I recently got some help and advice from Paul McKay on fitting an AeroJunk rig to the Buccaneer 24. He came up with a sail plan, slightly reduced from the stock area, but with the lightweight of the tri, he thinks that this should give us plenty of sail area for "normal" cruising compromised light air performance but its all a compromise ha. This will allow me to keep the mast in the "stock" position and away from the terribly narrow bow of this small trimaran. Thanks again Paul, I know I will have more questions for you as I move forward!

Next steps will be figuring up the reinforcement needed to convert to a freestanding mast. I attached a drawing that shows the location of the bulkheads in a previous post if anyone wants to look to take a look at that. I am thinking, now that the mast would be coming down through the cabin roof (onto or just aft of an existing major bulkhead that supports the existing stayed mast.) Going from bow to stern you would have Bulkhead 4a/b, mast step (added for new unstayed mast), then the Centerboard or dagger board case. 

Any advice on reinforcing a cabin roof to take the mast loads? Just add more roof beams/ beef up the section of the existing ones?

Thank you,

-Morgan

Arne, thank you for the reply, and for the scaled master sail plans that you put out. Those are very helpful.

Attached is a three view of the boat, and a few photos of a Buccaneer 24s interior showing the area where the mast currently sits, and also where it would potentially move forward to.

I do like the fact that the mast height is reduced, while still having the ability to get sail up high for light airs. 

The plans say that the LOA is 24'  (7.32m)

One of the reasons I am interested in the Buccaneer 24 as a build is the efficient use of materials. The bill of materials is very similar to the Eco 5.5's (as far as ply gos.)

The junk rig would have the advantage of no standing rigging, so that would be a weight reduction from the 7x19 wire down to the chainplates. The halyards and netting supports are also spaced as wire rope in the plans, so replacing those with modern lines would also drop a little weight.

You can see on BUC PLAN 2.pdf there is a frame (#3) where the mast would be moved forward to. Does anyone have any thoughts on the mast lead on a trimaran? Would the drag from the leeward float be enough to keep the mast in its current position?

-Morgan

Morgan Welch wrote:

Yes, I have also been interested in a few of Bernd's designs. It is depressing to see that the projected load carrying ability of the eco 6 is more than the Buccaneer 24 would be even built light.. (from a standpoint of wanting to build the tri.)

What are your plans for sailing the Eco 6? As in, just protected waters, or more? I dig the design, was wondering how it would be with a "minimal" cruising load. Because of the short length..

-Morgan

I plan to do only coastal cruising in the Eco 6. I think it would be a brave sailor who took it offshore. All of those small multihulls have a fairly minimal payload, so cruising on the Eco will be only a step up from back packing. If you are interested in the potential of small multihulls check out the Kindle book - Travels with Miss Cindy.

I will post some photos of my progress with the catamaran again soon. The hulls are now finished apart from the 'fun' job of fiber-glassing. It has been a fairly easy and enjoyable build so far.

Think hard about catamaran vs trimaran. To get any decent payload and space in a small trimaran you will need to go bigger than 24 feet. John Marples has some small trimaran designs which are worth looking at. I partly chose the Eco 6 because of the very modern look with the inverse bows. There is also something quite 'organic' about the design. I am going to keep mine light so it performs well.

Morgan wrote:

Also, are you building the ECO 6? Sarah and I were also very interested in that boat as well. I think he has a Gunter rig plan for that boat too.

-Morgan

Yes, it is the Eco 6 I am building. I settled on this design after considering a lot of smaller catamarans and trimarans. Although the Buccaneer 24 still looks good after all these years it is a lot of boat to build for not much accommodation. Even for a small catamaran the Eco 6 has quite a comfortable interior. Some of Bernd Kohlers other Duo designs would be easier to build than the Buccaneer, have more commodious accommodation and would lend themselves to a junk sail in each hull. Worth thinking about.  

David, I got ya! Try number two for a sail plan attached. Used a higher aspect sail plan this time. The scales are the same between the printed hulls and the sail. (Well as close a I could get printing the sail at different scales and checking it against the 7.3 meters LOA of the Buccaneer.

The CLR using the cut and fold method is right on the aft end of the dagger board.

In Practical Junk Rig, it says, " The balance of multihulls is affected by two special factors: they heel very little, but when they do heel the leeward hull or float develops increased drag at a point well to leeward of the whole rig, and may tend to produce lee helm."

Then in the next section on lead it says, " If it is placed too far forward, she will develop too much lee helm."

So I am wondering a few things with the Junk Rig on a tri..

• Do you really need to move the mast forward all that much on a multihull?

•Should you carry slightly less sail area than the "Stock" rig when the stock rig is designed for more performance, and the boat is extremely light? I.E. instead of carrying 10% more, maybe 10% less? Take the hit in performance, but really make it more manageable when the boat has been described as sailing a bottle rocket.

Thoughts?

-Morgan