Which sail rig for my Cat?

It would be better to assume the storm hits before you reach the safe anchorage.
my reason for quoting the wingsail vanes was for the directional stability they provide. At anchor, provided the wing is free to rotate, they automatically depower the wing and eliminate flutter tendencies.This characteristic might also apply to the 2 element wing mast if twist off or a clip-on vane near deck level is available.

The drag from an elliptical mast free to rotate should be comparable. If not free to rotate however, then bullets of wind from different directions will cause a light boat to swing about the anchor.

However, the windage from rigging wires and other paraphernalia supporting the standard mast has to be accounted for also, when considering drag. Storm sailing under "bare poles" can be "exhilarating".

Regarding gales ....I have seen keel boats flattened in Sydney from a "southerly buster" - spreaders in the water stuff. They clearly did not have a quick sheet release system that catamarans should all have. This would be easy to install for wing sails.

 

Ok so are you saying that an unreefable wing can be made safe in a storm? If so id like to see proof, got any?

 

No, I have no proof - but you cannot reef a bare pole with all its empennage either.
My point is - a fully rotating wing mast with quick release is probably safer than a standard rig - especially if you dont have time to douse both main and headsail

 

I don't buy it... I have several friends that own largish wing masted multihulls whom have told me that they're boat nearly capsized whilst moored or tied up in a gale or tried to sail away from the marina with it still attached, scary stuff and not what you want when cruising in the middle of nowhere... And these were only rotating wing masts, not like the larger wing sails...

Back to another idea posted earlier, the biplane rig. Turns out I do have room to fit a pair of unstayed masts on the inside edge of each hull. This moves the CoE further aft into a more favourable location with respect the CLR, if I just run 2 battened mains off the unstayed rotating wing masts.

So now some questions...

Does anyone have any data, or other resource which points to the rigs efficiency? Lift coefficients etc?

Anyone have a ballpark estimate of what a 10m unstayed carbon wing mast would weigh? I know a 12m version has been done here at right on 100kgs including the stub section buried in the hull. This one also supported a forestay and headsail, so I would imagine a 10m pole with no provision for forestay would be considerably lighter, probably less than half in fact...

I need to go do some more math...