cheap and simple rig

What a load of rubbish. Racing sailors race to win, or at least do their best. Problems do not result in wins. If I sail on someone else’s boat and something breaks I’m not happy. If it was crew error I’m not happy about that. If it is due to neglect on the owner’s part I’m not happy about that. No one I sail with is happy either.

Crazy talk like this makes you lose any credibility you might have.

Here we agree.

If you know how to sail, the stayed rig would not accidentally gybe any more than your unstayed rig. People who don’t know how to sail worry about a lot of things. They are perfect targets for the fear mongers…

This is more of your nonsense propaganda. It isn’t true.

The stayed rig can depower as efficiently as your whip rig by simply dropping the trav in big puffs. Sounds pretty easy to me, plus the efficiency of the rig goes up in both the light and heavy condition.

This is particularly true when considering the balestron rig. If you need to ease the main to depower in a big puff, what happens to the jib? Not very efficient, eh?

The J30 is about 50% heavier than the Wyliecat. They would be similar age if you consider about 15 years passed between the introduction of the two boats.

The J29 is within a hundred pounds or so. I’ve sailed both boats and can tell you the Wylie is not anywhere near as fast, especially in light air. The Wylie really suffers in less than 8 knots or so. Many other boats in the same DSPL and LWL ballpark as the Wylie are even faster.

I have said for years that in my opinion the Wyliecat 30 would be a lot faster with a modern sloop rig in it. Seems that was the case with the 44.

Swans, Baltics, etc can be very comfortable in cruise mode. Any boat is going to be “hard work” and “a handful” when pressed by a racing crew, be it a Swan or a BCC. In fact, if you tried to press a BCC or a Norsea 27 as hard as people pressed 2 Tonners the result would be far uglier.

A Cruiser would not be using the biggest sails in most conditions, would not be sailing DDW on the edge, etc. Take out the racing connotation and sail those boats well and they can be nice to sail, still quick, and comfortable.

So, some sails flog and others weathercock? Yep, let’s get that FEAR factor cranked up. Maybe sell a few more widgets.

If you are running with your unstayed rig and release the sheet so the sail is now over the bow it will not “come to a stop”. Why do you make claims like this? The rig and sail (that isn’t flogging!) still have aero drag. Lots of it.

I know my boat can be rocked/sculled at more than 2 knots under bare poles. That is in flat breeze conditions. In 10 knots of wind I will go backward if I try that. That is due to the aero drag on the rig, no sail flogging or” weathercocking” behind it.

So how does your magic rig overcome the laws of physics?

My policy doesn’t mention the age of my rigging at all. I get replacement value for claims.

Back when I worked as a sparbuilder I dealt with insurance companies for every broken rig we replaced. The age of the rigging was NEVER brought up.

More FEAR mongering?

Wrong again. If you think I’m missing 60 points of vision when I look under the boom you are high. If I lean in and place my leeward foot on CL I can probably see all 360 points in about 3 seconds.

The modern material are not prone to crazing (just like the window in my Porsche convertible), still work when they are wet (why wouldn’t they?), and don’t crack even after years of use.

Oh, I get it now. Your magic rig remains in perfect trim when the wind shifts 10 dgerees and your auto pilot is still set at the same course.

I disagree with this. So does the monohull designer that is widely known for his “fast cruising” designs.

Most racers are not expert trimmers. Most “cruisers” I have ever met are not very good sailors at all. They are usually really good at running a Ham radio, fixing their balky diesel, quoting other people who write books but also are poor sailors, and talking about going places they haven’t. But they are rarely ever expert trimmers.

I would say you have at least 30 degress of freedom while sailing with a poled out headsail. If that isn’t enough then you might be in a situation you should not be in.

When your skip called for the kite to go up what was your reply? “Before or after we get the main down?”

In all your years of experience sailing Two Tonners and Sydney Hobarts did you ever see a competitor drop their main when they hoisted the kite?

