Proa Questions: Atlantic vs Pacific

Reasons are pretty obvious when you think about it, although the killer was the article in Crusing World by Steve Callaghan, imo..

Jzerro is one of 4 proas that Russ designed and built. The first was a very light, cheap version, the other three are variations on Jzerro. Jzerro has done a lot of miles, but there is more to good proa design than ocean crossing.

For more info on Russ' boats, check out the Pacific proa.com site.

page

 

There is also Des Jours Meilleures, which is an accommodation to leeward proa which has done a couple of Atlantic crossings and the recently launched Gaia's Dream.


rob

 

Jzerro and antecedents isn't out of date in the sense that it arguably wasn't state of the art in the first place. State of the art boats have to appeal to the public needs and be excelent in some definable way. Jzerro exists to be only what Brown wants it to be. In that sense a lot of Robs critique is irrelevant. It is a highly personal boat that isn't intended to make it's owners wife less seasick, or win local races, or sell plans, or enter the transpac. If Brown were trying to hit an external target, I warrant he would do so. But he built a personal boat that can't be judged against others without missing some of the point.

It comes down to Jzerro because (in no particular order)

- Russ is Jim's son:

-He got a cover story in FWW and Sailing, a pic in the Gougeon Brothers on Boat Building, etc...;

- He has sailed the boat widely in the Atlantic and Pacific.

- His boats are stuningly beautiful/he is one of the best boat builders around. I asume that is all him, no hired designers or engineers, other than the pedigree and the people he grew up around.

- He has been at the proa thing a long time before it was popular.

- He has designed a proa that takes the classic form and brings it up to date in an enclosed cruising form. He didn't make any mistakes that left him with a project that was unfinishable for 10 years - all his solutions work and are low tech. All the downsides of his design are pretty much what one would expect, nothing new to wrap the mind around, meaning it pretty much behaves the way someone familiar with a proa would expect, does not require a manual to understand what you are looking at.

 

So - with more modern / hi tech how could it be improved on? Tho - i do like the simple approach!!
What was his most recent proa?

 

Jzerro is Russ's most recent proa (he is apparently into trimarans these days) and it looks far from simple to sail or to build. Check out the shunting video on Pac proas site.
No idea how Russ would improve it, but based on what has worked on other boats, he might want to look at an unstayed balanced rig, simplifying the rudders and putting them in a location where they are not damaged in a collision/grounding and moving the accommodation to a comfortable, useful, low stressed location which would do away with the need for the pod. He would then have an easily sailed, light, low cost, fast boat that was "classically beautiful". Not as low cost or as light as a flat panel boat, but an improvement in these areas on almost anything else that is available.

ThomD
I agree with all the personal stuff, don't understand the philosophy stuff. Not a big deal as neither has any relevance to my post which was comparing boat types. Consequently, I stand by my "critique".

Couple of things.
1) Russ may or may not have tried to sell his boats, but Joe Oster (good mate of Russ', according to him) has been trying since before I started harryproas.
2) Russ made a little "mistake" with his first proa (Jzero). He also beefed up the beams of jzerro in Brisbane. Neither would have happened if he had employed an engineer. Because he is not open (no reason why he should be) about his design and build process, we have no idea what other 'mistakes" he made while developing his boats.
3) In Wooden Boat magazine Russ said he would not recommend his boats for ordinary sailors. In Cruising World, he said that in a gybe in a breeze, the rig would get blown away. Both imply that a "manual to understand what you are looking" at would be a necessity.


rob

 

So whats the take on Gaia's dream? Nice looking boat!! Also like his Gaia 2 - though technically a tacking outrigger. Done good milage too..... But - when i put a similar idea out there, there were lots of reasons why it wouldn't work. But it can and did........ Holland to oz is no mean feat? 12m/9m - accomodation in the larger-rig too.

 

Ini (whom I have never met) appears to be in the same super builder/sailor class as Russ. To build a 70' proa in 12 months from ply is an awesome feat. Throw in a couple of floods and caring for his young son and it is even more impressive.

Many boat ideas work, and in the hands of someone skilled and tenacious enough can cross oceans. That does not make them the best solution, any more than a boat idea which has not crossed oceans should be written off.

rob

 

anyone care to address this:

i am curious about this too. seems like a very bad idea to expose your beam to a breaking wave should you need to shunt in bad weather.

i want to be a convert. convince me that it's safer.

 

1) It is no different to being hit by a wave while you are sailing on a beam reach. Actually less so as your sails are a long way to leeward of the breaking wave, so less likely to be hit by the water.

