continuous trapeze / j hook question

From Murrays http://www.murrays.com/index.htm

Does this help?

At the top the line runs up to your mast hound. Your harness hooks to the ring on the left. The shock cord on the lower right goes to the same trap wire on the other side of the boat Usually under the tramp from one side to the other. There are several other types of rings and hooks that you can use.

Here is a picture from I believe, Airbornes setup. The trap wire comes from the masthound down to the trap handle. Below the handle is a short line (blue) that runs through a small block. One end of the line is connected to a metal loop, the other end to a bungee cord that runs through the front beam, to the trap line on the other side,or under the tramp to the opposite side.
The bungee keeps the line retracted & snug when not in use. To use, grab the metal loop,(dogbone) & hook it under the metal hook on the harness you are wearing,(see picture of harness above). As you hike out over the side, the blue line will run through the block til it hits that little black rubber thingy that is tied onto the blue line. This will limit how far you can "fall" towards the horizontal. Moving the little stopper serves as an adjustment.

I have never seen a continuous trapeze system in use on a catamaran. I'm not sure they would work. If you only have the J hooks you are probably better off starting new with one of the systems shown above. Anyone else have experience wiht a continuous trapeze (one you don't have to unclip and reclip into)?

Ya I cant find much info about it. It came with one j hook attached to each wire, a shock cord from j hook to j hook, and a bearing and clamcleat on the shock cord. So my thinking is you use kind of the setup shown above but instead of unclipping you just slide the clamcleat off the j hook and along the shock cord to the other j hook. but that would only work if the shock cord was not under anything or clipped on to anything... I think im going to end up going with a system like above. was just curious if anyone had any experience with what im talking about...

You should NOT have 1 shock cord for both hooks/dog bones.
You should have 2 or separate shock cords... The reason why, if that shock cords breaks when yer both traped out, yer both gonna go~~ Who is gonna maintain the boat?? no one!! I brought that up with a friend of mine... He gave me that "DHHHH LOOK"~~ He doesn't sail anymore, stupid idiot left his cat on shore for the winter. The ICE WAS HUNGRY.
Need I say more?????

popeye,
The system Matt is talking about is one in which you never have to unhook and rehook your harness when tacking, it just slides with you from one side of the boat to the other.

Matt, like I said not many cat sailors are familiar with it. 🙂 I think it is mostly a mono boat thing where there isn't much distance between the two sides of the boat. I would be interested in seing how it would work on a cat, but it looks like a PITA. Probably better off with a more standard rig (like you said).

D.

edited by: Wolfman, May 02, 2010 - 12:05 PM

mattie411 wrote: Im having a hard time figure out how to setup the trapeze.

-Matt

Matt, I must have missed what boat you have. You've received some good info on this thread but if we knew which boat exactly you could receive better instructions and help. The system for cats is pretty much the same on every one, what is different is how they attach to the hulls and where the bungees run.

Please fill out your Profile with boat and location info and you may get some local help as well.

Will fill out info, didn't realize it wasn't filled out. I'm in the Capital Region of Canada (Ottawa area). As for the boat, I'm not sure what kind it is. no marking on it and cant find any that look like it. 15 foot hulls, two ports (middle and back) in both. 25 foot mast. It came with a Hobie sail but i assume it was purchased later than the boat as it is fairly new. The trap is attached the each hull via awning track. There doesn't seem to be any apparent spot for the shock cord to hook up to so I'm just gonna run it under the tramp and setup an adjustable rig. Anyone have a recommendation for the best place to get trapeze stuff?? Below is a pic of the boat. I have since taken it apart to redo the hulls and replace hardware.

Wow, that is a SWEET boat! Are you sure it is just 15 feet long? How wide is it (that might help also)? That hull shape looks fairly modern!

Not 100 percent sure its 15, it was advertised as 15 foot. I will take some actual measurements tomorrow. Ive got a suspicion it is built from a kit or something as you can see a seam along the length of the hulls.. the inside looks like sprayed fiberglass...

great looking cat

Anyone have a recommendation for the best place to get trapeze stuff?

thebeachcats.com - classified?
murrays.com
http://store.catsailor.com/
http://www.apsltd.com/c-3825-trapeze-harnesses.aspx
ebay
craigslist
etc

edited by: andrewscott, May 02, 2010 - 09:34 PM

The shape, daggerboard wells and lack of a jib make it look like and F17 to me. It certainly looks longer than 15 feet and I doubt those hulls were made from a kit. All fiberglass hulls look like that on the inside. It could be an early 2000s Nacra F17 or even a Hobie 17/Fxone (not familiar enough with the early 2000 hobies to tell from teh hull shape). If you can find the serial number on teh back of the hulls we can probably figure out the year and make. If it is an F17, man that will be a rocketship!!

So It's definitely only 15 feet, Right on the nose. The shape does look a lot like the f 17 though. Did they make a 15 foot version at some time? or a similar boat in 15 foot length? I could get the exact width because I have her all apart right now fixing her up, but I would put it around 7 feet. No serial number to be found.

Its the wrong shape to be a hobie or a prindle of that size. It could be a Mystere 4.3 Uni, you are in the right location for it. Anyone else have any ideas?

dats not a mystere 4.3
the 4.3 is a skeg boat

Hmm, I have no idea then. Maybe it is a kit boat or an early F16?

Looks kinda like a Supercat.

I think you are correct. This looks like a Supercat 15 UNI.
Dan Berger has one of these, maybe he can help out.

Here's a link to a pic of his cat.

http://www.thebeachcats.com/index.php?module=pictures&g2_itemId=64747

Hmm not quite the right shape. Maybe a different year?

edited by: Wolfman, May 04, 2010 - 04:52 PM

It is very similar to that one but its got more of the nacra shape to the hulls.... I emailed the guy I got it from to see if he had any more info on it, No reply yet. I also ordered stuff to setup a high - low adjustable trapeze on each side, forget the j hooks.... really looking forward to the summer. I'll be sure to post some pics of her when we get her back together, and any news I find out about her history. All the help is really appreciated. hopefully we can find out what she is.

That would be great, looks like it will be a fun boat. Does it actually have dagger boards? I thought I saw dagger board wells but can't really tell.

Ya it has dagger boards.

not a Supercat at all because the bow tangs are too far back and the bottom of the bows are not round (too squared off).

I got my trapeze stuff in today to setup a high-low adjustable on each side. cant wait to get this baby back together, just waiting on the hatches, and one more coat of paint and clear then back together. Here is the pic I drew up for the graphics, the white is done and looking good, gonna tape it up once we have a few nice days....

The only boat I can figure out that it could be, is silly. It looks like a Nacra 14sq. But I don't think that they were ever manufactured in North America.

only thing is that they are boomless. not sure if they were always built that way or that is a new thing.... its definitely that shape though. I never did hear back from the person I bought it off. It's a mystery!

How about some more pictures, boards, rudders, boom, mast base, top of mast?

Yeah, pics of the rudder and mast step system would be very helpful. They tend to be unique to each manufacturer. It could be a kit boat or prototype of some sort after all, there are quite a few kicking around out there. Heck there is a climax 18 for sale on the classifieds here, there probably were only 3 or 4 of those ever made.