How a blind sailor raced this unique rudderless catamaran around the Isle of Wight

The Patí Català is a rudderless, boomless, daggerboardless 18ft catamaran, which blind sailor Dani Pich sailed around the Isle of Wight Local dinghy classes tend to evolve to suit the particular conditions of the waters they sail in, and the Patí Català catamarans are unique to their Barcelona birthplace. The catamaran is a development of the simple twin-hulled platforms that Spanish fisherman would paddle out to check their nets in the late 1800s.
In 1942 two brothers from Catalonia added wooden spars and battenless mainsails to their boats and the sailing class was born. Often referred to as ‘skates’, the flat-bottomed Patí boats have no rudder, daggerboard, or foils of any kind, meaning they can be comfortably dragged across the sand of the Barceloneta and Badalona beaches.
They’re also exceptionally quick to rig, allowing locals to race the class in their lunchtime breaks before popping back to work (racing is held five days a week, first gun at noon). However, while the design may be simple in construction, they are complex to sail, relying on the sailor’s skill in body weight positioning, sail trim and rig adjustment to manoeuvre.
Dani Pich sailed his Patí Català solo around the Isle of Wight in July. Photo: Tim Jeffreys Photography
Single mould design
The Patí Català is a strict one-design. So strict that not only must each boat meet the minimum weight of 89kg, but all bar a handful of boats are built using the same mould, as Spanish sailor Dani Pich explained.
Pich was showing me his modified Patí Català, which he went on to sail around the Isle of Wight solo on Thursday 24 July, in 13 hours and 8 minutes.
“They are all handmade near Barcelona. To make the hulls, we use what is called the cow. We call it the cow because when you put in the plywood, you stack it, and you have to clamp it.
“Then you have to go underneath and to tighten it the movement is as if you were milking a cow. Since 1970, all the Patí Catalàns have been made with this cow, except for maybe fewer than 20.”
Up close, the Patí hulls are surprisingly pretty, skilfully crafted from different woods to give different levels of structural stiffness in key areas.
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“The plywood is okoume. They are all tropical woods. The soft one, the yellow, is called ayous, it’s the one that permits the twist and the flex. And the one that is darker is called samanguila. That is a variation of the oak, and it’s very strong,” explains Pich.
The twin hulls are connected by five wooden crossbeams, known as racks or benches, which sailors use to traverse the boats and to move their body weight forward and aft depending on conditions. Weight is key – each racing boat has a minimum hull weight of 89kg and competitive sailors will sand their boats down to ensure they are as close as possible to the class minimum (if individual boats come in too light they must carry corrector weights).
Patí Català sailing off Barcelona during the America’s Cup. Photo: Ian Roman/America’s Cup
Custom build
Eight years ago Barcelona sailor Pich lost his sight when a fire extinguisher exploded aboard the gas ship he was working on as a merchant seaman. He is now totally blind.
Pich learned to sail as a child, starting in the Optimist dinghy before moving to the Laser (now ILCA) single-hander, though he never fell in love with racing. For him, the lure of sailing was more about the challenge of ocean crossings, and in his late teens he moved into sailing larger yachts, crossing the Mediterranean and Atlantic before building a career at sea.
Waterproof box housing a processor that converts wind data to a ‘clock’ direction system. Photo: Tim Jeffreys Photography
He first experimented with sailing the local Patí Català when he was 16. “At first I thought this was too complicated for me. But after a summer when I had the opportunity to train a lot with it, I found it spectacular,” he recalls.
After his accident, Pich struggled to return to the sport he loved. He tried some ‘accessible’ sailing programs in Spain and was left feeling degraded by the experience. “It was ‘Sit here, sit there’. I felt like a package they were moving around, and giving me orders. And I was supposed to be thankful for the opportunity.”
Pich demonstrating how he uses foot placement and body weight during a tack. Photo: Tim Jeffreys Photography
Despite their complexity, the only option for him to sail autonomously was to sail a Patí, out of a local Barcelona city club. “It meant that I could leave my house and go by public transport, and not require many more people to do this. I could go by myself,” he explains.
“I knew the club. And I thought, well, I know this is a difficult way to start. But the club were the only ones that said, ‘Okay, let’s try it.’”
Initially Pich was required to sail with another person aboard his Patí, so it was stiffened to carry the additional crew and the hull now weighs in at 150kg. However, the reinforced structure also helped Pich’s boat stand up to the short Solent chop during his single-handed sail around the Isle of Wight.