2) To me, it is much safer to be side on to a breaking wave than to be bows into it part way through a tack, probably with a backed storm jib up to help it through the eye of the wind. On a cat the damage to steering (and helmsmans' arms( from a near stationary boat being pushed backwards by a breaking wave is usually terminal. There is also the possibility of being tipped end over backwards if the wave is big enough. On the proa, you will get pushed sideways and may get wet if you don't have a covered cockpit, but there should be no harm to the rudders or rig. Both types need hull sides well enough reinforced (cupboards, bulkheads and shelves ) to withstand the loads, but a light for it's length proa will need less.
3) If you are worried about it, you can shunt by luffing head to wind, then waiting for a calm(ish) patch to swing round onto the new course. With reversible steering and a weathercocking rig, this is far easier than on a cat.

For some evidence (not conclusive, but a place to start), have a look at the beach cats leaving the beach in surf in the Worrell, Texel or Texas races. Beam on to the waves, they (usually) slide sideways. Bow on and stopped, they tend to flip over one stern and rip off the rudders.

rob

 

"1) Russ may or may not have tried to sell his boats, but Joe Oster (good mate of Russ', according to him) has been trying since before I started harryproas."

I've heard of JO, but it is still kinda like never having heard of him, and certainly in plan sales. When I first met Jim Brown he was pretty closed lipped about his son because he seemed unsure about whether talking at all about his proas would tick him off. The one later conversation I had with him at dinner, he was a little more relaxed. Whatever the reason, Russ does not seem to have wanted to sell plans. i can imagine some reasons! That's the main thing where the RB proas are vulnerable, we don't really know whether they are just good for RB, because they really aren't being built (as far as I know). I came across SCs broadside against your proas Rob, and he levels on the idea they haven't done much. But the equal RB weakness is that very few of his have been built. Certainly less than HPs.

2) Russ made a little "mistake" with his first proa (Jzero). He also beefed up the beams of jzerro in Brisbane. Neither would have happened if he had employed an engineer. Because he is not open (no reason why he should be) about his design and build process, we have no idea what other 'mistakes" he made while developing his boats.

That stuff doesn't interest me. Even beautiful new boats will sometimes have things that go bang, the build, break, and buttress cycle is perfectly respectable. Would be like criticizing your builds for cycling through different great materials or the beams breaking on U. You have said that the engineers made up overbuild, and there is hardly any reason why an idealist should follow that path for his own interest. Also, you have to stop picking on his 400 dollar 15 year old, mostly pre-epoxy efforts. No youtube, no internet, a single copy of Cheers.

"3) In Wooden Boat magazine Russ said he would not recommend his boats for ordinary sailors. In Cruising World, he said that in a gybe in a breeze, the rig would get blown away. Both imply that a "manual to understand what you are looking" at would be a necessity"

There are probably less than six serious proas in the world (not grading to the curve here), and like 6 billion people. No proa is yet for average sailors. It's the whole point for most. You spend your life dreaming about proas and you are in the elite, but shoot for a cat or tri, or mono, and you are a member of the heard. Then there is the odd guy who actually builds and sails these things.

 

"So - with more modern / hi tech how could it be improved on?"

When thinking design, it rreally helps if you can sorta see the whole thing. I have been studying RB's proas since the WB article came out, but I feel some huge holes in my knowledge. I find it helps to have built the type first. However most of his proas are kinda 80s at best if you look at hull shapes, shear lines etc... And obviously materials. We are talking double diagonal over stringers and frames. So they may be perfect as currently conceived, but it seems unlikely that every single feature of them couldn't be tweaked. I mean Russ built a small tri with input from Nigel Irens, do we think his hulls would look as they do if they got that treatment?

 

"i am curious about this too. seems like a very bad idea to expose your beam to a breaking wave should you need to shunt in bad weather.

i want to be a convert. convince me that it's safer."

I know that some people who have been on Russ's boat say that the shunt In bad weather is far calmer, and more reassuring, but I haven't done it myself. I know the feeling about wanting to believe. But that should also be a red light.

 

Never had problems shunting Pong-pong in waves. The proa was just too small for a cruiser.

http://wikiproa.pbworks.com/Terho+Halme's+%22Ping-Pong%22

Terho

 

Terho - was it space vs keeping the boat small that decided you on conversion to cat? Pity - would have loved to see your proposed EQL12.....

 

If I lived on the shore of open sea, proa would be the right choise for me. Proa is an excellent open sea boat. In our archipelagos (Finland) proa is not so good. Shunting, though easy and fast, need much more space than tacking and especially shunting downwind needs more space than there exist in many of our narrow routes.