Canting Mast for Dinghy

[Doug Lord]

Has anyone experimented with a canting mast-stayed or unstayed-on a dinghy?

[Timothy]

I tried it just to see how hard it would be to devise a method to have the boat self tack with the the mast canting automatically . I fee there really is no advantage to having the mast cant on a dingy as a dingy is usually designed to sail best flat and the main advantage of a canting mast is to have the mast vertical when the boat is heeled negating the additional heeling moment of both the downward lift component of the sails and the weight of the mast. On the other hand there is the thought that a mast inclined to windward provides vertical lift and therefore reduces displacement. But even windsurfers try and keep their masts upright athwart ship once they are planing. Perhaps a fast planing dingy would benefit.

[Doug Lord]

Along those lines: the Moth apparently generates some vertical lift from the sail with veal heel(among other things) and,of course, having the rig to windward generates a bit of RM. Not sure canting the mast is worth it on a non foiler though...
UPDATE-found the Merlin pix on Yachts and Yachting but no performance info....
Pix-Moth at Garda
Merlin with canting mast system from Y&Y:

[messabout]

Swallowing a camel but choking on a gnat.