"Anyway, all this is armchair theories until it has been tested."

I believe it's worth you working out how to brail the sail to the mast but in my real life experience I know I'd prefer to roll up the whole rig and stow it if I had to row upwind in any sort of breeze. So if you can make it easy to de-rig and easy to brail then it's a winner.

 Halibut is getting interesting! We had a Malcolm Goodwin "Toad" nutshell pram on the sea for many years. Our daughter has it still, on an inland lake. It has a very heavy sturdy balanced lug rig. Thinking about my experiences in it, such as reaching across the bay, about two miles, in a force six, I wonder if you really need to be able to reef? You just get your COG down low and hold on for dear life and bail like billy-oh.  A lug sail on this scale is also very easy to put on whichever side of the mast you like, would that be possible with a simplified junk like Arne is suggesting? A dipping-chinese-lug.  If there are too many strings involved which prevent this it might be an indication that a junk is too complicated and a balanced/standing lug might be more appropriate. The little junk is obviously more fun though so must be tried.

Arne will be delighted to know that we upgraded to a Norwegian Pram, about 11.5' built from plans from Wooden Boat. I think it's the best little boat you could wish for.

Anonymous wrote:

“Halibut Special”

Now I got the idea to try a fully fanned 3-panel JR for Halibut, essentially the top-section of the sails I usually draw. I have found that the top section of my sails are so efficient that they deserve to be tried alone on such a little nutshell. This will give a sail of half-decent sail area, which will reef well in two stages. The running lines will just be the sheet, halyard and lazyjacks.

The boom has been shortened to avoid sheet tangles, and the sheet goes to a boomkin long enough to sheet the reefed sail or bundle to the centreline.

The procedure of stowing the sail should sound like this:

• 1.      Let go the halyard to dump the sail into its lazyjacks.
• 2.      Haul on the running lazyjacks to raise the sail bundle and pin it to the mast. Longish batten parrels make this possible. Cleat the tail of the lazy j. at the mast.
• 3.      Bring the sheet inboard,  reeve it around the sail bundle and cleat it off on the mast.
• 4.      Unstep and lower the mast.
• 5.      The boomkin may be taken in at leisure.

With a little practice, this should be doable within 60 seconds, which is the maximum I would tolerate.
One may well row the boat with the mast erected and the sheet in place. When clear of the beech, the lazyjacks are cast off, the sail hoisted and then one is under way (.depending a bit of wind direction and choice of leeboard and rudder/steering oar...).

I kind of like this rig.

Arne

I drew an 'all-fanned' dinghy rig a long time ago. I think the idea should work, but have never made one.

The worst part of these little dinghy rigs is trying to row with the sail bundle knocking against one's head. So, how about simply taking your reef upwards via the lazyjacks, not unknown in JR circles, and then brailing the sail to the mast in the same way? Do you even need a halyard, then? 

Anonymous wrote:

I don't think it is off the topic Howard - after all, you are talking about a tender. And "out of left field" ideas can sometimes bounce around quite nicely. Its a clever idea - but it does seem to me a bit like a solution looking for a problem.

A tender is a load carrier in its own right - so most likely it will be a bit beamy and stability under sail shouldn't  generally be a problem, I would have thought. It doesn't need more stability, what it needs is more waterline length, and I don't know how you would get that. Attaching an outrigger to a stumpy little tender might just kill its already meagre prospects dead, as a sail boat.

Talking about something else, maybe something longer and lacking stability, might be a better application for your idea (though I think I would want to keep the oars out of the equation, they might be needed and it would be inconvenient to have to dismantle your new proa in order to negotiate a calm patch. Dual purposing is great - sometimes - which is why I am impressed but not yet quite convinced about David's thwart/off-centreboard idea - or Arne's thwart-cum-fish gutting board (but that might have been a bit of humour)).

I saw a skinny little trailer boat in Tauranga (Katikati river) a couple of weeks ago - it might have been a little keeler with the keel lopped off, anyway the owner had busted up an old hobie catamaran and stuck one half of it on each side, with a reasonable little deck structure and hey presto - a trimaran. I should have taken a photo of it. That seemed sensible enough.

I consider a tender more than just a way to haul food, water, and fuel and your butt from the boat to shore and back again.  The whole point of being able to sail it.... at least for me would be to be able to wander away from the mother ship, and explore the surrounding area.... further than you want to row, and have some fun doing it.  You are right about the oars.  There are some short fat little plastic kayaks I've seen that are pretty small, and even so in my experience it takes almost nothing to drive a kayak.  The idea is that you can carry more sail less chance of capsize.  Less skill required to keep it right side up.  Sailing dinghies seem to spend a fair amount of time upside down ;-)  I've never owned or sailed one.... mostly just seen kids racing them so excuse my ignorance.   In any case the outrigger would be an option you might use when you felt like it.   There is also the remote possibility that you might have an option of using it as a "life dinghy" as an alternate to resorting to the "death raft".

     In the reverse of the keeler cum trimaran, I know someone who built a catamaran from  two trimaran center hulls.  Also Richard Wood sells plans for several trimarans using beach cat hulls...........or build your own.  And then there's Vitamin Sea, a J-24 converted to a trimaran..... You can find articles on it and a Utube..... If you can dream it, somebody's done it  ;-)

                                                       H.W.