Here's a soft single skin wing sail cheap, easy to make, easy to rig, easy to reef, and points and sails fast to windward also sails pretty fast on a broad reach too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-4l0Maqtwc
Here's somthing alittle more complicated but still would be easy to reef the fore and aft sail. Keeping small wing sail in middle up all the time. Rotating small wing to windward to reef as needed. This rig and boat sails up beyond the eye of the wind once its apparent wind is reached. With or ( without ) its steering boards in place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ily0YqOBFR0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgGEB3ExEKQ
Todd
--- In harryproa@yahoogroups.com.au, Mike Crawford <jmichael@...> wrote:
>
> Tim,
>
> I agree that ugly, fast, and high-pointing is better than ugly, slow,
> and slow to windward. If I used a junk-based rig, I'd personally go
> with a higher-aspect wing-shaped rig, not the shape that Fercot is
> using. It works for him, especially with the biplane mast setup, but my
> goal would be to have a single, taller mast.
>
> You've got a point about the journey, especially with a soft wing
> sail. No one has come up with the ideal soft wing yet. Everything is
> either really expensive, difficult to reef, too complex to operate, or
> all three. Fercot is the closest I've seen, and after many good points
> made by others on this forum, I'm convinced it's the best yet.
>
> But best yet doesn't mean perfect for any given use. In my opinion,
> boats cost too much to put up with a homely rig. Perhaps Fercot's rig
> can be modified to be even simpler and/or prettier./ /
>
> I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
>
> - Mike
>
> / /
> On 6/25/2010 6:24 AM, kimberlydreaming wrote:
> >
> >
> > Builder was Multihull tecnologies group they were always getting
> > written up in Australian multihull magazine so seemed like a safe
> > stable option, Yeah right ! Id actuall been looking at Jonh the
> > harriet builder in china but baulked at the potential risk. After it
> > all went pear shaped Rob even commented that at the time he thought i
> > was being too cautious getting the build in Oz .
> >
> > Mike thanks for the link id come across only one poor photo of that
> > rig before. I supposed at the end of the day it will come down to
> > there only being so many practical ways to do a soft wing sail, of
> > course we all think our idea is one of those ways. Beautifully
> > finished Wharram though to be honest i think the rig is actually quite
> > ugly although ugly, fast and high pointing is infinitely better than
> > ugly slow and poor to windward .Its good to see the execution of the
> > frames though and its given me a few things to pursue. Im by nature a
> > bit of a mad scientist so its as much the journey as the destination.
> >
> > Hi Robert i just hope you can jet some use out of the bits although
> > calling them hulls is a bit of a stretch .
> >
> > Cheers Tim
> >
>