How High Can Your Cat Jump?

In the 10 or so years that John Haste of San Diego has owned his Bob Perry designed 52-ft cat Little Wing, he’s sailed and raced her everywhere from Southern California to St. Martin in the West Indies. So he thought he was very familiar with the cat’s speed potential.

"I remember reading a Morrelli & Melvin polar diagram for the speed targets of a cat of similar weight and dimensions to mine," he writes. "They predicted a top speed of 32 knots. Frankly, I found this a little hard to believe. Based on all our experience, we can hit 18 knots pretty easily, but it’s been tough to get much over 20 knots. For example, until recently, our top speed was 23 knots in one of the Ha-Ha’s we did. But that was done in a 37-knot gust when we were carrying 4,300 sq. ft. of sail."

But Haste recently got religion. It happened while sailing from Panama’s San Blas Islands to Cartagena, Colombia. "We were reaching in a 10-knot breeze enjoying wonderful sailing conditions. We were aware that there was a slow moving low in the area, but there was no squall activity. Then, at midnight, there was suddenly a cool blast of air and Little Wing started to accelerate quickly. There was spray everywhere, as we were cutting the crests of waves with the cross beam. As we bore off, the velocity just kept increasing. There was no time to shorten sail, so we just had to hang on. It would have been a rush during the daytime, and if we’d closed the port over the computer on the nav station. Anyway, I’ve enclosed a photo to show our maximum speed."

If you own a cruising cat, we’d be interested to know how fast you’ve got her going — and whether you were happy about it. Shoot an email to Richard.