60+' custom Harryproa cruiser "Kleen Breeze" first trials

The novelty of Kleen Breeze is that it features unstayed wing masts in schooner configuration and double bidirectional Speer foil rudder boards.

Keeping the first trials in winds below 15 knots, the owner reported that steering remained relaxed using differential in sails and/or rudders. This video gives a 360 of the spacious deck while the crew discuss the next shunt

More details at “Kleen Breeze” (Luca Antara) – PORTUGAL – Harryproa http://harryproa.com/?p=562

 

Something about those boats I really like!! There needs to be more videos of them

 

Drifting conditions seem to work for every kind of boat.
I'm waiting for the 10 - 20 kt video.
And something not focused on the lawn chair and the bowl of cheerios.

 

There's only one 'first sail' and you take the conditions you're given or you choose.
Given a choice, if it were a choice, most skippers would choose light conditions - before a 20kt first test.

Don't see many (any) locations from which the skip will have a clear all around view of the horizon.

Great to see this boat sailing, congrats to all involved.

 

Jorge,
Glad you like it, hope it gives you some ideas for your boat. In particular, the merits of permanent shade vs being able to sit in the sun in the mornings and evenings and under the stars at night.
For more sailing videos of boats like this visit www.harryproa.com and click on the YouTube icon. Plenty there, although none yet of the new hulls and layouts using Intelligent Infusion.

From the owner about that first sail - "We just made the trip motoring at the start with no wind and ending the day in 25 knots. Most pics and videos taken when doing around 9 knots in 15 knots of wind (edit: looks closer to 10 to me) on a broad reach. At this point she was behaving beautifully, and once we had adjusted the sail trim we were able to leave the tiller for about 20 minutes while she maintained course." Not bad for 11 tons of boat and 100 sqm of sail area, (2/3rds the weight and 1/4 the downwind sail area of a Gunboat 66).

Not much else to worry about apart from breakfast (cheerios) on a day like that with a boat that self steers.

If you think about the (lack of) comfortable outside seating choices on other multis with a decent sized saloon, the focus on the lawn chair might have a bit more relevance.

Tom,
Stand up on the bridgedeck, you can see 360. This is way better than the majority of boats where you cannot see under the headsail if you are high enough to see over the cabin, and can't see the sails at all without being isolated from the rest of the crew. In inclement weather, a tiller extension allows you to steer from the cabin door or inside the cabin, with visibility through the windows.
Not many 20m/66' multis with tiller steering, and none where the rudders are big enough to double as daggerboards. It will be interesting to see how they work in a blow.

"Great to see" indeed. This boat was designed by it's owner, with help from us with the engineering and advice on the layout and build. He built it with help from a couple of itinerant yachties. Work came to a halt when the owner fell off the deck onto the concrete and nearly killed himself. Thought he might have to sell it to pay the bills, but soldiered on and got it launched. Once the interior is finished, he intends to charter it. Pretty good effort, in my opinion.

 

I am really glad he finished it, would have been a great shame! I know that feeling when you want to give up lol .... Now he will reap the rewards!!!!

 

AFAIK this would be the first large proa in charter. The one contiguous spacious deck sets it apart from the layout of other multihulls. Its unstayed masts and bidirectional rudders should make shunting that more simple. But still, in your experience what would a catamaran sailor have to unlearn to be comfortable with the switch?

 

I see it as a special purpose boat, you have a lot of options as to how you rig it. It would be very interesting as an expedition boat, as one teacher was inquiring about, or a dive boat with that dinghy ramp. Sun area is over-rated, there is always too much sun so I would put a hard bimini over almost the entire thing and cover it with solar panels and leave a small cockpit on each side with no roof for fishing. Every time my neighbor goes fishing he spends $200 dollars on gas and oil and it's not a comfy boat at all.

This looks like it could be fit out to be extremely comfy and it's inexpensive to build. I think I am going to pop 2 out of my mold and then I would consider building one of these specifically for dive and snorkel with lots of hammocks and chill out toys.

I haven't seen any moving fast but the lightwind performance is more what you would want anyway. Still would be nice to see how one handles in a storm )).

 

I am pretty sure the 15m Blind Date (now Compaen) has been doing skippered charters in Holland for many years. Mostly for vision impaired people, but others have used it as well.
There is not much to unlearn. Once you get your head around shunting (the novice Blind Date crews usually manage this by their 2nd or 3rd shunt), it is more a case of not having to do so much. The rest of the learning curve is more performance oriented; optimising the rudders (first of all steering with the front one with the back one locked, then playing with crabbing to maximise your upwind performance) and getting the best from the schooner rig upwind (very much the same as a sloop, with the aft sail on the centre line and strapped down pretty tight and the foresail at 10-15 degrees, same as a headsail), reaching (far easier than headsail trimming, and faster) and running (whether to go vmg or wing and wing). The rest of it is the same as conventional sailing.

Interesting comment about dive boats and hammocks. We are working on a 21m for this at the moment for student charters in the Andaman Sea.

There is too much sun during the middle of the day, but mornings, afternoons and nights, I prefer being able to see the sky.

There is a storm report from an overloaded 12m which crossed the Tasman. They spent 12 hours hove to in 45 knots. No problems.
The big advantages of a proa in a storm are 1) You do not need enough sail area to provide boat speed to tack, just enough for steerage speed. 2) the feeling of safety knowing the sails can be completely depowered just by dumping the sheet, with no stays to limit your options. 3) All the below water appendages can be lifted, making a shallow draft raft which will be near impossible to capsize, 4) the parachute is deployed over the stern, which is far less likely to end in a tangle than over the bows and it is in the lee of the cabin so does not tend to blow all over the place.

Top speed among the cruisers is the 18m in Melbourne which has done 19 knots (1 min average) in flat water. Pretty effortless. A gps track, but no video. The C60 should be quicker.

 

Video of that boat doing 19 knots would def get more people interested in those boats.

Edit: Gotta say though, this video cruising along just chilling, makes me want to be out on the water Big Time!!!!

 

The Compaen (ex Blind Date) does almost exclusively day sails - but you are right it occasionally is chartered out for a week or so but not to the regular public so far.

Jorge, but there is a video of the boat doing peak 17 knots with the full speed graph at the end.

 

Cool! Thanks for alerting me to that. Looks like it was getting along really nice! Why so much spray, seems that hull would benefit from a sharper entry or some splash rails

 

This was even after remedial work to sharpen the entry of the bows as the original bows ended in an unorthodox reverse flat plate triangle. The latest C60 has a bow entry even finer than for Kleen Breeze. Please note that the owner designed and built this 18m boat on his own only being inspired by the Harryproa designs. As such it was an remarkable accomplishment and since its launch the unlucky choices have been corrected step by step. Today its configuration is quite interesting: small bidirectional stout rudders from the bottom at each bow, a central board just windward of the lee hull and an easy-rig. It also runs a smartly home made electric motor on a pivoting arm. A work in progress/further improvement that is interesting to follow.

But of course with the latest C60 one can just build to plan and sail away. And as Kleen Breeze should be available as charter soon one could charter it to train oneself handling the schooner rig combined with bidirectional rudder/boards while waiting for the delivery of the C60.

 

The bow spray was a feature on the early harrys as the bows were intentionally full above the waterline as other proas tended to sail bows down. However, as rockerless hulls don't, we have corrected this on the latest designs. It is actually pretty cool sailing at speed with the water atomising off the lee bow.

 

I believe there is also an optical effect. Catamaran bows are much higher with the bow wave thus rarely rising over the top.