PROCYON project........a Bold experiment

It is not what I meant. I was not talking about the global design of the project, that I have already said that I find very interesting. I was talking about the aesthetical design of the boat.

About the speed increase, it is not a big deal. Compare it with the "speed increase" (look at the polar speeds) on another advanced boat, this one designed by the Architect (Jean Marie Finot) for himself.
http://www.finot.com/general/index_ang.htm
This one, not designed with a commercial intention proved to be a success, with lots of boats built.

 

Sorry, wrong link

these are the right ones:

http://www.finot.com/bateaux/batproduction/alubat/cigale18/cigale18_angl.htm

"This boat was created by the designers for their own use. It is the culmination of their experience of sailing and building over twenty-five thousand cruising and racing boats.
The result may seem surprising but it is based on no pre-conceived ideas and a pragmatic and efficient use of new technology. Safety, strength, ease of handling, speed and on board comfort were the principal guiding factors."

http://www.alubat.com/english/boats/cigale18.htm

 

O.K. Procyon is/was a brilliant departure from the ordinary and it is a credit to the imagination of its' creators. All hail to them for the visionary pursuit. They get the credit for all that is good about the project. They also get to shouilder the blame for being narrowly focused damnable scammers.

Read the early postings of this thread and examine the announced premise. That was to develope a sailing boat that was to salvage the sagging interest in sailing. Is it not puzzling that these wizards chose to produce a megabuck boat that could be bought only by the most filthy rich ? Bill Gates could buy one of these, or maybe an oil sheik could too. What the heck, Oprah could buy one if she wanted it. Pray tell, how would this influence the grass roots buyer who is in the vast majority of prospective sailors ? If we want to give some hope to all those impecunious boatbuilders, we'll need to come down out of the stratosphere.

If there was any sincerity in the stated premise, then an intelligent marketing approach would have been forthcoming. Procyon for all its' cleverness is certainly not the spark to ignite wide spread interest in sailing. If there is to be a real effort to introduce sailing to a large segment of the population,it has to be done in such a manner as to be affordable to a significant number of buyers.

Sailing has become frighteningly expensive for boats as small as Optimist prams. How many 16 year olds can afford a good racing dinghy ? You gotta have a rich daddy. Some out there should get really clever by figureing a way to make it less expensive. There is your challenge for the creative mind.

If we want to promote sailing then first eliminate or at least diminish the stigma attached. I refer to the commonnly held belief that sailing is a pastime for effete snobs clad in nautical fashionware, who spend their leisure time at expensive yacht club bars. Megayachts, no matter how inspired, contribute to that perception. So do the slick magazines that concentrate on big buck stuff.

Sailing is also thought to be a languid sport for sissys. The public has no idea that a competant Laser or other small boat sailor is an athlete of outstanding ability, strength, endurance, and tactical intelligence. Not to diminish the capacity for pain of serious big boat sailors either. The public just does not know about these things so we have to tell them, show them, convince them. That will be done with small boats, not big ones, and certainly not with multi million dollar sensations.

So give me a break with the flimsy excuse for developing Procyon. Let the Procyon project stand on its' own numerous merits but don't try to con me with altruistic crap.

 

Brian:

I like the bipod mast idea. I have toyed with it myself. Its two vertues are:

1.) It can be deck stepped with very little tricky engineering and raised and lowered with little fear of cross winds.

2.) It provides a conveniet way to get the mast out of the way of the mainsail luff.

But I find the idea that the mast, with its TWO vertical spars and its numerous cross pieces, which have to be much stronger than spreaders, is actually lighter than a conventional mast.

It seems to me that that can be only possible if the conventional mast is made of conventional matterials and the bipod mast is made out of carbon fiber. If you made the conventional mast out of the same high tech materials, IT would probably be lighter.

All and all, the design seems to be very 20th century. It seems to be another "If you need to ask the price, you probably can't afford it" boat. Nothing wrong with that. But it tends to reenforce the illusion that sailing is just for the rich.

The bipod I have in mind would be made of much cheaper materials, much heavier, and, therefore, much shorter. It would support a ballanced lug with its luff set much further forward than is standard practice. The idea is to get rid of chafe and to keep the spars short as possible. I imagine (I haven't done the engineering yet) that it will be 1.5 to 2.0 times as heavy as a single unstayed mast of the same material.

I find it currious that we are STILL chasing power boat performance at a time when the spot market price of petroleum is going through the roof.

My main objection to sailboats is not that they are slow, but that they are inconveniet and expensive to keep. We need now, or we will soon need sail boats that are durable, handy, and inexpensive to own and keep. Come up with a sailboat that can beat a powerboat into and out of the water on a launching ramp and dosen't cost two or three times as much as a more conventional design and you will have a real winner.

People will soon forgive slow speeds when they find that traveling over the water at two minutes a mile is going to break their buget. If we go to rationing, which I expect to happen within five years, we may find it not two to three times as expensive to motor out on the water as it used to, but three to four times as much.

I believe that low cost, user friendly sailboats are the future of boating and think that you would be well served to put your considerable talents in that direction.

 

I like your criteria for a future sailboat

 

Ah Bob, we think along the same lines . I already have my " smaller " boat, a 28 ft Hartley with no rig and one version of, centre board ,has internal balast.

My 50 ft steel , flush decked cruising yacht, [which I'm at present building] also is designed with internal balast and centre board, for shoal draft .So the Hartley is similar in many respects, she even looks, sortof, like a scaled down version .

Yeah, so the hartley is my guiney pig re the rig , to get it right [ as right as possible - for my needs ] .

