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July 2025 Minimus ll By David Omick Minimus II 
Minimus ll is an experimental 24’ (7.3m) catamaran of our own design and build. The most experimental part is her rig, which consists of four junk-rigged sails, two in each hull. We’ve heard her rig variously referred to as a biplane ketch or quadriplane rig. Having previously voyaged in a small catamaran, I knew that multihulls several advantages as tradewind voyaging boats. They’re form stable craft highly resistant to rolling at sea or at anchor, easy to make unsinkable, beachable for independence from haul out facilities and relatively easy to build as long as the design is simple. Combining those advantages with a junk rig’s ease of handling was too tempting a combination to ignore.
We designed her to be relatively quick to build with simple dory shaped hulls and plywood construction. In keeping with the simple build and the intention of primarily off wind sailing, we decided to go with flat rather than cambered sails. Having now sailed her on several trips, on the Oregon coast, parts of Baja California and the Gulf of California, we’re quite pleased with her.
Her self steering ability is impressive on all points of sail. On a downwind course, the two mainsails are spread in a dihedral making her directionally stable. On all other points of sail, the windward mizzen is allowed to feather into the wind like a large windvane. Connecting it via sheets and blocks to the tiller bar, she sails like she’s on rails. It’s such a joy to sit on deck watching her go for hours. Here are links to a couple videos of her self steering: Locating masts for unstayed junk rigs often seems to be a challenge. By breaking up the sail area and thus stresses into four parts, mast strength becomes less of an issue. We used inexpensive aluminum irrigation pipes and they’ve performed well. A further bonus is that at anchor the four masts make convenient anchor points for tying off an awning. Her limitations have proven minor in our use and not unanticipated. A possibly negative issue for some is that she’s a magnet for dock walkers. She gets lots of compliments and even more questions. We enjoy chatting with folks, so it’s a plus on our list. Since she’s largely lashed together, assembly from trailer to water requires a day or two. As a result, we don’t launch unless we have at least a few weeks or more in which to sail her.
On a beam reach there’s some blanketing of the leeward mainsail. Broad reaching or downwind, it isn’t an issue, so the rig is best suited to offwind sailing. She’s primarily a warm water boat, as her small in-hull cabins mean that the crew spends a lot of time on deck while sailing. Our opportunities for sailing her have been somewhat limited in the past few years by medical and other issues (not helped by both of us approaching 70). Except for the latter though, those issues appear to be resolved at this point, so we’re looking forward to more adventures in her, most likely in the Gulf of California and perhaps beyond.
If we were to build another, it would be four sheets of ply in length (32’). At that size, she’d be our ideal voyaging boat and we’d certainly stick with the quadriplane rig. More information on Minimus II is available at this link: http://omick.net/adventure/minimus_ii/description/description.html Our "Boat of the Month" Archive is here, and the forum discussion for comments and candidate suggestions is here |
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Building her was relatively easy and she was nearly finished over the course of one summer.
The junk rig is a joy to handle. Pearl finds it so much more manageable than our previous Bermudan rig. Since each of the sails is small, they’re even easier to handle.
The flat junk sails aren’t well suited for windward sailing. We generally tack through 50-55 degrees, depending on conditions. Coming through the wind was initially hit or miss. Then we added a centerboard and now it’s a much more positive maneuver. The board goes through the center slatted deck and is held in place by two dyneema lines on each side.
Coming back to her overall concept as a tradewind voyaging boat, there’s not much we would change, except perhaps to see her as a prototype for a larger version. |
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