Anonymous wrote:
Let me see if a reply to this post works out OK and then I might be lucky enough to post an image or two that adds to proa possibilities. Fact that a free standing mast is the primary feature of a 'Harryproa' is an apparently good reason to consider the Rob Denny design as a potential junk rig candidate.Then, you need to be aware that a boom of sortss (probably a balestron) is needed to carry the sheet point from end to end, and a junk sail has battens that make the weight of such a boom excessive, besides unnecessary. Certainly a free standing mast can make a proa configuration seem promising, however, a tacker is going to suit battens and junk sheeting way more. Creating a facility to produce carbon composites tubes(for mast, battens and boom) is pretty much the starting point for any junk or wingsail rigged multi with a single mast that is lightweight, so the shunting over tacking configuration is hardly of great importance, except that a tacker is so much less complicated.
I would think a fixed mast (no bearings) with a junk rig and ordinary junk rig boom would work fine, and that changing the sheeting from one end to the other would be a matter of having double sheets... Perhaps a line to the front of the boom to help drag the boom around, as it will be swinging outboard as it's on the leeward hull. A bearing mounted mast doesn't make sense to me in a marine environment. The Ballestron rig does not strike me as a low maintenance rig. A conventional camber panel junk rig with it's fairly small balance percentage would have very little over the deck... ever... on a Harry Proa... most of the sail flying outboard or aft unlike a biplane rig where on many tacks one sail will be flying over the deck, and one outboard.
It is a whole set of problems we are not used to looking at, and there are multiple ways of addressing them.
How lucky we are to live in a time when we have the means to learn about the innovations & innovators at the fringes of our sport / passion.... And we can connect and interact with them half a world away........ a true golden age. I'm of an age where when growing up, the pursuit of knowledge and ideas required "real effort". I laugh remembering the telephone company advertising long distance at a 3 minutes for a dollar! As a child in 1967, I was programming in basic on a computer 200 miles away that took up 3 floors in a university at a cost of $20 per minute of processor time using a teletype with punch tape and an accoustic coupler on a telephone....... Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine where we would be today. Community is no longer a "place" and the people in it, it can span the entire world......... It won't last. Humanities capacity to screw up a good thing is without limit ;-) ..... enjoy it while we can.
H.W.