Aftmast rigs???

Not a good idea to use wikipedia as a source... A lot of wikipedia sailing articles are pretty third rate, and that's one of them. Life's too short to try and fix them.

 

Well-ll-ll?
I looked at a number of articles about the Moth, and the Wikipedia article covered what I wanted to make a point about and didn't disagree with the class association sites.
Was there a particular error in what I quoted, that irks you?
By all means, set us straight.

 

Interesting Historys

Thanks RHP,
I found that site/paper to be a real interesting presentation.
Were their subsequent paper(s) by this gentleman?



excerpt from 'The New York Herald', Apr 1877
The Amarylis
How the Yachting Wonder of 1876 was Conceived and Built

excerpted quote...

Sounds to me as though he had to resort to going off and forming his own club and regattas because the 'establishment' in NY didn't want direct competition between the new and the old.

And it doesn't sound as though there were already lots of these catamarans existing at that time, as CT249 has put forward. Perhaps these new owners came later after Nat persisted in bringing the technology forward a few notches.

 

A Revolutionary Yacht

Source: Anon. (Editorial). "A Revolutionary Yacht." The World, June 24, 1876

 

Brian, I never said there were "all these other catamarans existing" at the time that Amaryllis was launched. The other cats were launched (mainly by Fearon and Herreshoff) after Amaryllis.

No, the great Herreshoff did NOT have to "resort to forming his own club and regattas because the 'establishment' in NY didn't want direct competition between the new and the old." As Francis wrote years later, he WANTED separate racing for cats, because the sailors of NY already understood very clearly that it was best to sail boats in classes of separate types. That's why they had separate classes for boats of different rigs.

The boats that Amaryllis had raced against were boats of a particular type that could also be used for oyster fishing. We know this from a variety of sources, such as WP Stephens, BAG Fuller and a US Govt study on boatbuilding at the time. Effectively they were like powered-up cargo trucks, so everyone (including, it seems, Herreshoff himself) thought that they should not have to race against expensive racing machines like Amaryllis.

I don't know how anyone can reasonably claim that the "establishment" were not happy with cats, because "establishment" people like John C Stevens (founder of the NYYC and the America syndicate), Voorhis (Commodore of the Brooklyn YC), the Commodore of the New Jersey Yacht Club, and the President of the Mattituck Boating Club all had cats. The cats got favourable treatment in the first regatta of the first national sailing organisation. Exactly what more do you expect?

By the way, the people who were beaten by Amaryllis were not really "the establishment". The boat that ended up winning was owned by an immigrant saloon keeper - hardly one of the "establishment".

The second piece, with its claim that "the America yacht in her model...is supposed to be almost the perfect model for speed under canvas" is rubbish. Whoever wrote that piece was clearly not a sailor, because they write that all of the boats beaten by Amaryllis were of the "approved model" of America. That's complete rubbish - we know what boats she raced, and they were all sandbagger-type beamy centreboard sloops, not deep-keel schooner-rigged boats of the America type. And we know that the America model was NOT supposed to be the perfect model of speed - she was beaten before she left NY and the favourite yacht of NY at the time was the beamy centreboard sloop. This is demonstrated beyond doubt in the writings of the time and later. In other words, the article is completely wrong and therefore completely unreliable.

Of course there would have been some people who didn't like cats. So what. There are cat people who abuse monos, there are cat sailors who abuse other types of cat. But the fact that some individuals didn't like some types of boat is not evidence of some sort of major "establishment" blindness or prejudice.

The story of the Herreshoff cats shows how willing sailors are to take up a new type. They came along completely out of the blue, and within a very short time they were an accepted racing type sailed by members of the "establishment". What more do you want?

 

Perhaps it is all in the wording, but I read this to be your claiming that cats were in numerous supply during this period of Herreshoff's development of Amarylis.

 

I experienced this 'resistance to multihulls' for many years. I first got involved with them in the early 1970's. I was involved in retail, wholesale distribution to 50 dealers, importing from Europe, etc. I represented some British imports, and I imported the first Fountain/Pajot cats (the Louisiane 37 in 1986, and the Dragonfly trimarine in 1987. We retailed and distributed Prindle, NACRA, and Stiletto cats.

We were located in America's 'sailing capital' of Annapolis Maryland, and we originated the name Chesapeake Catamarans, and Chesapeake Multihulls.
http://www.runningtideyachts.com/multihull/

I keep waiting and hoping that the multihull market would really open up. That first America's Cup race with a catamaran entry was a big hoped for boost that never really occurred, even while the much smaller multhull beat a much larger competitor. To tell the truth I almost thought a well-sailed Stiletto 23 cat might have beat that big monohull....wouldn't that have been something!