If you knew how to sail you would realize the main would not blanket the spinnaker, unless you were by the lee (a LOT), or you had the pole at the headstay while dead running (expert trim for a cruiser?).

Maybe this explains why you are always so concerned about accidental gybes? All that "main blanketing the spinnaker" could cause some interesting moments.

Why would having the main up cause an accidental gybe? I’ll answer for you. It wouldn’t.

Seems to be a lot of accidental gybing in your world. In my world, not so much.

Not the guys who win.

That is because it doesn’t fit your purpose.



NOTE: People with a killer app to sell don’t have to resort to propaganda.

 

Hard to beat this for cheap and simple. Low loads, easy downwind sailing, no winches needed, cheap wooden spars and very few blocks. all proven technology so no surprises when you build it.

http://www.atkinboatplans.com/Sail/images/Inga-1.gif

 

Great 'bpw' What a fab little boat ! ! ! ! Sure looks great & it is KISS for sure.

1 difficulty - I need it to take 4 to 6 people for 4 to 8 weeks around the cruising waters of SE Asia & also need shallow draft due to the lovely extended cruising grounds in and around 99% of SE Asia. I also need to live on it full time as my home.

Any idea how we get that - out of the lovely 'sail boat ****' you posted ???

 

I know something about why Gary abandoned the double sail.
First was cost. Sail cloth is sold by the yard, it took twice as much to build the sails.
It also took twice as long to sew them together.
Second was weight aloft, see above.
Third was handling, the sail did not fall down the mast and flake the way it does with slides. And there was the business of the wishbone snotter to deal with.
Fourth, there was more sailcloth to furl once it was down on deck.
So the original Freedom 40 rig was clever and clean, but expensive and a pain in the ***. The market wouldn't wear it and the design was changed to something more proven and practical.

We see this all the time. Karl Kirkman once famously noted that if people have been doing something successfully for a long time, the trade offs are probably close to correct. So I always think it is a mistake to think that everyone is a dummy. Sloop rigs have some real advantages. They are well understood and have seen a lot of development from a lot of experimenters. So as a concept they are very highly evolved and a low risk solution.

What happens if you take off into the wild blue yonder is that you have far fewer knowledgeable resources to tap. Business people like to provide services the know they can reliably deliver. They are adverse to risk, and designing stuff they haven't seen before is riskier than delivering a known product. If the customer doesn't understand this and does not expect to pay a premium, there is a problem. Don't expect your new and wonderful ideas to be cheaper.

Some ideas don't scale well. Sleeve rigs, as Gary Hoyt found out, aren't very satisfactory on 40 ' ketches. Swing rigs are the pants on model boats, but have proven very hard to get right at full scale. Wishbooms get more and more problematic as they get bigger, in a dinghy it's very nice to have a soft foot to hit your head instead of a boom. On a cruiser, a boom seems a pretty practical thing, and I'm not sure I would want to go to sea without one.
SHC

 

Inga is for sure too small for what you need, I know because I live on one. Was mostly trying to make the point that a more traditional Marconi rig is probably as simple and low cost as you will get.

For what you need, take a look at some of Herreshoff's shoal draft cruisers, he used a sort of hybrid gaff/marconi rig on them designed to be cheap and they are able to be beached. Also very pretty, not something to be overlooked in charter.

 

Anyone who is interested in carbon masts would be very wise to read Eric Sponberg's comments.

http://www.sponbergyachtdesign.com/StateoftheArt.htm

and take particular note of the costs and the minimum size boat he recommends

Also, why do most International Moths have stayed rigs these days, not unstayed ones as they used to be??

Sailor305 said I should "think outside the box"

Personally I though that was what every designer did when looking at a blank screen prior to designing a new boat. Still, never mind.

"Thinking outside the box" implies several things

It will be experimental and thus might not work

It will be expensive, even if it does work. Maybe cheap for the next user, but not for the guy who has the first one. Steve Jobs was a great outside the box thinker. But I bet the first Ipad cost much much more than USD299. In fact I suspect the first one Apple made didn't work at all.

