Hi all,
I haven't pestered people with a new design in a while, so I thought it was about time. I have drawings in Gardner's Layouts/Contrarry Schooner.
The idea of this one is a boat that will fold easily on the water. For that, I am using the idea of a schooner rig with the beams on bearings directly on the mast. This lets me have a really minimal lw hull, with only 2' of bury for the masts, which means that the lw hull can be made from a single 40' x 8' panel, with rob's folding technique.
I am also trying to combine Rob's beam mounted rudders, with Todd's asymettrical rudders. I am doing this by mounting the rudders to bearings mounted on each beam. In addition to kicking up when the rudder hits something, the idea is that the rudders will cant backwards so that they will be balanced in each direction. I would do this by letting the bearing rotate freely for a 60 degree range (+/- 30 degrees from vertical).
I know there have been problems with the rudders not getting pushed to the correct position from the water pressure, so I would tie the rudder position to the boom position. Since the mast/beam/rudder are all close together, this should not be that hard. The key is that the rudder should be canted away from the direction of travel, and the boom is also pointed the direction the rudder should be canted in. So, there could be a mechanical linkage so that when you pull the boom around, it exerts a force on the rudder bearing so that when the boat stops for an instant during the shunt, there would be enough force for the rudder to get pulled back to the correct position.
I am showing the boat on the trailer at 12' width, because it is possible to tow it that way and the lw hull is small enough that it can be tilted to overhang the tow vehicle, just like the masts. This should help tow it like a 30-35' boat, instead of a 40' boat.
For putting the boat in a container, or for towing at 8.5' width, the cockpit can be removed from the main ww hull and all stowed in a shipping container, but it is not easy to do that.
Finally, I don't have all the weights calculated, but from the panel drawing, I don't believe this should weigh much different from a "traditional" harry. If true, then there should be plenty of sail, since the total sail area is 500+ sq ft, as opposed to Harry's 450 sq ft.
I have not done a 3D model or detailed weight calculations. I would hope to get feedback from the members here, particularly on the idears for the folding mechanism and the rudders.
Thanks alll
- Gardner
York, PA