It seemed to have taken eons for the sailing public to 'discover' multihulls. We pushed as hard as we could while we were directly involved in the business. Check out one of our show flyers we handed out at the Annapolis Boat Show (the premiere sailboat show in the country at the time).

It seems that after the charter companies started to recognize the appeal of these vessels as very 'charter-friendly', and the ongoing French racing across the oceans and around the world, that the multihull form finally took off big time. Regrettably I missed being in the business at that time.

 

The fact that people didn't buy a particular boat (and the L37 does look nice) is not proof of unfair prejudice against a type of boat. The fact that people happen to want different things to other people in a boat is not proof of unfair prejudice. For example, big cat sailors often say that sailing flat is "better", but many sportspeople LOVE the feeling of leaning and being out of balance. There's even a term ("ilinx", I think) for the joy of being out of balance during sport. Motorcyclists, surfers, skiers, skaters and many others love that feeling of leaning - so do small cat sailors. So do many mono sailors. So what you see as an advantage is something that many of us see as a disadvantage. We don't like sailing flat all the time. We are not conservative or stupid, we just have different preferences and therefore want different craft.

Has the "multihull form finally taken off big time"? Most of the racing fleets seem to have dwindled, despite all the decades of talk about how multis would finally "come of age" when they made it into the major racing events.

 

When I look at what dinghy sized boats were being sailed in numbers in the UK as represented by the Portsmouth yardstick system (not a great index, but better than nothing) it appears to me that the heyday of off the beach catamaran racing was the 1960s, and they've never yet recovered that initial enthusiasm.

 

Raising an aft mast on a trailer trimaran.

I'm surprised that your mast appears not to wander side to side as you raise it,....and I believe I see that you are not applying any 'stabilizing' lines to the sides?* BRIAN

It is as you say. The two side shrouds don't tension up until the mast is almost fully raised. I don't loosen them at all to lower the mast as they self adjust.

The mast foot has a steel insert welded to a robust hinge. The mast is completely free standing on its own. Except the back stay. Last year I sapped a shroud in 10 mph winds on a broad reach. The mast flexed like a big fishing pole. It had no back stay then. Just two shrouds and a 6' steel tube brace. I quickly dropped the sail.. Saving the day.

Knock on wood. As it stress cracked my under welded mast base. Which caused the whole thing to demast, a month later.
So never use 1/4" wall mart line as a shroud.
DON'T Weld engineer after being awake for 20 hours.

 

Thank you all for informing me about the rear mast options. I never under stood the stay sail schooners till now. I think I am sold but not sure if this trumps so called gallant lowering wing rigs if they are more slender than any I have ever seen. After all the mast is still there as frontal area. The ability to carry large efficient sails in lower winds and the lift are plusses.

 

I don't know where to place this question as the loose footed main thread is so old, probably it's best put under Brian's protection here.

Does anyone have any further details, info or pictures of the 115' yacht ANDROMEDA built by Omega Marine Developers in 1997?

My interest is in the rig, by Frank MacLear.

Length: 115'
Length at Waterline: 83'
Beam: 22'
Draft: 13.5'
Displacement: 180 tons
Ballast: 35 tons lead
Construction: Steel hull, aluminum superstructure
Rig: Schooner
Interior Layout: Sciomachen Yacht Design
Rig: Frank Maclear
Exterior Profile: Nissan Design Group
Interior Design: Brindan Byrne Design
Builder: Omega Marine Developers

The only info I have is via this advertisement from the year 2000.

 

RHP has recently posted 3 photos of rigs that utilize a large roller furling genoa and a roller furling mainsail to 'simplify' their larger size foe short handed sailing. Interestingly the mast ends up set further aft, and the headsail is mast-headed and larger in proportion.

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/wishbone-sailing-rig-1999-20.html#post754981

 

Hi RHP,
There was another Frank MacLear design of about 70-80 feet built for a guy on the Chesapeake Bay by Palmer Johnson also,...with this same type of rig, but I think it was a cutter style. The name of the vessel also began with an 'A'. I just can't remember what the name was. Perhaps you could recall?

I do remember it had an influence on my thoughts at the time I was developing the idea for my aftmast configuration.



ah-ha,...i just found her
Angantyr

 

Capsize Prevention Device(s)

There have been in the past suggestions on this subject thread, that large genoa sails (and other headsails) are not good candidates for spilling excessive winds and gust from their head areas, and thus should be avoided in a cruising boat's rig design (and mainsails be utilized instead).

And it has been suggested that if you do release the sheet of the headsail in excess conditions, that you end up with a flailing mess that becomes difficult to 'reload' (re-trim).

I thought I might record an interesting sheet release mechanism utilized on some of the larger French racing multihulls,...and specifically on their headsails as well,....pretty simply mechanical device in reality:

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/capsize-prevention-devices-41340-2.html#post756160

... having beein installed on Sodebo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB0qpujukXk