Why a Yawl or Ketch instead of a sloop

[tom28571]

Originally Posted by BeauVrolyk

Tom,

I went sailing in Newport Beach, CA, on a Harbor 20. Everything is self tacking and the racing rules require that one never leave the cockpit. The perfect beer can racing boat. While it's way too small to take across an ocean, the basic idea isn't bad. The self tacking jib with its own boom is a nice touch and makes roller furling really work right when reefed. (Well, it works better, still not perfect.)

Beau

In some PHRF races, I do race against both a Harbor 20 and an Alerion 28. Both are extremely nice boats. The Harbor 20 has beaten our old Pearson 34 once this year in moderate wind (non spinnaker class). The Alerion is skippered by a guy well into his 80's. Don't know about the H 20 but the Alerion is out of my price range.

Sailed a 22' light weight cat ketch today in winds of 20 to above 30 with both sails double reefed. At full 256 ft sq, it's an overpowered sled in stronger wind. Needed to navigate through some real shallow water at low tide and ran aground. Wake from a big passing boat in the ICW lifted the boat and drove the CB back up in the CB trunk, splitting the CB at the pivot pin and breaking the handle off. Out with the anchor and drilled a hole in the CB with a pocket knife and put in a lanyard to keep from loosing it when we drove it back down past the pin to make a daggerboard out of it. Luckily we were only a mile or so to windward of an unfamiliar marina since we could not have actually sailed upwind in these waters with this rig. Took down the foresail and sailed into the marina under double reefed mizzen alone, making about 8kts at times.

Found a launch ramp. Locked, but some residents helped us with that and also drove us back to pick up our trailer. Some disasters work out well in the end. People can be very helpful at times.

[BeauVrolyk]

Originally Posted by tom28571

...snip...
Found a launch ramp. Locked, but some residents helped us with that and also drove us back to pick up our trailer. Some disasters work out well in the end. People can be very helpful at times.

I have found that folks are amazingly helpful when called upon nicely. What a day - you'll need a beer after that one.

B

[brian eiland]

Originally Posted by BeauVrolyk

Brian,

Why DO people put "keels" on multihulls? I am not a multihull sailor, other that Tornados in my youth, and I was under the impression that you wanted absolute minimum weight in a multihull, even a cruising one. I can't imagine that the weight of a keel actually helps with stability; not when compared to the beam of the boat. It also certainly doesn't make the multihull self righting. So, why isn't it just a daggerboard without any weight in it?

Beau

The 'keels' I speak of are non-weighted keels. These are utilized on many production boats and charter vessels to keep them simple. Otherwise the multihulls carry daggerboards (most often) and centerboards (less often). These are not stability producing devices (broad form produces satbility), but rather leeway prevention devices, and to a lesser extent tracking devices.

[brian eiland]

Beau,
Your schooner desires in a multihull form
http://runningtideyachts.com/design-...erences-11.php

http://runningtideyachts.com/design-...erences-12.php

Then there was a Dutchman by the name of Peter Spronk who use to love the schooner rigs on the cats he built in St Marteen

[brian eiland]

I don't think I would want to use a sloop rig here

[brian eiland]

Not that I'm a fan of Aero-rig, but this was a rather interesting variation with a double aero-rig

[brian eiland]

I believe Steve Dashew was quite fond of the ketch rig for his Sundeer series of sailing vessels

Aftmast rigs???

[brian eiland]

…excerpts from Chris White’s sailing report aboard his client’s Concept 63, ketch rigged catamaran design HERON
Aftmast rigs???

[brian eiland]

BTW Beau, did you happen to see this subject thread, "Motor Sailers by Philip Rhodes & John Alden" ??

I thought you might appreciate it.
Motor Sailers by Philip Rhodes & John Alden

[timothy22]

I think Steve saved the ketch rig for the bigger boats.
http://www.dashewoffshore.com/do_beowulf.asp
I have never seen a Sundeer or Deerfoot ketch. (Now, isn't this the bst way to ensure a picture of one shows up?)

