Thanks Robert, I'm really glad I didn't order that book, I woulda been so ticked!

Great links on the foil and shifting ama, thanks, good to know that I can find catalyst magazines here too, found an index online so that'll be really handy :)

Man it just sucks that he can't get a decent price for Nixie, that's a nice boat and from the build thread it looks like he did everything right, I mentioned it to Mark T. he liked the price but he wasn't too thrilled with the location, and he was thinking pounds sterling not USD, so it's about 22% less than he thought.

Hey Rael, thanks to your suggestion of a shunting sailing canoe I'll have a small proa in the water in just a couple days :)

I built a olympic style sculling boat a couple years ago and was about a week from being done when I got really bad tendonitis from rowing, so I stuck it in my garage behind some boxes and did my best to forget about it.

 After I read your post I remembered it and went to have a look, there were a couple little amas I made for my dinghy and didn't like with it, I'm going to glue/screw a 2x2 to them to make them one ama.

Built the mast step and glued in some doublers and reinforcing, and most importantly, came up with a name, Larry, Darryl and Daryl, larry is the fat one :)

Well, glue should be dry, back to work :)

Bill

Anonymous wrote:

Joseph Norwood had a Bolger falcon class proa with one and said it was a dream to handle, self tending for miles and very well behaved. pretty tough to find any real data on it though and buying Bolgers books are pretty pricey, if I had any idea what was in them I'd get them though.

I have the book in which Bolger describes the proa that Norwood built.  As far as I remember, that chapter has little information that is not in Norwood's article in Catalyst, and Norwood can tell you something about how the boat sails.

Anonymous wrote:

I'm trying to come up with a way to put water ballast on a "Sled" of some sort that runs on a track under the deck between the hulls so the skipper could quickly move the ballast further out towards the ama in response to gusts and bring it towards the vakka in light air.

An alternative is a hinged Bruce foil.  You can find the theory in AYRS Catalyst 23.  JRA has a subscription, and you can get them through this site, somewhere.  I have my own subscription, so I haven't checked where.  Videos of proas with hinged Bruce foils, called vector foils by a recent proponent, are at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pK4olWjm2k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWOiF49logI

https://www.boote-forum.de/showthread.php?t=119396&highlight=proa&page=2

Nixe has that foil between the hulls, the model and the daysailer outside of the hulls.  That Catalyst article shows some calculations of the effects that should have.

Nixe is for sale, by the way: www.proa-nixe.ch  Price is quite low, because there is not a big market for proas, and because the boat is in Thailand.

Anonymous wrote:

I've been trying to come up with a way to move the ama fore and aft on the shunts to balance the rig, probably not doable but if one is planning around a folding system for the akka anyway it might be possible, with an unstayed mast anyways.

There is an example here: http://wikiproa.pbworks.com/w/page/14592443/Doug%20Taylor%27s%20variable%20geometry%20proa%20from%201977

Another boat currently being built is a 9.5 metres long proa based on the CLC Boats Madness design, described in Catalyst 51 from page 7.

No Bill, the Crab Claw is an amazing rig that works very well! 

On Why Not? with his single crab claw, I hardly get back winded. On Crystal Clear with her schooner Crab Claw, shunting her without getting back winded was a challenge... The problem was flipping the two sails in synchron, shunting her was hard, single handed was impossible!!!

pulling the yard up with the brailing lines, is not enough... Now one will need to paddle the boat around, the problem is getting the bow through the eye of the wind... 

This can become almost impossible, as the wind builds. The stronger it blows the harder it gets. The high bows are the problem, the same reason that cats don't like tacking, hi bows just don't like going through the wind.... A proa is perfectly balanced backwinded, sail up or down, since it's symmetrical, nothing but the sailor will turn it around. 

Crab Claws??? For a beach proa I wouldn't use anything else! I love crab claws!!!

The next clip "Heavy weather sailing".... Shows my first crab claw, I was making sails on the beach in 20 minutes, using junk battens, plastic and duct tape. Mid February freezing cold, and success!!! first test of A-D Scull (Mr Doi invented it and he shares it on youtube.) and huge success with crab claws! Low stress, powerful and the vid shows, it will generate power no matter how off your sheeting is.

https://youtu.be/xcFH5eThi7s

free standing masts on proas, change the concept completely! Proas are the only multihull that can boast zero aka stress. With the mast on the vaka and a shroud going from masthead to ama, Akas are never loaded, all they do is keep the hulls apart. this is what makes proas, simple and very strong! A free standing mast changes the nature of a proa. The mast will have to be stronger/heavier, the Akas too. The vaka will have to be stronger, where it takes the akas.... It's a nice concept, a proa that can sail Pacific and Atlantic all in one package.... But then what kind of an ama would you put on it? Pacific amas are small and lightweight designed to fly (Russel Browns way of doing things, and I feel he knows his stuff...), such an ama one would not fly when cruising, but it's nice to know one could show off, and fly it at will. Combined with water ballast, the boat could always be sailed in perfect trim, with the ama just skimming the surface. Atlantic amas, are totally different, they are as long as the vaka (a disadvantage in my opinion), because a long ama when sailing to windward in a good chop, will rise to the wave before the Vaka does, like Cats do. Short amas rise with the vaka, or just before is best, in my opinion, as they pierce the wave for the vaka, resulting in a smoother ride and again, minimum aka stress! Aka loads on multies is something one should always take very seriously, because they are huge!, except on proas!

