Why don't lots more people sail multis..???

It would be nice to add that to most multis. But, I think some would object to the added cost.

But I loved what it could do.

Can you explain in layman terms what releasing the shrouds did to right the boat? I get the floatation ball on top. But, I did not understand why releasing the shrouds righted the boat?

Thanks

wayne

 

I've never had difficulties righting a beach cat. It just has to be set up with righting lines - no mast float is needed and you don't need to release the shrouds.

Cruising multis are a different story, but many cats and tris can be righted with motor boat assistance. The real answer is they should never capsize in the first place.

Tris designed not to fly the hull often keep float volume where the float will start to bury if conditions are too much for the boat. Once you see your floats getting green water on top, you better be smart enough to stop and put in a reef. It is just common sense.

People that push beyond the design intent of boat and ignore the warning signs get what they deserve. At least with a multihull capsize means sitting on an upside down floating hull to contemplate your lack of good sense. A capsize with many ballast keel monohulls often gives you the same opportunity for deep thoughts while floating in a lifejacket and watching your boat go down.

--
CutOnce

 

As far as similar size and cost I was thinking of either folding or a simple dismount system, so it can be car topped.

Cost could be lowered two ways, I like buzeman's idea of using older beach cat hull and mast to make a tri, that might be good for the small group of those who like to build our boats, but the market for that is really small. As someone pointed out, most people ask where they could buy one, not where to get plans. It does not seem a practical option to product boats made from buying up used old beach cats, so that means finding a low cost way to make the boats. Rotation molded hulls from recycled plastic bottles? Many munisipalities around here force the population to separate their plastic bottle, and 90 percent go to the land fill anyway since there are too many to recycle, that means they would pay you to haul off even a small part of their sorted plastic waste. tooling for a rotation mold is pretty costly, we should design the amas to be identical to save tooling cost.

This would require rethinking all of the junk put on most of the costly boats (much of which we do not need for a low cost sailor); for an entry level boat you would not need a lot of fancy stuff for tweaking the sail. Think on the level of typical sails and rigs like an entry level mono-hull. Perhaps we can use some filament reinforced plastic sheet for sail cloth if it is significantly cheaper that polyester sail cloth.

I think most modern design for tris are oriented towards performance, and keeping costs down is a secondary consideration. To build a low cost, entry level tri, I think we would have to design a completely new design with low production cost as the primary consideration, and ease of use and performance secondary.

 

See my post Page 2 post#27. :idea:

 

Simple is best.
I had a perfectly standard Piver Nugget. It's floats were attached to hinged crossarms. My wife and I could fold the floats up onto the cabin top by ourselves. The hull sat in two "V" cradles made of fir 2 x 4s lashed to a standard trailer. We trailed and sailed it all over the place for four years with our two young boys. Very simple and cost effective.

 

the Pivers were advanced for their day, but are rather dated now. and I do not think they lend themselves to low cost production either.

what would be nice is perhaps an updated version of a design like the Nugget, reflecting modern design trends in tris, that could be home built or be produced in plastic, with similar performance. that way both home built and production version could run in the same class. As I recall the Lazer used to be able to be raced as wood home built version in the same class as the fiberglass production boats. Not for a long time however was that allowed, so the design of the boat has to be something suitable for low cost production methods.

 

This is a Pop culture myth.

There are very few deaths from monohull knockdowns on passages in heavy weather, but there is a very high death rate from inverted cruising catamarans. In fact it's an alarming emerging trend that the majority of people aboard die. The sad part is that it's largely preventable since I know of no cat lying to a sea anchor that was inverted in any sea condition. A sad recent case of a Belize 43 in the Med is another recent example, they pushed on in heavy seas to try and make port, their props were fouled probably by a nets gear and they ended up laying ahull and were inverted by heavy seas under bare poles. All 5 aboard drowned either unable to make the hull or washed off (the French coroners report isn't expected until next year). Had that been a ballasted monohull of any size they would have been ok with a fouled prop and lying ahull.

Importantly the heavy seas that are able to invert the Cat makes survival on the upturned hull unlikely.

In the monohulls defense, sinking from knockdown or capsize of modern cruising monohulls is virtually unknown. If it's a well designed compartmentalised hull it is next to impossible from a knockdown.
Remember a cat is only as safe as the on watch skipper and cannot take whatever the crew ask of it. A ballasted monohull is intrinsically safe in this regard as the people have limits well below the boats.

There's too much hype from marketers, book and magazine writers, and resultingly from sailors themselves. This is probably one of the reasons inverted survival is not taken very seriously. As catamarans become more popular there needs to be a concerted effort to educate people and get them to understand that you cannot press on in heavy weather and that you must lie to a drogue. And that your cat can be very unsafe upside down.

Large cats say > 35' are so massive and stable that they have a psychological effect, an intuitive feeling of safety that coupled with fatigue and lethargy make people less inclined to act when they should. I experienced this in heavy weather on a 50 foot Cat west of NZ. You just don't get the warnings a monohull gives you. So it's important to recognise the boats dangers, not spin them into hype.

By hammering in the fact that the very last place you want to be is on an upturned cat in heavy seas ( and that you can usually do something to prevent it) is better than misleading people to gain their acceptance.

 

From page 2 post # 27 for Old Sailor ....

 

Petros said:-"what would be nice is perhaps an updated version of a design like the Nugget."

