http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=22944
Cheers,
Earl
I don’t think I like the idea that much. It looks crowded; a 6-foot person would most likely take up most of the cockpit or deck ( I used to have a Force-5, which is 14 feet LOA.)
Agreed. I had a Windmill, 15.5 feet and once had four people in it beside myself. (Very stable feeling then)
You are going to be in the wheelhouse during bad weather, and I would hate to be in that wheelhouse during a knockdown. (Unless I had my scuba gear with me!)
Only capsized my Windmill once, showing off for the camera, but it was capsized three times by friends.
Pete
Ap[at from windage and weathercocking (leg-cocking as well, perhaps), the wheelouse would seem to be a redeeming virtue. In a knockdown, it will (if watertight, windows adequately strong, etc.) it will provide a huge righting moment and a very narrow angle of inverted stability.
It will also act as a mizen. Here in Britain a great many small to medium-sized commercial fishing boats have more or less permanently set mizzens whose sole function is to make them lie ahull comfortably bow-on to the wind.
I started off disliking this little boat intensely, but I find the logic grows on you - so long as you remember the design pameters. What it is like with 4 people on board is totaly irrelevant.
uestions and queries: might it not be better to have 2 very shallow bilge keels sothat it will sit on the beach upright upright and use two bilgeboards or even leeboards to stop it going sideways. The rowing aspect makes low drag very important.
A Mac rig might be practical. If so, it would have tremendous benefits in passagemaing conditions: the ability to be coretly canvassed in the lulls without being overpowered in the gusts will decrease passage times considerably. Remember that in very small boats, fast passages mean safety: there is less chance of getting caught out in something nasty.
Hope this is of interest.
Gents , In reference this Micro cruiser, could a Mac Rig be reefed ?
The sketch shows two sets of reefing points on the gaff rig.
Cheers,
James