Best performance sailing rig

Sukisolo, a custom extrusion is WAY beyond my budget. I am busy looking at a glass-epoxy replacement for a Selden dinghy section, and depending the E value I can achieve in the lay-up, it will be only marginally worse than an aluminium mast. At least it gives me the option of fabricating something in my workshop here in Zululand on the east coast of Africa.

 

Hi Petros,
Almost exactly what I was thinking, the thin strip-planked wooden blank covered with ud glass and some biax for torsion. I also fully agree with the fact that time on the water, the sooner the better, is an important consideration. Luckily we do have some stuff to play with, and actually do fairly regularly.
I damaged the current dinghy, and am considering all these things during the partial re-build I am forced to do now.

 

I am considering printing some of Russel Brown's photo's on posters and hanging them up in my workshop, te inspire and remind me what to strive for when working with wood epoxy. Boy he does a nice job. I actually bought his epoxy handbook a while ago, a good read and it helps you remember all the finer points in one concisely written document.

 

John, I had a look at those videos this morning. The boats do go like the clappers with a small sail area, don't they.
There is a large grove of mature bamboo in the bush near my house, and I have a sit-on-top plywood fishing ski which can serve really well as the main hull of an outrigger style boat. I am just intimidated by the prospect of shunting, so I would consider doing a low-aspect ratio balanced lug, which almost becomes a crab-claw when you furl it so the the leading end of the yards come together. I will need to draw a picture.

 

OK then let's get kinky. Build a tri-hull with the outriggers placed way to high. That would garantee one is always out of the water. Then use body weight to force the leeward hull out of the water and have the windward hull just barely skimming on the surface.

 

I will have to go and dig out the drawings of the sit on top ski, and start from there.

As a further complication, a good friend is in the process of buying a mini-transat (first generation Didi Mini), so some high performance sailing is definitely in my near future. I will need to sharpen up though, so something not completely docile will be nice.

 

Here's another hands-on page with lots of practical information on building s very simple outrigger sailing boat.

http://www.tdem.co.nz/outrigger-canoe

 

Hey that looks familiar... Oh, it's my website! Yes we got that thing up to some pretty good speeds with the phase 2 rig (~10 sq m). Left an RS Feva for dead. Not very safe though, my next project is to put in some better flotation, so I can really go crazy with it.

 

I love seeing people getting some results out there in actually building something.

 

pic

This it?

 

tdem,
Have you figured sorted out your sailing polar diagram yet? Maybe the apparent near 45 degree windward points are a result of the shifting of the wind.

Putting a wind vane out above the ama could help. You could videotape the wind vane as you sail and then read the wind direction from the video that corresponds to the GPS data point. The wind vane could be as simple as a drinking straw that is tied with a short piece of string to the end of a stick. Then a camera taking video from above could see what angle the stick is at relative to a bold print protractor at the base of the stick. Being so far upwind because it being located at the ama, the wind direction would be maybe not so badly influenced by the sail. You could even doe some experiments to see how much the sail effects the direction by sheeting and easying the sail.

I'm getting excited just thinking about it.

 

Hi John,

I agree wind shifts are the likely cause of the errors. At this stage I have a very good idea of what improvements I need to make to the boat, the polar was just for fun really. If I was to do it "right" I would probably look at Arduino or some other programmable device to record everything.

Back to the OP, I would definitely try the sit on top trimaran conversion. A huge head start having the hull already made!

 

Hi Alex,
That is indeed it. Littered with deck gear now. I just found a storage space right next to the sea for it TODAY!! Now it should see some use again.

 

Hi Tdem,

Yup, it does help a lot. I have gone a full circle with sailcloth, back to polytarp now. Even dacron is just too expensive to allow experimenting. Maybe get it to work in tarp, and then invest in proper sailcloth. Busy cleaning out the shop so that I can start doing something....

 

Have you considered taking apart some old sails for the sailcloth? Over the last 5 years or so I've collected about 7 or 8 sails that I all got for free or almost free, maybe you can find something too?