What every tack costs
With no rudder, a patí turns by heeling and losing speed. The replay shows how much speed goes and how many metres each tack costs: whoever tacks three times fewer than the boat alongside usually gets there first.
Catalan patí
The class with no rudder
A patí is steered with body weight and sail trim. That makes every tack cost real metres — and until now nobody could say how many.
The class
This is the home class: it was born on the beaches of the Catalan coast and is sailed almost nowhere else. Single-handed, one sail and no jib, in two sizes — senior and junior — that often share the same start.
- Crew
- 1
- Rig
- One sail, no jib, no spinnaker
- Rudder
- None: steered with weight and sail trim
- Categories
- Senior, Junior and Open
- Where it sails
- Almost only on the Catalan coast
What the replay shows
Who pointed highest
In race 2 at Cubelles the winner beat at an average of 38° to the wind; the other two at 45° and 47°. You cannot see that from the beach. The GPS measures it.
Senior and junior, each scored properly
The category is frozen onto the entry the day it is registered, so the series comes out right even though the fleet sails together. Open sails and shows on screen, but does not score.
Fitting it
The device is strapped aboard before launching and collected on the way back in. It touches nothing on the boat and needs no power. It is the class every race published on this site was sailed in.
Every race published on this site is Catalan patí. Here is a whole weekend of it, with the numbers. See the Club Marítim Cubelles case
Your club’s next race
Devices are handed out before launching and collected on the way back in: nothing changes about how you run the race. If you would rather see it before deciding, write to us and we will set it up on one of your own races.
Other classes