Sailing a 10 ft twinhull- standing

Bob (Sharpii) and the others -
This little movie is dedicated to you
http://www.wavewalk.com/Sailing%20Standing.WMV

Thanks,

Yoav

 

Hi again Icetrader.

I'm just writing you to ask what its windward performance is. Judging by the video, it seems to have no trouble coming about. I'm dying of curiousity. And wht's holding up the mast?

Thanks again for the kind words.

Bob

 

Why aren't you offering a sail kit?

 

Mast, sail etc,

Bob,

The performance looks good but we need to perform more testing to gather more specific data.
So far I'm particularly pleased by two facts:
1. It's easy to sail standing
2. Response is quick and effective in case you get caught off-guard by unexpected gusts.

There's a 14" tall mast holder bolted to the mini-deck (saddle's top side) into which you simply insert the 42" mast. The mast is held inside its holder just by the sail frame pushing it downward... It's done this way in order to keep the rig easy and quick to both install and collapse.


Mackid,

I wish I could offer a sailing kit for sale but it takes time to turn a prototype into a commercial product. You have to go through a process of industrial design, then locate and choose suppliers and so on.
However, making such a rig is quite easy and I'm willing to help people in "do-it-yourself" projects.

Yoav

 

Ok. Makes sense...but what about the twin rudder idea? Maybe you could try a twin kick up rudder, 1 per hull looking like this:
(Turn 180°)
|-------(Tiller bar attached to kick up, hobie style rudder)
------(Main Tiller)
|-------

 

Rudders

The basic assumption is that in case additional steering capability is required the user has a paddle on board. A rudder will add to the user's capability to steer the boat, and is likely to be necessary in bigger and longer W boats but in this 10 footer it doesn't seem to be a "must have" and it could complicate things for the inexperienced user.
Also, taken from the perspective of the "user experience" sailing the W1 standing is more like windsurfing than boat sailing, and windsurfers don't have rudders "on board"
As far as Price and Portability go, any addition in cost or weight might be problematic.

Yoav

 

Yeah. Makes sense, btw, is a 15' in the works?

 

15 footer

I have plans to come up with a longer model but nothing determined yet.
Some canoe and kayak designers are interested in creating their own 12'-15' versions.
A 12'-15' long and 36" wide sailing W dinghy would be both fast and stable, and it could be sailed with a pretty big sail: crab claw or other.
I suppose you'd need a rudder for it.

These photos are of an experimental 15' W boat I made from two shorter W boats welded together. The welding looked messy but the boat was really fast and more stable than the W1.

Yoav

 

Cool! Now that I think of it, what's the W's width to length ratio (ie how many inches LOA per how many inches beam)?

 

W concept

Mackid,

The 2005 W1 is a small W model with narrow hulls (see: http://www.wavewalk.com/W%20boat%201st%20model.html ) but as a designer you can come up with W models of different length, overall width, hull width etc.
For example, in this drawing you can see a cross section of the 2005 W1 (black line, yellow fill) and another possible W design with hulls twice as wide (dotted line) and about 50% more in total width. Such model with a length of 15' instead of the W1's 10' would have a load capacity three times bigger than that of the W1, but it will still be narrow enough (36") to enable paddling with either canoe or kayak paddles (and rowing too, of course). Its L/B per hull would still be 15:1, which is not too bad for a dinghy
Being considerably more stable than the W1 or canoes its size such W model would also make a good sailing dinghy, but it's likely to require a rudder
BTW-- Designers and boat builders interested in the W concept are welcome to contact me through Boatdesign or directly.

Yoav

 

You know, maybe if you made a W capable of motoring or with oar locks, it could serve as a yacht tender.

 

Yep

I agree that a tender would be a good use for W boats.
How about paddling -Don't you think that for most people paddling is as easy as rowing, maybe easier?

Yoav

 

Probably is. Motoring, however, is even easier