From all the postings on the net, trying to explain proas to people, and from trying to do it myself, I think that I have finally begun to understand the lack of understanding. One of the main descriptions I have seen is that a proa is like a trimaran, missing one ama. I think this gives a misleading sense of the size, since when we talk about a 38' Harry, it is not at all equivalent to a 38' trimaran. I think it would probably be better to describe an Atlantic proa as a trimaran that has both of its amas on the same side, just merged into a single double-length ama. Then say that a Harry is an atlantic proa, except that we put the mast in the ama.
Along with this, I think it would be more clear if we described a Harry as a 9m boat with a 12m ama, instead of a 12m boat. I was just looking at my old 25' trimaran, and realizing that it is pretty close to a harrigami, if you just put both the amas on the same side. What with the unstayed rig, and always keeping the mast to lw, the Harrigami is maybe 10% lighter than my trimaran, but it is a pretty close comparison. If I were to describe a harrigami as a 35' boat, people would get totally the wrong mental picture, until they really understood (which isn't likely to happen).
Anyway, next time I try to describe my raider design, I am going to tell people that it is like a 26' trimaran, except that I combined both amas into one long one and moved the mast over to the ama and see how they react <grin>.
Just a thought,
- Gardner
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