Aftmast rigs???

Sure...my experience with regattas is that the organizers value every competitor. Everyone is welcome !!..But not everyone can be scored in fleet standing. The odd balls...too big, too fast, too slow, too many topless girls, compete as..." spirit of sail" and enjoy life. Not sure how they do it for a sprint down the Chesapeake to St Mary's city, but I'm sure they have some way to encourage all sailors

 

You answered your own question Brian. Until an attempt is made to rate ULDB's and Multi's on an comparable scale to the existing fleet, you cannot fairly say that a boat you can't/won't rate won.

Cheers

Randy

 

Its also dangerous. I worked the racing yachts for many years an big regattas like St Tropez or Antigua gradually became very dangerous at starting lines, mark rounding , finish lines. The sad story of Claude Graf the designer being run down and his crew killed by Mareitte. When different type boats mix it up trouble brews. Rules are rules..Im on Starboard !!!!!!!!!!! out of my way leads to disaster when one vessel is going 5 knots and the other 15 knts. .

 

At the risk of continuing the hijack (which, in my defence, did follow on from a remark of the OP).....

By the way, I've sailed just about everything from maxi monos to freestyle windsurfers, including canoes, skiffs, the loosest of classes, the tightest of classes, offshore and inshore multis, so I don't think I'm coming from the viewpoint of a closed mind.

The diversity in our sport is wonderful. Each flavour and each colour is terrific. But disciplines, IMHO, are just like flavours and colours, because if you add the right ones you can get something fantastic, but if you just throw them all together without care you end up with is a tasteless brown mess.

There is a reason that most of the biggest and most successful clubs and events don't cater for every discipline - that's because it doesn't work. Focus can be vital. I don't think there is a single club or event in the world that caters for all forms of sailing that it could cater for, and that in itself is an indication that by their very nature, sailing events are exclusionary to some extent.

Other opinions may, of course, differ. But when people start demanding that events MUST be open to every other discipline in that activity, they are expecting something that doesn't happen in any other form of human activity I'm aware of.

Anyway, I shall say no more for fear of further hijacking the thread.

 

Yes, but you said that a cycling club in Sydney is "short sighted" because of their attitude to adding a fourth discipline.

The fact that you have been involved in a different club in a different sport in a different part of a different city in a different country does not mean that you know more about running a cycling club in Sydney than those who do just that, quite successfully.

And since you don't know what club I'm talking about, you have no idea about whether it's more or less successful than the clubs in which you have been involved.

Basically, I was taking issue with the fact that you were criticising people when you knew nothing about the situation in which they are operating or how well they did it, and therefore had no logical basis for your criticism.

 

Don't worry guys, we won't compete against any of you when the aft masts are coming up

We'll just head out past you and go fish...

 

Saying that someone has missed an opportunity sounds like criticism, which cannot be reasonable as you do not know the factors (the courses, the marshalling requirements, the complete lack of any bar to sell from, etc) related to the decision.

The argument, once more, has nothing to do with excluding people for what they are. The argument - which everyone from matchbox collecting clubs to those who run events just for skysurfers can understand - is that you can sometimes get more enjoyment by concentrating on a common interest, and that there can be many valid definitions of "common interest" - as attested to the fact that multi sailors, for example, will have regattas as broad as "all cruising multis" or as narrow as "Hobie 16 Masters".

Anyway, I look forward to you actively campaigning against your car club because of the fact that it excludes racing trucks, caravan racing, electric cars and motorcycles, and perhaps asking strong questions about the local beggonnia club's exclusion of cactii from their shows.

BTW having married into a family with a public profile for working against racism (including racism in sport) in a time and place where that could have VERY nasty consequences, the analogy with racism and excluding types of sailboats seems odd.

I'm wondering how my in-law who got international attention in his sport for obtaining an apology for the national body's past racism, or the one who sponsors a mixed-race "reconciliation" sporting team, will feel when I tell them that they are following logic that is akin to racism when they dare to compete in events that are only for one discipline of their sports?

Anyway, no more for me, since I'm never going to agree that my kitesurfing friends, for example, are following racist-type logic for daring to hold events just for kites, or that my multi-sailing mate is doing anything wrong in organising an event just for cruising multis.

 

I am very confused.

My Porsche Club does not allow Ferraris, Chevys, Fords, or any other marque in our autocross events and track days. I guess this makes us racist? The fact that our events are attended by folks of all ethnicities seems to refute that, as we have drivers descended from Europeans, Africans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Middle Easterners, and Indians (and probably others).

On the other hand, my sailing club runs events that allow everything from low perforance dinghies to high performance dinghies, beach cats, foiling moths, keelboats, sportboats, and Sabots. But we have never had a race invitation that included IRC Boats, cruisig catamarans, or 12 Meters. So I guess that makes us bigots?


All this has what to do with Aftmast rigs?

