[MHml] rigs

[Gary Pearce]

On Monday 04 September 2006 12:54, John Scott wrote:

> come back James wharram---all is forgiven  

No not all. I do not think he can ever be excused for multihull designs that 
are so heavy that a large number of multihull advantages are nullified.

On the other hand some of his rig ideas are quite interesting. The pocket luff 
sails and gaff on the tiki boats should in theory be quite efficient, while 
the use of vangs from the gaffs of Gaia to control sail twist is quite 
functional. 

In practice a lot of these rigs _look_ quite poor though, but in part I 
suspect this may be due to owner construction or the fact that sailmakers 
rarely get it right first time (and will rarely get a second try at one of 
these).

I must say its amusing to see the latest 12 metre boats (for example) and 
their rectangular planforms and contemplate the similarity between the upper 
battens and a gaff. Perhaps its closer to those little Dutch boats however 
that had the sort of curved coathanger at the top. A modern implementation of 
this sort of thing (in carbon of course) should still have some mileage.

Then of course there is the crab claw but thats another story for another 
day :-)

Gary