Proa Hulls

Balanced lug rig?

Has anyone experiences with the balanced lug rig on a proa? It should have the advantages of the unstayed rig, low cost and balanced sail area, plus the comfort of relative short spars when shunting.

Grrreetings from the North Sea Coast, Michel

 

Our last proa Voodoo Child had a loose footed standing lug rig. This came was of an Admiralty whaler, 170sq ft. Set on the central mast it was exceedingly powerful, a jib of about 70sq ft was set to counteract the weather helm. It was an easily handled rig & shunting was easy & quick.

 

Guess would be $AUS5-6,00 for the tube and mast track. You would need to paint it and attach any fittings. This is very simple with carbon tow.

rob

 

How would a cat handle with one unstayed (or not...) mast in one hull?

 

Works on harryproas, the only difference with a cat is you need to tack. As all modern cat designers will tell you, their boats will tack perfectly well without having to back the headsail (not that this makes it fact), so no reason why it won't work on a cat. There are a few biplane cats sailing which seem to work ok.

The one time i tried it on a cat it worked well, although W was not your average cruising cat.

Headsail sheeting angles on one tack are tricky, but not insurmountable, particulalrly if the mast is on the inboard side of the hull.
rob

 

But with a 'difficult' hull - it wouldn't work with a single balanced sail?
Bi - tack with the lee rig?
Got pics of W?

 

Harry hulls are "difficult" as they have no rocker, (but probably easy as they have so little depth) and they tack, although I have not tried it in a big sea and they have a superior rudder system so this is probably not relevant.

A single balanced sail does not give you anything to back to force the bows round, but a balanced rig (ballestron) would make it pretty easy.

W is/was an experimental 12m cat with a single telescoping (4-7m), canting beam with hulls which could pitch independantly. It has a single rudder, a centreboard on the beam and a balestron rig in one hull. Tacks better one way than the other, but this is more due to the rudder than the rig.
rob

 

Would twin rudders have worked better?
Interesting cat with a lot of idea's in it - how did the independant hulls work out?

 

A rudder on each stern would have been better, front and back rudders on one hull would have been better still, especially if the front one had replaced the daggerboard.

The independant hulls worked very well until you flew the port one when it would develop severe nose down trim. Not a problem until the hull flew more than a couple of metres when it would become terminal. Easy enough to fit a limiter, which is what I did when I used it on a proa. Impracticable for a cruiser, but fun to play with, and a lot of possibilities for a racer.

rob

 

hey Rob, do you have a more up to date web site than
http://www.harryproa.com/contact.htm
?

 

Not a web site, but everything interesting in harryproas gets discussed on the yahoo chat group http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/harryproa/ There are also boat photos, cruise reports, discussions about harryproa improvements and spreadsheets of costs and materials there.

If you don't want to wade through all that, feel free to ask me directly.

rob

 

Back to pitching - as mentioned in the other proa thread - how much does the rig contribute - ie lower aspect ratio and weight? Also if ketch rigged - two different wt's and low AR - should help reduce pitching ? What else - apart from hull shape (and wt out of ends) will reduce?

 

One more proa question - the between hull wave and deck clearance - is it any different to a cat due to uneven hull sizes/shapes/lengths?

 

I'm interested in the idea of the level keel hull on a trimaran. It's just an idea at the moment, but I am interested in a boat that would take on long voyages, but not sit around a lot. A bit like an Ostar boat, without the rush. The idea is cheap, good platform, not designed for it's maners at the trailer park. Single person accomodations cheap enough to at least leave the plywood bits if it came to that.


A level keel would have the advantage of allowing a little more volume in a folded plywood hull, and if it suffered in tacking, would that really be a problem just hauling it to the azores. At the very worst one might have to back the jib, which still may not leave a tri losing a tacking battle with a boat that shunts, and in any case is not what this boat would be about.

Rob I'd leave Richard alone. Who can argue that most people want a watergoing cottage? Nothing wrong with that. Any design can be made a lot more pure if one is at liberty to leave the house part on shore...

 

I agree - for cruising it has plusses - sailing/cruising - not park-n-party. Not what everyone wants - but thats the beauty of variety - something for everyone. Personally prefer a cat or a proa....