You need lots of experience, because you need to know what the current box size is before you can get outside it.

For what its worth, I first used a sleeved luff sail in 1973. In 1977 I designed a 35 ft live aboard catamaran with a short gaff mainsail for my final year yacht design student project. But when I came to build the boat a couple of years later it had a rotating mast and a squaretop mainsail as I decided that was a lighter and simpler option

I understand Sailor305 is looking for a live aboard cruiser. Most people doing that tend to want a tried and tested boat. Still it is his life and his money. But I wouldn't recommend an untried concept boat for that use

I assume he doesn't want to end up with a Team Phillips or a Walker Wingsail.

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

www.sailingcatamarans.com

 

agree with what you have said richard, but there seems to be a fear of "high tech" rife in the cruising world...

"tried and tested" sounds safe and easy - perfect for a cruiser...
"carbon" sounds high tech, expensive and difficult - only for a racer...
But is it really so?

Introducing carbon into the mainstream market has been happening already, and making it sound easy like Rob Denney does, is an attitude that should be commended. Carbon IS easy to build with, i find it easier and nicer to work with than glass. These days, carbon is not that much more expensive, and you need to consider that you dont need to use as much of it (including the resin to wet it out), which also offsets some of the costs.

Masts, spars and multihull beams are the perfect places to use carbon - even by the amateur builder provided they already have some basic glassing experience which could be gained by building the glass hulls and bulkheads of their boat prior for example. The stiffness problem accociated with these key areas is best solved with a high modulus material. You need HEAPS more glass (and resin) to do the same job in places like this and for a mast you simply wouldnt consider something as flexible as glass. If you are considering building, dont be scared of carbon - its very nice material to work with and no more difficult than glass.

Same goes for resin infusion, it sounds high tech, but it really is quite simple provided you take the time to learn about it - another thing Rob Denney should be commended for - and its so effective providing excellent quality laminates with less work! In fact, the bigger the panel, the better because it becomes less and less work the bigger the infused part is. I can infuse huge panels by myself with much less labour than handlaying, no mess and a clean workshop, it really is the way of the future and give it time, almost nobody will be handlaying anything anymore unless you dont have access to electricity... Its THAT good!

Or you can do it the old way, pay for and use twice as much resin, gets sticky stuff everywhere and then sail away in a heavy boat at half the speed, or motor away using twice the fuel... Ie. you can either keep up with technology, or be a dinosaur and face extinction...

Rob,
The main problem you face with your proas, is they just dont look right, therefore people worry about the resale value and rightly so IMHO. If you applied your same build methods and general ideology to a catamaran design - they would sell like hot cakes... have you considered developing a catamaran design to sell alongside your proas? Preferably with the unstayed carbon masts or twin masts? id be interested for sure...

 

Nothing to do with "happy". Just a generalisation about the way the two types regard problems.

Based on the feedback I get (web page and video hits, emails, plan and mast sales, recommendations, responses to posts, etc) I don't need to worry about my credibility.

Not so. If the main cannot be eased all the way out to athwartships due to the swept back shrouds, it is more likely to gybe accidentally. On an unstayed rig the boom can be eased to way forward of amidships as there are no stays to stop it.

According to you: "Most racers are not expert trimmers. Most “cruisers” I have ever met are not very good sailors at all. They are usually really good at running a Ham radio, fixing their balky diesel, quoting other people who write books but also are poor sailors, and talking about going places they haven’t. But they are rarely ever expert trimmers."

These are exactly the people who would benefit from an easier to trim, easier to maintain rig, don't you think?
I disagree with your analysis, and suspect you will get a dressing down from Chris for being patronising. Most of the cruisers I deal with know more than enough about trimming their sails, just don't want to be doing it all the time when they are cruising. Some race crews may not know how to trim at the level they race, but certainly know enough to cruise enjoyably.

