[MHml] Radical Bay

[Bill Gibbs]

 Ross,
What are the ratings for the Firefly and the Radical Bay?  Are these
time-on-time?  Or time-on-distance?
Assuming the raters to be half way competent, these ought to be a good
indication as to the comparative speed of the two boats.

I would expect a boat that does not increase sail area as it falls off close
hauled, and the AWS diminishes, to have poorer overall performance.

Bill
Afterburner

-----Original Message-----
From: multihulls-bounces at steamradio.com
[mailto:multihulls-bounces at steamradio.com] On Behalf Of Alan Christoffersen
Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 10:53 AM
To: 'Informed discussion of multihull issues'
Subject: Re: [MHml] bi-plane rigs


	

	Ross wrote:

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.


Thanks for the input Ross. The Whitehavens look very nice - have bookmarked
your site to follow future developments.

>From what you write, I gather that the boats need some added sail area 
>for
light winds, maybe a gennaker or a Code sail?

The rig I'm thinking of will be alot "straighter" than on a Radical Bay, so
a foresail of some kind should be viable.

regards

Alan 

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