Introduction
As an avid sailor catamaran, I never understood why this is not a more popular sport? I tell people that I ride catamarans, some look at me as if I started to speak a foreign language. Others ask every question you can imagine, ending the conversation with the wow, which sounds exciting. Does it scare you? Honest answer - yes, in most cases, but not because we are engaged in these sports to be excited and scared at the same time? I love the feeling that I get when my heart beats in my throat and adrenaline is pumped up. hoping for a little more speed.
Catamaran racing, as you probably guess, is a long way from the leisurely images that you can have in your head, usually sitting on a beautiful yacht on the blue sea, gliding over the waves, with the wind in your hair, gin and tonic in your hands. If you want to ride a race, the catamaran must be very wet!
What is a catamaran?
For those of you who are not sure what a catamaran is and how it differs from any other sailing boat, the main difference from a catamaran is that it has two hulls of the same size rather than one, they are also known as multi-body non-mono - hulls. The hulls are parallel and connected by two transverse beams, one halfway down the boat, on which the mast and the sails are mounted, the second on the back of the boat. The square between the bodies and the cross beams creates an area for a fabric deck known as a trampoline, although it sounds and looks like a gymnastic trampoline and you won’t get much height by jumping on it (most likely you will put a hole in It) . Catamarans usually have two sails - the main sail and arrow, the others - the third sail, known as Gennaker (this is the cross between Genoa and the spinnaker) and is mainly used only on racing boats.
Types of catamarans
The largest racing catamaran is those who take part in the America's Cup, these boats measure from 14 to 22 meters and can reach speeds of up to 45 knots (51 miles per hour) and carry a crew of 11, the America's Cup more recently hit news headlines due to the tragic death of the English seaman Andrew Simpson during his training in San Francisco, and although a good advertisement for the sport is a big loss for the sailing fraternity.
In this article, the boats of America's American boats are not such catamarans, I write about smaller, more user-friendly boats that are available for people with a limited budget to spend on an exciting new hobby (if they like the sea and sodden).
Most small racing catamarans from 4 to 6.5 meters long, the second hand can be an expensive purchase from 800 dollars or 500 pounds on a boat, which is certainly good enough to pull you into the water.
Flight case
If you have ever watched a single-hull boat sailing at any speed, you will see that it bends around to 45 degrees, the same thing happens on a catamaran, the only difference is that the boat starts to bend, one of the hull rises out of the water, until it is perfectly balanced on only one hull, this requires great skill, the flying skill of the hull without tipping (technical term when the boat falls), when the boat flies for the crew, sometimes it is necessary for the crew to help the ball hoist the boat so that you can get more speed, this makes the crew, standing on the side of the boat, going back 45 and 90 degrees to the hull, while hanging from the trapezoid wire in the harness (wire that comes from the top of the mast) , and the more hull raises the water, the more vertical you are standing - this can sometimes be an uncomfortable place when you fly at its maximum height, while bouncing over the waves, a picture in which I am sure that you seem completely unthinkable if you are not familiar with sports, and now you start thinking s that I may have a couple of times mixed up with the circus somewhere along the way.
The question is, why do catamarans race?
Imagine ... you are sitting on one of the hulls, all the sails are perfectly cut off, when the boat slowly glides over the waves, the sun is shining, and it's a beautiful day, the wind starts to pick you up, tighten the sails, the hull starts to rise from the water, your heart starts to beat , you relax on the trapezoidal wire, when the hull flies higher, now you are standing almost vertically on the side of the hull, the boat is now sliding. Along with cutting waves at a speed of knots, the boat at an angle of 45 degrees and leaving a visible trace of turbulence in its path in its path.
Now the only question is why not?