[brian eiland]

Originally Posted by timothy22

...I have never seen a Sundeer or Deerfoot ketch. (Now, isn't this the bst way to ensure a picture of one shows up?)

What do you call that vessel that appears in the website you referenced??

[John McAlpin]

I have built an "Eel", original designer Albert Strange, redrawn by William Garden in 1976. It was at the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic last year. It is yellow and was displayed in front of the John Gardener Memorial Boat Shop.

It is 19.5 ft. length on deck.

This boat was designed for single handed beach cruising on the South Shore of Lake Superior, an unforgiving coast.

Admittedly this is not a typical yachting environment.

The reasons I opted for a yawl with tabernacles are:

1. The ability to reduce sail quickly in a sudden blow;

2. Balance and the lack of helm effort and attention;

3. The ability to maneuver in tight spaces.

I have redesigned the steering system. I am waiting for warmer weather to test it.

My comment is that I feel that a two masted rig besides the obvious advantages improves survivabilty by allowing more options.

My professional experience has been marine geophysical survey work on the Great Lakes, the North Sea, the North Atlantic, and Arctic Oceans.

The Sea isn't dangerous, it's the hard bits around the edges.

[brian eiland]

You hear so many people expounding the vitues of a sloop rig over a two masted vessel, and often referring to the inefficiency of those aft mounted sails.

Here are a couple of photos from the recent St Barth's regatta. Sure looks like these sails are working to me

[BeauVrolyk]

Originally Posted by brian eiland

You hear so many people expounding the vitues of a sloop rig over a two masted vessel, and often referring to the inefficiency of those aft mounted sails.

Here are a couple of photos from the recent St Barth's regatta. Sure looks like these sails are working to me

All,

I've been tied up with a lot of stuff and not online - too much sailing - a good thing.

With respect to the pictures from the St. Barth's regatta - I adore classic schooners and split rigs - they are amazingly beautiful. Also, the vast majority of the time most of us aren't sailing either directly upwind or downwind, we're reaching. When reaching the split rig doesn't suffer (as much) from the interference between the rigs. Having said that, I still think that for a fixed amount of sail area, the sloop will always perform better. But, that's probably not the point. As Brian points out in these beautiful pictures - "performance" is not a singular concept. There is performance, meaning the speed and efficiency of the rig. Then, there is "performance" meaning what does it do to your heart strings. In this latter sense, these beautiful old schooners are VERY high performance.

Let's face it, if we were actually trying to get anywhere fast we'd take an airplane, or at least a motorboat.

Regarding multi-hulls, I'm really not a fan. I know that this stirs people up a lot, but I've been at sea in way too many really terrible storms to want to ride in a boat that is difficult to depower and floats upside down far better than right side up. I know there are multihulls that have been through a lot, but there is also a really good reason that all the serious races (and most smart people) require an escape hatch in the bottom of the multihull, so you can get out when it's upside down. (Ultra beamy mono-hulls require this too - like the Volvo boats.) This is off the topic of split rigs, but I don't like being upside down and stuck that way.

Finally, I'd add one more split rig boat to the discussion, and that's the Herreshoff Rosenante. She's a narrow, canoe sterned, ketch of 28 feet that is stunningly beautiful and tough. There are a few here on San Francisco Bay that scare the tar out of the bigger boats when it blows hard. While a sloop version would clearly be faster (the mizzen really backwinds going up wind), the little ketch is VERY hard to ketch (pun intended) when reaching back into the SF Bay on a windy day.

Beau

[BeauVrolyk]

I think I'm in love.

We've been posting lots of pictures of split rigs, so I thought I'd post one of a sloop that I lust after. The Spirit-46 from Spirit Yachts in the UK. http://www.spirityachts.com/sy-spirit-46.htm

This sloop sports a cold molded hull, 45% of her light 9,000 pound displacement is in the bulb at the bottom of the keel. Carbon rig for ultra light weight aloft, spade rudder and fin/bulb keel, and drop dead beautiful looks.

I NEED THIS BOAT!

B-))