[MHml] bi-plane rigs

[Ross Blair/Peta Cave]

Hi Everyone, I have been following the talk on the bi-plane rigs and thought I might relate my observations from sailing against one.
I sailed with Mark Pescott in the King's Cup regatta (Phuket, Thailand) on one of his Firefly 850 cats. (www.markpescottmultihulls.com) if you want to see what they look like. 
One of the competitors was a Schionning designed Radical Bay 8000 with the bi-plane rig. 
Conditions over the 5 sailing days varied between 5 to 10 knot days to 20 to 25knots on the Ko Racha race which is about 28 nautical miles and a reach both ways. On one of the lighter days the race ended up being about 4 hours long and we had to beat the Radical Bay by around 1 and a half hours on handicap. We worked hard and won the race on handicap by 0.38 of a second on corrected time but to have to win a race by an hour and a half is a bit ridiculous. They were no where to be seen when we crossed the finish line. The OMR handicap favours twin rigs as the second mainsail is only measured at 50%, a legacy of the days when ketches and yawls were still around. The twin rigs worked quite well in breeze above 15 knots and they were hard to beat on handicap on those days but they suffered badly in light airs. We observed that the leeward rig gets blanketed a bit on a beam reach but not as much as you would think. This would be worse on a heavier displacement cruising boat, (that particular Radical Bay weighed 1100kg). I was fairly impressed with its tacking ability. It tacked fairly quickly although on the few occasions we cover tacked we noticed the Firefly was faster through and out of the tack. Mind you there are few cats that could tack as well as us. The other observation was that it was a very boring boat to sail, as there wasn't a hell of a lot to do around the bouys. We had kites to launch and jibs to drop at the marks and all they did was ease or trim the mainsheets. Not what you would call an adrenalin rush.
I guess my point is, that it certainly would have it's advantages on a cruising boat (ease of handling, etc) but it is not the ideal all round rig, especially for those of us that want to cruise in comfortable conditions ie; under 15knots of breeze, unless you have  light, easily driven hulls. One might find the auxiliary gets used a bit more.
By the way we won the racing multihull division that year.
Cheers to all, Ross Blair, Mark Pescott Multihulls.
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