What swept spreader rigs have an inner forestay and a self tacking jib? What prebent rigs have lower rig loads than a straight one?

As I said to Chris: Actually pretty easy if you have enough blocks or winches. Then after the gust, you do it all in reverse. Fun around the cans, pretty tedious on a long trip, so most leave it depowered and go back to reading their book. The unstayed rig drops power in the puffs, picks it back up in the lulls with no strings pulled. Which is easier?

In a big puff, the mast bends to leeward and both sails depower as they twist. This is very different to hauling on the backstay, "dropping the trav" or any of the other depowering techniques on stayed rigs, most of which also work on unstayed rigs.
On the ballestron, if you want to ease the main further, you could arguably ease the line attaching the leech to the boom to open the leech. Or ease the single, lightly loaded sheet and both sails luff simultaneously. Whether this is "efficient" depends on whether you are racing, or just trying to stop the boat heeling/capsizing.

Thanks for that. Anything on the shorthanded racing results?

By the same logic, any boat "can be very comfortable in cruise mode".
Once you change modes, you are not in a "rating rule" boat any more. And even cruising, the Swan heeled and was wet upwind in a breeze. Exhilarating and fun to sail (for a short time) but not comfortable.

My point exactly. Thanks. A cruiser with an unstayed rig will be able to sail with the biggest sails in more breeze than a stayed rig, and is more able to sail DDW on the edge etc.

Fully battened sails (without stays to stop them) weathercock. Jibs and spinnakers flog. To understand the difference, hoist your jib and main in 20 knots, release the sheets and point the boat head to wind. Then take a stroll around the foredeck, looking back at how little the main is moving.

It doesn't. Sorry you were misled. I should have said, slows down until only the aerodynamic drag on the rig is propelling it in the direction of the wind, at about the same speed it would progress if the sail was not there.
I could write a book to explain all the details of each point I make, or I can assume that members of the list use their common sense/experience and read what I am saying, rather than what they want to read. Interestingly, it is often those who claim all the experience that miss the point, while the less experienced understand exactly what is meant.

Fantastic! This is too good a deal not to publicise. What insurance company? How old is your rigging, and how often do you check it?

How long ago was that? Care to share what caused the rigs to break?

Can you post a picture or description of your boat, please? I find it hard to visualise this with a normal headsail, especially if the boat is heeling.

The same reason you have windscreen wipers on your Porsche.

No. See above about writing a book. I think everyone else understood that the rig needs trimming for a direction change, not for a strength change.

If you are referring to Richard, he is a multihull designer.
Whether cruisers are expert or not is not the point. It is whether automatic trim is easier/simpler than pulling strings all the time. And which one is more likely to happen on a boat that is cruising.

A very harsh analysis in my experience, but these are exactly the people who would benefit from an easier to trim, easier to maintain rig, don't you think?

Thanks again. Sometimes stuff happens, and being able to get out of that situation is a very handy attribute.

No and no, although as I said, it is a pretty common sight among multihull cruisers. Why the big deal about bloopers?? This thread is about cruisers and low cost, easily handled rigs, not absurd rule beating sails that were around 40 years ago.

Cruising catamarans and trimarans use the bows of their hulls instead of poles. Therefore, half the chute is behind the main when running square.

I did not say the main caused the gybe. Just that it is a problem if a gybe should happen.

In the world of the long distance cruiser an accidental gybe, like so many other things, only has to happen once. Particularly if you are standing in the wrong place when it happens. Whether this happens a lot or not is irrelevant.

It is a handicap race with many divisions, so a fair number of the winners do use this rig.
Cruisers don't "win". They sail far more miles than racers, in generally lower cost (rig wise) boats and are concerned about comfort, safety and cost rather than the last half knot of upwind performance.

Maybe. Post a video of a 20+ knot reef (with just you and your wife doing the work, same as most cruisers) and prove me wrong.

True. Which is why we have sold so many carbon masts, with no advertising and no products to demonstrate, that we are not taking any more orders this year.

