This may be obvious, but if not, it's worth trying.
When sailing a very lightweight cat for a few years, I found tacking
in five knots or less was quite difficult. At 1200 pounds and 27 feet
with a 14-foot beam, the boat just didn't have enough momentum to make
it through a tack with a light rudder. But with a hard rudder, the
boat just lost too much speed too quickly, stalling at about the same
spot.
The only thing that worked was a turn of decreasing radius, gradually
adding more and more rudder as the speed fell. This eliminated the
major speed scrub at the start, which helped the boat further through
the turn, and then used maximum helm when the speed was slow enough to
benefit from it.
After a season of practice, I could tack 90% of the time in light
winds without having to backwind the jib. Before that my record was
about 20% (tacking in 7+ knots, though, was almost never an issue).
Granted, a season is a long time, but it took a while to find the right
trade-off between turning power and speed preservation at each part of
the turn. In the end it was about the same as the decreasing-radius
curve of a nautilus shell.
I'm not saying this would work on harryproas; there is that lack of
rocker to contend with. But then, the harryproas also have two working
rudders that can provide quite a bit of turning force. Using both,
particularly during the last third of a tack, might do the trick.
The technique at least deserves a bit of experimentation if it hasn't
already been exhausted.
- Mike
Rudolf vd Brug wrote:
No, while sailing we always use only one rudder, the other is fixed in position.Using both rudders may have more steering effect but also slows you down badly.In the end part the lw hull is to be dragged sideways through the water and with zero rocker that takes a lot of force.regards,Rudolf
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