 

Thank You

 

Time spent "on the wind"

Another interesting observation from the log books of an ocean cruising sailor:

"Mike, a number of years ago I went through the log book of my trip through the S. Pacific to New Zealand and back. In 174 days at sea over 5 years the ketch Saga spent about 10 days actually on the wind. While there were certainly times when it would be good to go up wind better, taking a boat to sea that is hard to sail just to optimize those 10 days would be stupid.

During the same cruise I spent about 34 days with the chute up, where I didn't use the mizzen because it didn't do anything but slow me down. I was sailing about 160 to 170 degrees apparent wind.

The conclusion I have to come to for a cruising boat is that one should optimize reaching so long as the boat isn't un-safe. Lee shores are still dangerous."

Beau
This came as a response to this quote:

BTW, this posting came from a really good subject thread entitled
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/why-yawl-ketch-instead-sloop-27141.html

 

This is very true. We have a huge data base to draw from. The days of commercial sail. The sailing routes work for fast passages using sailing vessels that did not go to weather very well. Racers have found that windward leeward courses provide the best tactical racing and reaching legs have been removed. Racing designs are optimized for Windward/Leeward courses and not for reaching.

This makes cruising designs based on the rigs and hull shapes that racers use less than optimum. A 50 foot schooner might well be a faster, more comfortable ride to Hawaii than a boat with a more modern rig.

My comments about giving up windward performance at your peril applies to the skipper as well as the boat. It comes down to don't anchor in a position you can't sail out of. Don't count on the same windward ability your boat had before you added 2000 pounds of cruising gear, kayaks and jerry cans on deck and that big hard dodger.

I'd look to compare a modern cruising rig with the rigs that worked for commercial sail. Easy to handle has value for both, fewer grew needed means higher profit for the same cargo. Speed under sail has value for both, first boat home gets the best prices for cargo (or fish).

Now the low aspect ratio and larger easy to handle area make great sense.

For mono hull types boomless sails don't set well at reaching angles, big mains and flying sails work better. On a wide platform like a cat, the sheeting point can be outboard and eliminate the need for booms and vangs at reaching angles. The sails will still suffer at very deep angles, but broad reaching and gybing down the rhumb-line should provide the same distance made good with more comfort and no worries about un-planned gybes.

If I was promoting a new rig for cruising short handed, I'd start with the popular cruising routes and optimize the rig for those sailing angles.

R

 

Well western racing designs do. The racing Dhows of the middle east, for instance do passage racing. Different ships, different long splices.

There is something vaguely bizarre that at the moment the presumption is that racing sailors want to sail the fastest possible boats on the slowest points of sailing. In practice neither statement seems to be true for anything but a vocal minority.

In commercial days, of course, to have to do a lot of upwind sailing was to admit that you'd planned your journey badly and had got your use of wind and tide wrong. A skilled inshore fisherman would plan to use the fishing grounds that not only had the best chance of a catch but also for which the wind and tide would get him there and especially back to the market the quickest. The flaw of course was that if you do have to get upwind in an emergency you have to do so very badly, and every storm brought its fatality list to prove it.

 

I agree and to some extent ocean racers are passage racing. As racing boats get faster they sail broad reaching angles down wind rather than running angles. The simple reason for windward/leeward course racing is that these legs provide the the most tactical options. For heavy boats, reaching is a "hull speed" parade with limited options. Passage racing (I like that term!) the tactics shift more to those of commercial sail. Picking the right course to get the best sailing conditions applies to both.

Windward performance cannot be ignored, but optimizing to get 40 deg off the wind at the expense of good reaching performance does not sound like a a good trade off for a passage racer or cruiser. A 45-50 deg boat that tacks well can have good VMG upwind. What I see are boats out cruising that were 45 deg boats in racing/daysailing trim loaded down with gear on deck and small, heavy cruising sails that now struggle to sail 50-55 deg to the wind.

In light air these boats motor much of the time and in heavy air their windward ability drops to near zero.

Cruising boats are modern cargo boats. Looking at haul-out weights, we've seen 30-40 foot boats cruising at 20% or more over the published displacement. Cruising boats and rigs should be designed to sail properly fully loaded. They will probably have a much more powerful rig than a similar sized day sailer. Heavy boats need huge sail areas to move in light air and the penalty for lower AR is not as severe at passage angles as it is for ultimate windward performance.

Alternatives rigs might well look very good in this context.

R

 

I cant get my head around aftmast rigs simply because they cant set many sq metres of sail. Perhaps a motorsailor or special need vessel might benefit from an aft boomless rig, but for normal ocean sailing the vessel who sets the most sail area is favored. The reason a Ketch rig is so valued is its ability to set a cloud of sail.

 

Same sail Areas

Go back and look at posting #367
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sailboats/aftmast-rigs-623-25.html#post420889
The sail areas on the tall sloop 65 footer and the aft mast 65 footer are the same...it's just a shorter rig of lower aspect ratio...two sails spread out to three sails.

Same with that 63-65 foot trimaran...sail areas are the same.