 

I think I should chime in again. Thanks first to Rob Denney who has deftly handled all the arguments for free-standing rigs with a very high degree of aplomb. I agree with everything he says 100%.

Thanks, too, to Richard Woods for his reference to my article on the State of the Art of Free-standing Rigs, and one of the best quotes I have heard in a long time:

And I would like to reinforce a couple of points:

Free-standing rigs are indeed safer to sail particularly downwind because, as Rob described, the boom is let forward of the beam so that the mainsail is naturally stable downwind--the leach is downwind from the oncoming wind. In a stayed rig, the boom cannot go further forward than the aft lower shroud, and this necessarily presents the leach of the sail head on to the oncoming wind. It is very easy for the oncoming wind to catch the leach of the sail and gybe it to the other side. So what happens then--the boom swings wildly over to the other side and can crash against the opposing lower shroud. When the boom snubs up hard, either against the shroud or a short mainsheet, the boat naturally turns hard to the opposite direction, toward the wind, and the skipper must deftly and quickly counteract with lots of opposing rudder to counteract and keep the boat on course. It is a quick-happening event with a high potential for a broach, particularly in heavy air and high seas. If you broach in high seas, you run a real risk of roll-over--every cruising sailor's most dreaded event!

So what happens with a gybe on a free-standing rig? First of all, as above, it is really hard for it to happen because of the downwind position of the leach--the wind just cannot grab the sail. But even if the wind did so, what happens--the boom swings to the other side--it doesn't hit anything, it does not snub up hard, it just comes to a stop. The sail does not jerk the boat to windward, the skipper does not have to counteract with opposing rudder. The sail and boom swing over and die. The boat keeps on moving, on course. The gybe becomes a non-event--nothing scary happens!

Tacking upwind is a breeze, too. To tack, turn the wheel. The sails tack themselves, particularly on a cat-ketch. No jib sheets to tend, no chance of getting stuck in irons, no flogging sails.

And then there are gusts. My clients Bryan and Carey Pollack, who changed out their aluminum stayed mast for one of my free-standing carbon designs on their Spencer 42 Copernicus, used to be quite afraid of gusts because as the gust hit the boat, she would heel over and round up. It was really hard to control the boat in gusty conditions. The only way for a stayed rig boat to respond to a gust, without action from the crew, is to heel over and round up. The rig is rigid and it will not deflect to a gust. The only thing that gives is the flotation of the boat--it heels over and by doing so necessarily rounds up. Sailing in gusts is NOT comfortable unless you are well reefed down to minimize the heeling response of the boat. After Bryan and Carey set up the new mast, they found that the mast's natural bend-off to gusts was a great shock absorber. The boat did NOT heel to the gusts, rather the mast top bent off to spill the wind. During gusts they maintain total control, on course, same heel angle, and they get the benefit of the jump in speed the the gust provides, that plus a little extra jolt as the mast comes back from the bend-off. This behavior of the rig and boat completely cured their fear of gusts, so much so that now they go looking for gusts to get the performance benefit. Whereas they were usually the slow boat of their local fleet in casual racing, now they beat the pants off just about everyone of equal size and slightly larger.

Finally, I would like to reinforce the fact that cruising sailors are, as I have said before, "insanely conservative." Insane because their behavior with their boats does not follow good reason all the time. And conservative because they will stay with the status quo more often than they will experiment with new ideas about hardware or sailing tactics. They are also very cheap, meaning they do not spend money on their boats they way powerboaters spend money on their boats. What the powerboater tries to accomplish with $100 on his boat, the sailor will try to accomplish with $10 on his sailboat.

I am often asked, "Well, if free-standing rigs are so great, then why don't we see more of them?" The answer is, as above, sailors are insanely conservative. Also, the stayed rig business is really well established with the benefit of rating and handicapping rules that favor stayed rigs for racing, and every boat has the potential to race. I address this in my State of the Art article. Another reason is that modern boat builders themselves are equally conservative and will not even think about changing philosophies in their rigs--not until the general sailing public begins to demand free-standing rigs.