Yes it would nice in moulded f/glass, with a LAR keel a double and two singles like ours was. An ideal fast cruiser. The V sectioned floats would have to go though. They made the boat horribly "Rocky" in other boats wakes, or side choppy waves. As simple as it was, it would make the ideal basis for an inexpensive family trimaran, and would be trailable and storable too. The Nugget attracted a lot of people to multihulls in it's day.

 

Frolic:

 

@oldsailor7 - There is a post about the construction of a Piver Nugget here
http://smalltrimarans.com/blog/?p=1028
Is that yours?
I love this part...
"The mast, as designed, was a flat 2″X6″ Fir plank. We sat this on a trailer tow ball in an oak socket to allow it to rotate, limiting it’s rotation with two door stops. Worked well."
That that's a confluence of technologies.

 

All that you say makes good sense, MJ ... but I interviewed and wrote a couple of articles on the John Glennie/Rose Noelle survival ... which was an astonishing 3 months plus while inverted. So it can be done. The crew became survival experts and were in such good condition when they eventually touched shore on East coast of Great Barrier Island, that many people disbelieved their story. In fact, amongst a few of my friends, there was not only disbelief but real anger at the BS (but absolutely true) story.
Anyway Rose Noelle was a pretty large cruising tri and what this thread is about is a Piver Nugget-type design, modernised somewhat, as a multihull that can do most things well, be low priced and suitable for a large cross section of potential sailors.
Here is a Piver 24 that has been altered, flush deck, open cockpit, rotating mast, dagger in main hull, redesigned and deeper rudder - this boat does everything required of a volksboot - maybe there should be a small cuddy added. Piver was definitely on the right track ... and he did this half a Century ago, a man way ahead of his time.

 

MJ
I'm sorry but I don't see anywhere that this thread is "misleading people to gain their acceptance".

Au contraire, people on this thread tend to be quite pragmatic about the relative risks of capsize in multihulls, whether inshore or offshore, and several proposals have been suggested, seconded, and almost universally endorsed, as necessary to prevent capsize in the first place, or to prevent loss of life if it does occur.

It is fact that multihulls when flipped will still tend to float, raft-like, whereas a monohull that is holed tends to act more like a stone.

No-one disputes that monohulls tend to recover from a knockdown, nor that large multis are almost unrecoverable once fully capsized in a seaway.

It may be a "pop culture myth" elsewhere on the internet, but it appears not to be the case on the Multihulls thread.

QED

 

E_G

The purpose of the quick release shrouds on the Orion cat are to assist in self-recovery.

The float on the masthead prevents the mast from sinking, but the boat is still past 90 deg turning moment, and cannot self-recover (as a ballasted monohull could, even if it meant flipping through 360 deg).

By releasing the shrouds closest to the waterline, the hull is able to pivot around the base of the mast, as the fixed shrouds on the upper side and the mast itself act as a lever, pushing against the chain plates on the upper hull.

The lack of restraint (ie: released shrouds) on the lower hull causes it to pivot upwards, thus righting the boat.

As the mast is flicked upright by the wind on the sail, the shrouds are quickly re-attached, and the boat sails on.

It's almost faster than a knocked down dinghy can recover by the crewing hopping onto the centreboard and hauling on the capsize lines.

Sure, smaller beach cats can be flipped upright by standing on the dagger boards, but it's not easy solo. One enterprising sailor, Gary Friesen, has designed a method of extending the leverage that makes this easier.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCbihZsXESg

 

Lol. Mine was a bit more modern looking than that in post 70.
It had a longer cabin, bigger windows, solid wing deck with cabin overlap halfway to the deck hinge giving extra storage room on a shelf backed by the side windows. All the windows had sliding curtains for privacy at dockside.
There was a full length single berth fore and aft, with watertight window ports to let the light in. The daggerboard was eliminated to make way for a double berth, formed by a false bottom of the settee which folded down with the back squab on it to form a comfortable bed. A chemical toilet was under the head of the fore berth.
The daggerboard was replaced by twin surface piercing leeboards, which hinged from a case at the hinge line of the wing deck. These were not very successful and were replaced the next season by a Cross 24 sized LAR keel. It transformed the performance of the boat and didn't affect the trail-ability, as the keel fitted neatly between the trailers frame.
It had wheel steering.
There was a yoke on the top of the transom hung rudder, with twin plastic coated wires leading forward thru grommets in the transom, to two turning blocks and then inboard to a reel on the shaft of the spoked wheel, which in turn was bolted to the frame at the aft of the cockpit. This used up less room than a tiller,but could still be used from either side of the cockpit.
The mainsheet traveller was a chrome plated steel tea towel rail, as was the traveller for the self tacking Jib boom.
The cockpit area from the cabin back to the aft deck was covered by a button down canopy, which sealed the boat up when stored, at the dock, and night time.
A boom tent shaded the cockpit during the hot summer days and showers.
On the aft port side of the cabin was the galley, with a two burner alcohol stove, and on the Port side was the food (and beverage) cupboard and a sink.
A six HP outboard surficed for calm days and manoeuvering in harbour.
Altogether a lovely little boat except fo its propensity to rock violently with the wake of passing boats, due to the V sectioned floats.
With my wife and two boys we sailed it every weekend in the summer and for the two weeks of summer vacation, -- for four years.
It cost me $1500.00 to build and I sold it for $3150.00 in 1968. So much for inflation.