The 18m proa has had its bum cleaned up and is nice and shiny. The rudders can now be worked independently. Most importantly there are rudder indicators to show the rudder position.
We ordered a good day for some further testing and were not disappointed. We had wind ranging between 20 to 30 kph most of the day.
I have uploaded some video here:
There is a glimpse of the additional helm in the video and if you look really carefully the yellow rudder indicators can be seen on the caps that give access to the rudder boxes.
On the day the GPS recorded a distance just over 50km in about 4 hours of sailing. I did not start tracking until we were well out of the marina heading south. I have posted the GPS track here:
In the afternoon we were beating up into a northerly or NNW with tracks made good 123 degrees apart 0 or thereabouts. We could hold 8 to 10kts under these conditions so 4 to 5kts VMG.
The west and east tracks were either side of Faulkner beacon and I have downloaded the 30 minute average wind data from its weather station. This is included on the speed trace here:
The peak speed of 24kph (13kts) is genuine. It occurred during a gust to 39kph (according to the beacon) when were were in smooth water near the marina. This was the only time the boat was pressed on the day. We had been using the leading rudder for control with the trailing rudder set to produce some lee helm and resistance to leeway. When pressed the boat developed lee helm - opposite to usual. I am not sure why this happened because I was admiring the sheet of water coming off the leading bow of the lw hull. It was sufficient to completely obscure the rudder indicator so it may have been that the rudder was not pointing correctly. Anyhow the boat was easily controlled by straightening the trailing rudder.
We did not try sailing with the ww hull to lee today as we could pinch up and maintain steering speed with lw hull to lee at any time in the conditions today.
The proa is performing close to my polars for it. Reaching at 90 degrees true gives best speed around 80% of windspeed at 10kts wind and a bit higher proportion at 15kts. Best VMG is between 50 to 60 degrees true. Like any sailing boat it takes concentration to get the best from it continuously. We had three helmsmen today all wanting to have some fun and playing around to find their own groove. There are unaccounted issues like the ploughing of the reverse raked bow and the mid-mounted outboard frame clipping waves. With concentration the speed plot would have fewer dips. Also the time lost in shunts can be improved with practice.
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