The modern era of free-standing rigs began in 1974 with Garry Hoyt and the Freedom Yachts. He spent nearly a generation of his own money and intellectual abilities to promote the concept, and a few of us have tried to carry the torch further. In the 1980s, there was tremendous interest in free-standing rigged boats, but like anything, only a few designs stuck for any length of time, like the Herreshoff and Sparhawk cat-ketches, the Nonsuch cats, the Wylie cats (still in production), the Tanton Offshores cat-ketches, and the Sea Pearl cat-ketches, but the rest fell by the wayside for a myriad of business and marketing decisions and bad practices. The 1990s kind of carried the status quo as that crop of boats aged, but then the 2000s have been devastating to the boating markets around the world with wild swings in the economy and disposable income, the increasing demands on our leisure time, and the aging of the baby boomers who are now dying out. Their next generation are fewer in number and do not necessarily see sailing as a suitable investment of treasure and time. So the sailboat market has shrunk, and what is easy to do is to offer what is already known and not bother with new investment in different kinds of boats.

I am an optimist, however, and try to see my tires as half full rather than half deflated (I'm tired of the glass analogy). For one thing, by virtue of the very discussions on this excellent forum, the concept of free-standing rigs has held its own, and in my opinion, has grown. This forum has kept the concept alive to the point that now you have people like Rob and others who are established builders of free-standing rigs. These guys have the infrastructure now that is required to make free-standing rigs a real option. Despite what some others say, free-standing masts are NOT easy to build--not everyone can do it well. It takes special expertise because free-standing masts are engineered structures that have to be built just so for each boat at hand. Once the laminate schedule is established, of course, it can go into production for production boat designs, but each new boat demands a new laminate schedule. Every boat is different, so every mast is different, and the laminate schedules have to be tailored accordingly. But now, thanks in part to this forum, we are getting there--the times are coming when we should see opportunities for new production boat designs with well-engineered free-standing rigs. I am seeing this in my business, now, with increasing offers of custom rig designs, and more custom work always has the potential to improve the outlook of production work.

Well, I have gone on long enough. Thanks again to Rob and Richard and all of you who support free-standing rigs. The stayed rig will never die--it works and it works well in a lot of conditions. But I think we are ready to see more boats offered, now, with free-standing rigs. And one reason I feel this way, too, is because, have you ever tried buy a free-standing cat-ketch on the used market? They go like hot-cakes! You have to be a pretty early bird to get one because people hang onto them for a really long time, and well-maintained ones are in high demand, even as old as a lot of them are.

Thanks for "listening."

Eric

 

Sorry its off topic, but I didn't start it.

Infusion is a logical next step after vacuum bagging. It's not a new thing. Jeremy Rogers built the first infused boat - the Contessa 34 - in the 1970's

It has two great advantages. The first is that with a big panel you can spend as much time as you like cutting and positioning multiple layers of glass before allowing any resin to touch the laminate.

The second is, as groper says, that it is less smelly and sticky. Its not cheaper, nor quicker. Many industrial laminators are not careful or skillful enough to resin infuse.

When you vacuum-bag a laminate you do use less resin as the pressure squeezes the resin out and also ensures it is an even, consistent amount over the whole panel.

So infusion per se doesn't really save weight, its the vacuuming that does that.

Even so, it isn't that much of a saving. A typical hand laminate of non crimp fibre (no mat) will use say a 1.25:1 resin to glass ratio. An infused panel will be say 1.1:1. It isn't going to be less than 1:1 if you want to ensure a watertight panel. The glass will still weigh the same

So take Sailor305's hypothetical 10m cruising catamaran. It might use 800Kgs of glass and 1100Kgs resin if it were hand layup. Or 800kgs glass and 900kgs resin if infused and vacuum bagged.

so a 200kg saving. Not half the amount

But the hull shell is a small part of the all up weight, which typically might be 3.5T empty and 5T loaded. So in real cruising mode you save maybe the weight of an engine. Or two crew members. "Sorry Mum, you cannot come sailing with me, you're too heavy"

So except for a pure racing boat actually racing you won't notice any real difference in performance.

