Minimum cruising cat-size & cost

That is bad design. The waterstay should really be called an "above the water stay". The Piver shopuld have raised the chainplate out of the water to accomplish this.

cheers

Phil

 

NO---but the solid flat bar is only 3/16" (4.5mm) thick and 1 1/2" wide so will have less drag than the round section of a 5/16" cable.

 

For a slow(er) cruising cat - would "waterstays" be better than a beam right at the ends? The beam is convenient for nets etc...
Maybe beam aft and cable fwd - in the place of the beam?
Solid wood beams lose weightwise but win costwise - as long as can find good wood without knots etc ? Alternatives to spruce?
As for lamp posts - most are steel here and odd shapes...... Could also get into trouble for borrowing them
Ply diy ok but seems to need maintenance or water and rot....

 

Alex.A said:-

 

What i meant was - if enough strength with beams in middles - could you use cables at the ends - realise difference between boats.... but would cables at the ends be doing more than just hold nets in place? ie stiffen ends up?

 

Wires at the ends of the boat won't stiffen it up.

However the 38ft Centurus (Latvian catamaran) used a 4 wire dolphin striker with wires going to each corner. It also used truss beams so it didn't look as though anything was holding the boat together.

But it must have worked as they were popular in the 1980's. I went on one when I sailed to the USSR, while another was next to my office in the UK for a few years.

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

www.sailingcatamarans.com

 

Reading "the multihull primer" by D H Clarke - 1976
Quite informative - wish the prices were still that good!!
Mostly about old tri's but some cats too - like a history lesson....

 

Why have ketch rigged cats gone out of fashion?

 

Ketches in general have gone out of fashion because they are not so efficient, yet cost a lot more. Furthermore deck gear and sail handling systems have much improved since "the good old days" so many of the easy handling virtues of the ketches small sails can now be achieved by better means.

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

www.sailingcatamarans.com

 

I think part of the concept was that the lower center of effort of the ketch makes them harder to capsize. Having the weight of the masts toward opposite ends of the boat probably contributes to pitching moment.

 

A capsized Ketch is---- KetchUp.

 

Nothing to do with a mast being in the middle of the cockpit space? If a simpler rig set-up does it not offer more options and the lower c of e must be good for cruising... What of Aftmast with large (furlable) mainstay - as Fanie is proposing.... bi?

 

Ketches are from past

If you read Francis Chichester et al you will be told the iead that a man can only handle 400 square foot of sail area. So the rig of larger boats had to be divided into smaller sails. Also the hardware was no where as good as it is now - slides that didn't slide, sail cloth that stretched heaps, battens that broke etc etc.

Modern boats are so much better that the hardware considerations are long expired. Another major reason for the ketch was self steering. With a mizzen you could try to get a balanced rig to help self steer the boat - eg Three Cheers. She even had twin boards to help in this. Nowadays we have great self steering.

Then you get the perennial ketch problem. Cruising boats go downwind and you don't want mizzen up when running deep. It turns the boat into the breeze. Going upwind the mizzen is in the backwash of the main. The mizzen is good for beam reaching - sort of but you cart a mizzen around for a lot of time to get small benefit

There have been a few racing ketches - Kialoa 2 and 3 (at first) and Steinlager and Fisher Paykel whitbread racers. The rating rule let the ketches have more unrated area than sloops so Farr drew ketches.

My advice is don't. It will be harder to sail, slower, more expensive and make the boat have less resale. Not a great combination in my eyes.

cheers

Phil

 

Thing is, i am trying to cut back on all the associated hardware and the innevitable costs.... Steering vanes are costly too - so a negative could in fact be a positive.
As for turning into the breeze - that too could be a positive - for a canoe type hull with minimum rocker and straight sides - help it to tack?
Agree that "modern" boats it is negative but am aiming at simplicity and cost saving.... still looking at/for alternative (cheaper) rigs - even if less efficient.

 

I don't believe that adding an extra mast, boom, rigging and sail is going to give you simplicity and cost saving.