The ‘piano’ area of sail and rig controls. The cut-out notches both reduce weight and act as extra foot grips when hiking. Photo: Tim Jeffreys Photography
“This is the only Patí that you can be sailing in 15 knots upwind, with two people hiking, and it doesn’t break. Normally, when you start to heel, the bow wants to fall down, and the aft end wants to fall down. So the bits that suffer are the first and the fifth benches. And they break, bam! After the third time I broke the benches, I said, enough is enough – we’re going to build from scratch a boat completely reinforced, so I don’t have this problem.
“I built it myself with the woodmaker. So I know everything about it, how it is made, the wood thicknesses. Because I thought that if I had to do some repairs I should know my own boat.”
Rig and controls
With no rudder, the primary controls on the Patí Català are rig adjustments, mainsheet and shifting of body weight.
“You start sitting in the neutral position,” explains Pich, indicating between the third and fourth cross-beam. “So how we can control the boat is with our weight moving to the bow or to the aft. If we go to the bow, the boat goes upwind. When we go to the aft, we sail a lower course. You can do this in five knots of wind without touching anything. But when it starts to blow harder, if you don’t trim the sail, you cannot.”
Pich uses ropes of different diameter so he knows which control line is which. Photo: Tim Jeffreys Photography
To initiate and exit a tack, Patí sailors stand, using their body weight to drive the boat into a turn and swinging against the sail as it loads up in a fluid, acrobatic movement. Pich has added a solid panel between the forward cross-beams to allow him to more safely cross the boat without sight of his foot placement.
Besides the mainsheet and sail controls, there are also control lines that allow the sailor to adjust rig shape underway. “I can make the mast like a ‘C’,” explains Pich. “There are two ropes going from inside the mast to outside. I can bring on the front stay, but I’m not pulling the mast forward. I am just pulling from three quarters of the mast, to the front. So I can flatten the sail and twist the outer part of the leech.
“We call it like the gears of the car. You start with first, then second, third. So you start completely open, with the wind on the sail starting the power of the boat. When you feel the boat is starting to run, you go into first gear, put a little bit [of rig tension] on, then a bit more. And every time, then you have to trim the sail.”
Stripes of non-slip padding allow Pich to orient himself along the side decks and five racks. Photo: Tim Jeffreys Photography
Because the boat has no boom, the Cunningham is heavily used to pull down the mainsail. A stainless steel metal beam aft is the traveller, and also counter-balances the weight of the mast forward.
Sailing by feel
Despite its complexity, Pich says the wooden construction of the Patí gives a lot more feedback to him as a blind sailor than a glassfibre boat such as his Laser dinghy. “We say that this boat, you sail it by feelings. The wood talks a lot. The sound that it makes is incredible. You can know many things about what’s happening on board just by hearing the boat.”
Pich says the plywood Patí Català gives a lot more feedback to him as a blind sailor than a glassfibre boat would. Photo: Tim Jeffreys Photography
“Every time I broke the boat in any way, I was the first to know it – more than anyone who has sight. The sound completely changes. There is a new sound that enters the puzzle.”
There are two other unique items on Pich’s boat: a wind sensor and a black electronics box. These read wind data which is then communicated to Pich through a special custom-made vibrating vest created by a Catalan startup company called White Jacket.
The vest has two strips around Pich’s torso, and 12 small vibration motors connected to a battery. The first strip feeds Pich information on his course, using the circle of a clock – so 12 o’clock is at his front and means dead ahead. The lower strip connects to the data from the wind sensor, and gives Pich true wind angle.
“I’ve got the two vectors; course over the ground and the wind angle. So then it’s trying to do some magic!” explains Pich, who calculates the course to steer in his head and by feel.
Pich only began working with White Jacket in April, and they want to develop the vest technology further to include heading guidance. This would also make the vest more of an accessibility tool for less experienced sailors than Pich.
The vest components are housed inside a silicone tube, with IP68 connectors for waterproofing. However, during Pich’s around the island bid in July his vest began overheating and he went on to complete most of the circumnavigation by feel, with his team on the support RIB communicating information on tide, waves and obstructions.
Pich also uses other cues such as the sun. “I cannot see light, but I can feel the heat. So for example, if I am reaching and I am on starboard tack, the sun is on my right. And I can feel it on my face. I know from the movement of the sun that is going from east to west, and knowing my latitude, I can orientate myself. But this is what I’d like to show people: that because we are blind, we’re not stupid. We can do things.
“Do you know how complex it is to fry an egg without seeing? It is hundreds of times more complex than sailing!”

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