Soft Wing Sail

Waterstarting with that teak boom would be problematic. I had my first experiences with an old "luffing board". What a full body workout that was.

Nevertheless, there were guys at the sailing club who just had it. I recall a friend, 10 years younger, who'd grown up on the water. Having won his Windsurfer race, he was sailing downwind back to the clubhouse, standing in front of rig facing forward, arm out holding the boom & smoking with the other hand & bone dry.

 

I thought some had tried these kinds of rigs on class catamaran racing, and the problems in handling became a greater disadvantage than the aerodynamic gains.

Lets go back to Gary Hoyts Freedom rig, a sleeved battened sail wrapped around a free standing mast, cat rig ketch configuration. These later devolved into simpler conventional booms without the sleeved sail, but did prove the value of the free standing rig and ease of sail handling. Especially since the ketch layout could be properly balanced CE to CLR indifferent to say Nonsuch cat boats.

Again one of the main arguments to devolve was in handling sails which showed higher resistance in hauling and reefing for the (older) population most attracted to these rigs. Other practical problems occurred too, in that over time the expensive masts had seemingly inconsistent cracking crazing problems on the laminate surfaces.

Still I think the devolved (small f) freedom rig shows benefits worth exploring particularly for the cruising community, and in my heart of hearts that is where I want to go.