Best rig for small catamaran circumnavigator?

Be more specific - do you mean classic wooden multihulls? - like the designs from Newick, Irens, Crowther, Tennant, Given, Myers, Brown and others.

 

Well, the Corinthians have that charm of the sixties. They've been build by Corinthian in Florida, Ketch and Cutter rigged to my knowledge with asymmetrical shaped Amas and a shallow draft of less then 3 ft.
They should be solid fiberglass but I am not shure. A few must have been build and the design can't be to bad, I read about one build in the sixties and another one in 1985.
Thanx

 

Hmm - the disscussion is now far away from the main topic - a small catamaran cirumnavigator rig.

The engineers like to push the envelope - on the cost of the bulder/owner. They provide some basic strength calculations for *expected* loads and behind this there will always be some try and errror - what usually means something is breaking.

A circumnavigation is definitly not the place to do that. Circumnavigation means the *unexpected* will be happen. The handling of these situations in the middle of nowhere makes the difference between a great adventure and a great disaster. Following the all the books and articles one can easily identify some common facts:

- Starting fast - all the longtime sailors and live-abords slow down very soon. There is almost more performance then needed. Following the tradewind routes the most used configuration is jibe only.

- The high performance rigs are worth nothing when their upwind efficience is mostly needed - the sugested 40+ kts lee shore situation. In this case the upwind ability of the boat is limited by windage/sail area ratio rather then sail (peek-)efficience. On a bridgedeck cabin cat a strong engine is the only thing would help while on a open bridgde deck a very simple rig will do the job.

- There will always come the moment the electronics fail. Then you need to balance the boat by the sails only...

So my personal favourite is the Wharrams Tiki Wingsail rig. And yes - i like carbon masts. I use them for windsurfing - and replace them every year.

ropf

 

Disposable masts

I can see why you would want a mast so light in that application that you have to replace it every year, but if it were built heavily enough, it would outlast us both.