Ok my designed displacement is 18 ton, so what height do I build my rig to ??.
Is there a ratio ?, as I'll soon be asking the same question regarding the Hartley --- only I have no Idea what she weighs [ I'd guess at around 4 - 4.5 ton all up - 1.5t balast alone]. I do have the hartley plans kicking around somewhere so will look up mast height & displacement figures .

Bob can you show me any links to bipod related "stuff" as you/we all [hopefully] look at as much as we can & talk/listen to as many a knowledgable chaps as we can before we make up our own minds as to which way to jump , eh !. Somewhere in the future I'd love some help working out tentions on stays etc by some of the very clever members on this site, but that's a way off yet.
Pete.

 

Dear Global:

I think you should concentrate on the Hartly. If she has 1.5ton of ballast, she most likely displaces 4ton light ship (no gear or stores on board.) As for height of rig, that all varies with:

1.) the number and type of sails you intend to use. Gaff and lug sails usually need much less mast height than jib headed sails and more masts usually mean less height for each,
2.) the amount of sail in proportion to displacement you wish to carry, usuall expressed as the boat's SD number. Successful boats have had this number as low as 12.5 and as high as 50. For your purposes, 15 to 17.5 is a good range. (405 to 472 sft), and
3.) the length of your rig base. Will the ends of your rig stop at the ends of your boat or will they extend well past them. Since the bipod mast is most likely to be 1.5 to 2.0 times as heavy as a standard rig, I would suggest extending the rig a total of 25% past the ends (giving it a base of 35ft) to keep the rig hieght within reason

If you did that and used a jib headed rig, like PROCYON, you just divide your disired sail area by 17ft and that will give you your rig height. You then have to add your boom height to that number and that will give you a rough approximation. So let's try it:

472 sft/ 17ft + 4ft = 32ft (rounded up).

I used the larger sail area number because you will lose a considerable amount due to shackels, sheet blocks and deck clearance.

From your last post, I gather that your mast design is to be an 'A' frame ladder structure, which straddles the beam, with a smaller diameter spar running up the middle to attach the main to. Am I correct? If so, it should end up being immensely strong and have approximately half the tension and compression loads of a conventional rig with the same shroud base.

As far as bipod mast history and developement go, I can be of very little help. Such a thing is tried so infrequently (due weight aloft and windage concerns) that there is little data I know about. I first learned about them when reading about ancient Egyptian sailing ships.

Best of luck.

Bob

 

Bi-Pod Mast

Couple of other bi-pod mast references.

http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/1075/cat/500/ppuser/399

http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/4013/cat/500/ppuser/399

 

Two More Bipod Mast Examples

This is not specific Procyon info so I posted it on another subject thread, but I thought a cross reference was in order particularly as the monohull motorsailer vessel's rig looks so similar to Procyon's original configuration.

Wishbone Sailing Rig
http://boatdesign.net/forums/showpost.php?p=106915&postcount=31
http://boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1999

 

Where is Procyon?

Just today I was down at the Annapolis Sailboat Show and talking with Olaf Harken. He asked if I knew where Procyon was?? I don't, does anyone have recent info. Olaf would be interested to know.

 

Take a look here:

http://www.bollmanyachts.com/photogallery.html

http://www.bollmanyachts.com/yachts/sail/65WindshipProcyon/index.html

 

Interior of Procyon

Well I found a bunch of other literatures, etc I had hidden away on Procyon. So I will make several more individual postings to this compilation of subject matter in reference to Procyon.

Lets explore just a bit the reasoning behind her somewhat unusual interior.

One must realize that Amoco Corp became one of the very prime sponsors of the project. Procyon would become a seagoing materials showcase for Amoco’s products. This helps explain Amoco’s interest in the project.

Pleased with the favorable results of backing other experimental sports programs, such as a racing engine featuring its high-performance Torlon® thermoplastic, Amoco saw Procyon as an attractive way to prove how petrochemicals can spur innovation:
“This project allows us to demonstrate the breadth of our product line,” says Sanford Schulert, Amoco’s director of Marketing Communications. “And it’s comforting to know that we are dealing with the top people in sailing.”

In addition to its carbon fibers for the masts and anti-blistering agent in the gelcoat, Amoco products show up everywhere on Procyon. For example:
• Torlon thermoplastics make up all the boat’s fittings, ball bearings, and roller bearings.
• Purified terephthalic acid— Amoco is the world’s largest supplier—is the chemical intermediate used in making the boat’s strong, lightweight racing sails.
• Xycon® hybrid resin, used on hatch covers and on Procyon’s Boston Whaler dingy, provides impact resistance and superior surface characteristics.
• Solarex® photovoltaic panels help recharge batteries.

Equally significant was the extensive use of Amoco polypropylene fibers in carpeting, upholstery, and wall coverings in Procyon’s cabin. A radical departure from the teak and fiberglass look of most yachts, these materials resist mildew and rot, are easy to maintain, and save boatyards much of the joining labor required with extensive woodwork.
“There’s also an environmental consideration of trying to cut down on use of scarce tropical hardwoods,” says Diane Atwood, responsible for Procyon’s interior design. “We wanted to present an alternative to traditional interiors.”
Such materials also would allow production boatbuilders to customize interiors to a far greater extent, which is why Catalina will be watching reaction to the boat. “Is the public ready for this? Or do they still want varnish and teak?” asks Douglas of Catalina Yachts.

(Quite a contrast between the old and the new)

 

Design News article

Design News wrote this article in June of ’91,

“Sailing Into the Future”
A unique vessel harnesses boating’s best minds to explore the outer reaches of design.