To me the big advantage of the Wharram wing sail is the extreme simplicity of the concept, and the relative performance for the cost. A simple tubular wood (or Al) spar of reasonable weight with conventional rigging, and you get a reasonable performance rig. Not sure how that translates into a boat designed around the potential of a freestanding carbon fiber spar.
Thing about boats like the HP is it is really a labour of love, you are way out on the edge of a certain kind of development, and there really isn't going to be much in the way of testing one out to soften the jump into the deep end. Even if you could, it is doubtful there would be that great an economic case for a boat this unusual. The original examples were relatively small with the big bucks being in the spar, which is like a motor and there will always be some resale available.
Rob has made a long list of relatively in-expensive for type HPs. In contrast, the desire to make liveaboard large format roomarans is not without it's risk. It is also worth considering the strengths of the various types for different services. I like Oram cats, Rob pointed them out to me. He has a certain format, more recently his dream expanded to a world cruising type podcat. But his life remained tied more to the OZ coast, he built a motor cat, and is also resurecting narrow ballasted, in this case slipable narrow cats.
Whatever you think you want, if practicality is to rule, it still needs to fit into your intended environment and use.
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe