Narrowing the beam

Quote " who wants to help actually sail this puppy? Answer - no one."

I had a 16' Jarcat at one stage. My family were not interested, I got fed up of sailing it alone and soon sold it.

 

Since you want an open boat an old Haines Hunter Tramp may be just the ticket if you can find one,if you are not familiar they were Ian Farriers first production tri,only about 19ft and no cabin.
Steve.

 

Steve.
Holly North and I test sailed and wrote a test article for "Seaspray" magazine in the early 1980s. We found it a great little boat for a day sailer. It surfed particularly well, and was nice and dry. Wasn't too good for overnighting though. Pity that Haines Hunter priced it off the market and it didn't sell well.

 

They are in my list of boats to consider. On Boatpoint.com.au they are priced at about $13000-$15000 AUS. I had a baby tri by Nacra for a little while. It was a bit of a resort boatr and I was too big for it really. But In the right breeze going at the right angle - Wooo00 HHHHOOoooo.

Peter

 

My wife and I race boats but not with each other. Nothing to do with maintaining marital harmony. I sail a Maricat (beachcat) and she crews a monohull trailer sailer. There were no surprises there. It was my adult children who changed their collective minds. I thought a Windrush might have been a great family day boat.

Even though many of us sail one-up at my club (YYC), I have found a great deal of camaraderie amongst OTB sailers especially cat-sailers.

 

Oldsailor,the Tramp was built for a while in Texas as the Eagle Tramp and it was offered with a large tent settup for overnighting. I miss Seaspray magazine, especially pre glossy paper days.
Steve.

 

As far as your original question was concerned, if you were thinking about the Tiki 21, at 8 feet you would have a nominal better than one to 3 ratio of beam to length, which was a ratio to which Wharrams were at one time built, as were many other catamarans. You would also have a boat that for relatively little in the way of cash could be restored to the original intent of a closer to 1-2 ratio. I don't think you are going to want to sleep in the T21 hulls either though. You would experience a direct impact on stability in proportion to the loss of beam, and you would need to reduce sail to be more proportionate to the beam. The actual platform you are working with will be affected by the overhangs all around the boat.

The three basic rules are:

Anything you want costs something in other aspects of the design ( so if you ad trailering and easy launch, it's major;

The smaller the design, the more severe the compromises;

In that environment for best results you can't hang onto too many extraneous preferences. Which is how one ends up with boats like the Jarcat.

While you can't push too hard against the family dynamic, my kids seem to like sailing once the boat is in the water. One of their favourite parts is going faster than other boats which may be an advantage to trimarans in this size.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnLmKXY-FCg

 

Boat design forum - where talk is cheap, thank goodness.

My interest in multihulls stems from the same natural joy your kids have - going fast. Its a buzz!

Thanks for your other input about beam. I had a random thought about the potential usefulness of Hobie-style wing-seats. Which could be set up along with the mast raising.

However, my problems, as I mentioned in a previous post, are not technical but relate to personnel. My adult children won't commit to a regular gig sailing this boat. This means, it won't be possible to race it competitively. The issue of crew for weekend racing is is not uncommon. There are guys at my club with boats who crew for each other week about.

I suppose if I only intended to use the boat infrequently but for longer periods of time (i.e. crusiing), then the issue of crew is lessened. The boat itself could be set up for short-handed sailing and setting up.

With that mind-set the modified Wharram becomes, once again, a real possibility.

Lucky, talk is cheap.

Thanks for your comments.

Peter

 

Build a boat you like and look further for the crew if you need one. Boats tend to attract people and by not limiting your crew choices you might open many doors. A boat you can sail yourself does get used more. Some friends of mine also sail shorthanded or solo and we always wonder what the extra people are supposed to do. Think about sailing beyond racing, it will help you define your needs. We get a lot out of exploring and interacting with the elements, our racing is usually against the clock trying to make time for the hike or run.

 

The only time my Jarcat went fast was when I had the outboard motor going.

 

Having said that, my Piver "Frolic" was the same LOA & BOA as the "Jarcat", but would sail like a bat out of Hell in a good breeze.
Unfortunately that is comparing Apples and Oranges.

 

Boat usage - the most important thing

Boat usage is the most important thing. Boatdesign.net is filled with posts from people considering building this or that, modifying this to do that and sometimes the projects seem quite bizzare to be honest whilst with others you think - yeah, that could work.

The facts for me are:
1. I race every weekend during the season on a local lake. I use an old OTB catamaran which I bought for a grand on a registered trailer. This is an exciting activity in the right conditions - its more about what you are doing than where you are.
2. I cruise and overnight on my local river (and sometimes further afield) in a converted Hartley 18 which is now used as slow motor boat (check out my thread). This is an OK and easy to do activity - its more about where you are than what you are doing.
3. Invariably our friends seek my wife and I out to help them sail their trailer sailers on longer cruises. This is more about who you are with than where you are or what you are doing (although that's good too).
4. Trailering your boat offers too many advantages.

I guess I started the post because I was looking to create a boating experience which could be exciting to do, would take one to interesting places, stay overnight, and allow me to do it with other people (or not).

I thought an open-style boat like a Wharram could be had reasonably cheaply. It is a boat that could be 'personalised' without the class design nazis giving you grief. It's only shortfall, for me, was, it was relocatable but not what I would call trailerable.

So you see - I do have a very good understanding of my criteria. I have had boats that didn't work for me because I had bought them for the wrong reasons.

Usage is the critical question.

Peter

 

You're right TIKI 21s are nearly at the right width already. Perhaps the modification wouldn't be too severe - you could possibly off-set the narrowing of the beam with Hobie-style wingseats.
Peter

 

Trailer!!!

Found a link to another way of working through this problem. Rather than narrowing the beam - source a purpose-built trailer:

http://wharrambuilders.ning.com/forum/topics/collapsible-trailer?groupUrl=tiki21&id=2195841%3ATopic%3A18400&groupId=2195841%3AGroup%3A10502&page=1#comments

The photos available from the website show some clever thinking IMHO.
:idea:
Peter

 

Peter, i dont think that a wharram would be a very good candidate for narrowing up to a fixed beam trailering width due to the extreme flare of the hull shapes,a better hull shape would be a more typical u shaped hull which tend to be more slab sided which gets the hull centerlines further apart so maximises the separation of cb from cg for maximum stabiliy.You are going to need to use every trick in the book,asymetrical hulls would be even better or canting the symetrical u shaped hulls by 5 deg as Lock Crowther did on some of his designs,anything to maximise that seperation and then dont build too light and keep the sail are small and low.If you look at the bow on view of that Tiki on the trailer you can see how poor the stability would be at a fixed beam of 8ft.
BTW, that trailer is exactly like the one i built for my Mac 36 (but much smaller obviously)and is certainly easier than floating the hulls apart.
Steve.