This is my opinion only, telling others "it won't work..." is something I don't do, because I have heard those 3 words all my life, I went on, and usually things did work, finally....

It will work! But what are the costs? will the advantages be greater then the disadvantages?? Or..... Why not just build a tacking outrigger canoe???  

Getting back winded on a proa is never good, and it's frightening when sailing close to land or in an anchorage with other boats or anything that may shift the wind....

A back winded proa drifts helplessly down wind, if there are hazards not far down wind, you're going to land on them. You may not loose the mast, but you have to get out of this situation ASAP...

I have learned to sail Why Not? in back winded mode backwards, once moving fast enough I throw the helm over to windward, he will do a 90 degree turn, his bow will just go through the eye of the wind, the Crab Claw will freely fly away from the mast and you're back sailing on a close reach, ama to windward... Kinda like backing your car out the parking lot in the supermarket, you go straight back, turn 90 degrees, put it in first and drive forward....

James Brett on Free Radical told me he does the same.... He too can get back winded, since he has a stays holding up his mast on both bows of the Vaka. He can't sail in Atlantic mode.

Bottom line, Getting backwinded on proas is part of the package..... Some proas, the bigger ones, may require you starting up the engine to turn them round, the higher the bows the worst it gets, since you have to get that high bow through the eye of the wind.... I learned that the hard way, on my bigger proa Crystal Clear, in a good wind, getting her right way round after back winded, was hard work. All I had was a sculling oar, no engine, high bows, and the worst rig in the world..... A schooner crab claw, that got me in trouble more times then I could count! A Shunter needs a single sail while shunting. Shunting more sails at once is complicated, with one sail, the boat can easily be brought to a full stop. With more sails, one will always keep driving, resulting in back winding during the shunt.... She taught me that the hard way!!!

The best thing to do with her, while battling to learn how to sail her for a couple months on the black sea, was to have the anchor and rode all ready to throw overboard, when ever we came into tight situations.... Finally I got the hang of it, but it took all the four hands we had to do every shunt..... Or else Back winded! A schooner crab claw belongs on a cat, not a proa.

Bill, the AYRS Bolger is a novel idea, but I've never heard of anyone successfully using one. the problem is that the mast is smack in the middle of the sail. The leading edge of the sail is equal to the tailing edge, Junk rigs, lug rigs have a small leading edge and a much larger tailing one.... This helps keep things under balance, I heard about a proa with an AYRS Bolger, that had her captain and crew shitting in their pants on the maiden voyage.... The vessel took off like a racing bike, then suddenly the whole sail would get backwinded, as the leading edge would get caught aback by the wind, the sail would invert inward at the front edge..... The boat would slow, then suddenly the sail would flip out into it's correct position, all at once, race bike mode again the thing would take off like a bat out of hell.... Till wham, inverted the wrong way and the whole rig is shattering and shuddering..... That boat never went out again, her owner sold her, from there on I don't know what happened.

In my opinion what was happening was, as the boat accelerated, the apparent wind that is now coming from ahead, would catch the leading half of the sail on it's leeward side and weathercock it..... Any other sail, under such circumstances would start luffing on it's leading edge, a tug on the sheet will be all that's needed..... 

Oh, and a beer........ 

Anonymous wrote:

 If I do have to have standing rigging I'll probably come up with something that automatically douses the sail if backwinded, after all, the whole point of having a junk rig is safety :)

Standing rigging only to the beams would take a gybe to interfere with the sail.  Standing rigging to the bows of the lee hull would interfere with the sheetlets.  And if that can be avoided, I would still worry about the sail getting stuck on the standing rigging, and not coming down.  I have no practical experience to tell me whether that worry is justified.

Anonymous wrote:

you've probably seen Free Radical wich is so overbuilt I think you could put the sail on either hull and sail atlantic, pacific, or weight to windward if you wanted to, awesome boat, notice the sail is always behind the mast? 

Like a dipping lug?  I don't think so.  At 0:29 on the video, I see the boat as being on starboard tack, being filmed from downwind, and the mast is visible, to so lee of the sail.  At 0:41, the boat is on port tack, with the mast to weather of the sail.