You do notice real difference though when it comes to sails. It's well known that changing from a dacron sail to a laminate sail increases speed by 2% on average. That's why no racing boat has dacron sails if they could use laminate instead. So I end there having, just, got back on topic

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

www.sailingcatamarans.com

 

Seems to me that a fair bit of pro engineering would be involved in the structure of a free standing carbon rig even more so if it's an aerorig style and including the bearing and strength of the partner at the deck and the bearing at the base.
Jim Betts is building an carbon aerorig type thing for a customer, I'm guessing it's 60' or so, it's a whole lot of carbon and structure and time and energy, seems like the antithesis of the title of this thread. Cool though.

 

I think we are losing track of the something important here. We are looking for Cheap and simple, not best.

Free standing rigs may be the greatest thing ever, I would love to have one for my boat, but the cost is still quite high.

Using Rob's numbers we have close to $5000 dollars in materials to build just the spar, plus a hundred hours of labor. Guessing $50 an hour for labor (probably low) no overhead or profit still puts you at $10,000 for just the mast, and you still need sails, hardware and running rigging. You also will have an quite a bit of money in design costs.

I don't see this being any way competitive on price with a wooden spared marconi rig, especially when you consider I can build (and even design) a wooden mast in my backyard with minimal tools and skill.

 

Agreed. The whole thread is almost pointless, oxymoronic and full of paradox.

No catamaran with two 40' masts is cheap to begin with. No boat this size that will be sailed beyond visual range of the launch ramp will be simple, whatever that slippery term means. We still have no clear idea about the boat, it's design, it's statement of requirements (SOR) etc.

In post number two I asked the original poster to give us a better idea about the boat - and other than vague reference to Southeast Asia, charter parties of 6-8 plus owner operator live aboard we still really know nothing. Commercial charter yachts have different standards to meet, and carrying insurance to cover the passengers and liability means this is not a slap-dash project. There will be inspections and regulations to meet.

Although the discussion keeps on moving forward, the original purpose of the thread was lost or ignored a long time ago. The original poster has ignored or failed to acknowledge much of the advice they clearly solicited - if it disagreed with their pre-conceived notions. Why ask for advice if he has already decided what he wants? Let him wrap some flagpoles with fibreglass and use sleeve luff sails. He'll eventually find out what people have been telling him.

--
CutOnce

 

Well it depends on your definition of cheap doesnt it?

If i can build it myself, it becomes cheap, regardless of what its made from...

And to be simple, i guess the unstayed rig wins that and you dont have any real choice besides carbon for an unstayed mast unless its only a small yacht...

Richard,
I think you should look into your figures on resin infusion as they dont line up with what im seeing... i typically get a glass fibre fraction of between 65-68% infused at -101kpa. Panels (or perhaps spars, spar caps or skins for a wingmast) are cheaper for me to infuse compared to handlaying them provided the laminate is over 1000gsm per side of a core or 2000gsm with no core. I have a very comprehensive spreadsheet that calculates this as the breakeven point in terms of cost. Heavier laminates are cheaper to infuse due to the reduced resin consumption, which completely offsets all the consumables used in the process. Its less work and quicker because i get both sides done in one shot... small panels do take more time than handlying them, so i try to save the infusion work for the largest panels where the most gains in terms of cost and time are to be had. I have not worked out the break even point in terms of the labour cost vs size of panel, i just eyeball it and decide...

 

do you mean 65% of the all up panel weight is glass?

I know many race boats that rely on the paint skin to keep the water out

You obviously don't value your time very highly.

A 10m catamaran will have less than 1000g/sqm on each skin so that means it isn't cost effective to infuse

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

www.sailingcatamarans.com