images!

I've watched the Endless Summer clip about 20+ times now with the Pacific Cats sailing. When do you think you could have some vids of your boat?

AJ

No downhaul on the main since the main halyard never truly locks. The battens were still bolted in when I took that picture, so I was a little leery of really hauling on the halyard. But I re-did the battens last night and today, so next time we go out I should be able to get a better shape in the main and pull on the halyard enough to get rid of all those @#$% wrinkles!

But I'm glad you brought up downhaul. My wife and I are kind of looking things over, trying to decide where to go from here. The list of stuff to do is still long, and there are some real fundamentals we need to take care of. But the wish list has already begun. Neither of us is 100% happy with the main halyard winch system, so we may eventually switch to a more conventional main halyard, and go with a downhaul setup.

AJ, I've got a GoPro sitting on my desk at work. A friend of mine is an avid mountain biker with an insane collection of camera mount hardware. Kinda hoping the video happens this coming weekend. I have a trip coming up the week after that, so it's my last chance to sail for about a month. I gotta put something up on Youtube or Vimeo before then so I can watch it while I'm traveling and feed my wishful thinking!

Tom