[quote=benedict]Eeeeeh... I really don't know that much more about P-Cats. I started this odyssey less than a year ago, never having seen a P-Cat in my life. That odyssey started when the boat showed up as a bare hull and mast with a five gallon bucket and a cardboard box, both full of... stuff... I took one look and thought, "Ya gettin' in deep now, man!"
Despite being such a wildly popular boat in its day, there aren't that many people who remember it now. Some of the info I had was gleaned from 1950's era postcards, from watching The Endless Summer and a couple of Disney clips someone was kind enough to point out to me. Finding that rigging diagram in Royce's was sheer serendipity. (It's a small book, dirt cheap, and well worth reading for the historical information alone.) The previous owners of my boat have been a good source of information, too, but everything else was sheer guesswork. The only edge I might have on you and Jeff is that I did more Google searches over the last year. (Or maybe not!)
I think my traveler system pre-dates recirculating balls. I don't know if mine is original hardware, so again they're different but that's about it. My Prindle 16 had a system similar to the one in your pictures. There was a line running from the rear of the rear crossbeam up and through the traveler, and then through a cam cleat that was riveted to the rear crossbar. I liked it because you could set a certain amount of travel, and even when you tacked it would maintain that amount of travel on the new tack as well.
The one I have on my P-Cat is more complicated (read that as "more likely to tangle") but has two cool features: The 3:1 travel means even when the sail is loaded up hard, I can still move the traveler in without much effort. The other is that it'll sheet in past center-line. This is a cool feature, and lets it point a little higher than my Prindle ever could. But it also makes it way too easy to pinch and lose headway. I love having it, but I find myself staring at telltales on the sails way more than I used to.
I'll take a picture of the rubber and aluminum on the bottom of my hulls when I get home tonight, and post them. I can believe this stuff wasn't stock. (What on my boat is stock?!) But it works well, so I'm happy to share. It's not the most hydrodynamic setup in the world. Push comes to shove it's probably draggy as hell. But it's built like a tank, and it works.
At the tops of the daggerboard trunks, is there enough room to put something in there to help wedge the boards in place? Over on the Hobie forums, one guy posted a build of a Miracle 20. When he got to the daggerboard trunks, he posted a neat tip: Get some self-adhesive Velcro. Get the fuzzy side and stick it in the daggerboard trunk, fuzzy side facing the board. He only used four little tabs on his, but the Miracle 20 trunks are a close fit to the boards. I was planning to line the things end-to-end with fuzzy Velcro. But my trunks are a much tighter fit than yours, it sounds like. If I stuck Velcro in there, the daggerboard never would've fit. (I did use this trick with the rudder castings, though. The resulting fit is snug snug snug. I LOVE having rudders that don't rattle at all.)
Now I need to go look at compasses. I really really like that setup.
Thanks again,
Tom[/quote]
