Rob
Thanks for sharing your ride. That's a very interesting project. Has the builder shared how much time and money he has in it so far? the finish quality looks great.
Mark
--- In harryproa@yahoogroups.com.au, Rob Denney <harryproa@...> wrote:
>
> Last weekend I sailed on the 18m harry in Melbourne. Many thanks to
> the owner/builder for a great day.
>
> A bit of background:
>
> The owner/builder is no Russ Brown. He knew nothing about infusing,
> flat panel building or sailing before he started, but has a wonderful
> capacity to have a go and try stuff. To put together a 60'ter,
> including building the mast, boom and rudders yourself is an amazing
> feat. To build a boat using a new technique (infused flat panels)
> and to experiement on a 60'ter takes a huge amount of perserverence.
> With all this, he is extremely relaxed, quick to own any errors and
> an all round pleasure to sail with. He also makes a great cup of
> tea.
>
> The boat is not finished, but the bits that are (the galley area), are
> to a high standard. Like my boats, the rest of it is workmanlike
> rather than show room. The time, money and weight savings from this
> approach are appreciable.
>
> It is a big, undercanvassed cruiser and this was only the third time
> it had been sailing with many of the teething troubles yet to be ironed out.
>
> The first impression is how large it is. I am no Beken. The photos
> (in 18m Melbourne Folder in the Photos section)don't give any sense of
> how large, airy and spacious the boat is. 7
> of us on board could walk round the bridgedeck easily and safely.
> Plus the ww hull deck. Equally easily, we could have sat around in
> the saloon. The galley has lots of space, there are 2 double
> queen bunks and a toilet in each end of the ww hull.
>
> The attributes of a harry are: low cost, easy to build and sail and fast.
>
> Low cost: Very. It is built from infused Polycore honeycomb flat
> panels with curved hull bottoms. 4 tons weight including the rig and
> motor (according to the launch crane), with open plan layout. The
> basic boat seems very stiff and strong (no big waves, but no creaks or
> groans), although a few fittings are too light, but this is easily
> fixable. There is probably another couple of hundred kgs of fitout
> (table, fridge, etc) to add. 7 people was a good load, but it made no
> trim difference where anyone stood.
>
> Easy to build: Simple shapes, flat panels, with very few deck
> fittings. The lee hull is 3m/10' longer and a little narrower than
> the Vis and the ww hull 4m longer with fewer curves than the Vis
> cruiser (Rare Bird, 10m). This is by far the biggest harryproa
> windward hull so far. The only slightly complex area is the motor
> arrangement which has an electric lift for the 60 hp motor. The well
> can't be closed off underneath so waves hit it and leak onto the
> bridgedeck. There are plans for electric motors and/or two smaller
> outboards. Under motor the boat steers well and picking up the
> mooring was easy with 2 rudders and a steerable motor, aided by the
> picker uppers being within easy earshot of the helm.
>
> Easy to sail: Not yet, but it will be, once the systems are sorted out. The
> rudders steer well, the connection and the wheels are ok once you know
> them, but took me a while to learn (others were quicker) and at night
> in an emergency would need a clear head. The system uses independant
> wheels mounted on the lee hull either side of the mast and 2 right
> angle gearboxes. There is a little play in the boxes and the rudders
> are only just balanced so there is occasional slop. Steering
> upwind with the front rudder worked a treat. The aft rudder was set
> to give a little lee helm. This had the effect of eliminating leeway,
> which was very obvious when looking at the wake when the boat was
> going upwind. Occasionally there would be negative leeway, with no
> obvious loss of speed, which is something I have tried but not
> achieved on other harys. My photos don't do this justice, but it
> was quite noticable.
>
> Sailing hands off was no problem. The substantial windward
> hull and 8m beam did not generate any significant weather helm once the boat
> was sailing, but in light air it is a problem.
> Shunting was slow (maybe a minute from dump sheet to back on course
> when it went well), but once the systems are sorted out it should be a
> quick single handed operation, the same as on the other boats with
> ballestron rigs.
> The rudders are about 2m (11%) from the ends and judging by how well
> they steered, could have been a lot further inboard. They are not
> liftable, but making them so is on the to do list.
>
> Fast: The long, light hulls are very easily driven. The lee hull bows are over
> half a metre/20" wide at deck level and throw up a lot of water above
> about 10 knots which slows the boat, albeit quite spectacularly. They
> are shaped foam blocks, so easily fixed, maybe even with the boat
> afloat. The below the waterline
> shape is pretty good, judging by the wake.
> The wind, boat speed, track and tacking angles are in the "Melbourne
> 18m" in the Files section. The gps track uses
> 10 second averages of the speed. These are significantly lower than the
> instantaneous speeds read off the gps screen and lower again than the
> "max speed for the day" gps display.
>
> Top speed was 14 knots in 33 kms/hour/18 knots of wind. Best was 24
> in 26/13 knots in 14 knots of breeze.
>
> The sails are not right, nor are the systems to trim them. Both are
> easily sorted. The unstayed mast is very stiff up to the hounds,
> flexes off nicely in the puffs.
>
> One of the people on board was Helena Darvalid, a very experienced
> offshore women racer. Hopefully she is a better photographer than I
> am and she or I can post her pictures as well. Helena's partner, Paul
> Larsen (Sail Rocket, team Phillips and sundry other big multis was
> also aboard, seeing proas from a very different perspective to what he
> is used to! Another was Peter Eagles, who does the
> harryproa engineering. He reckoned the mast would bend about 30% (~5m
> at the tip before it broke. This probably makes the boat impossible
> to capsize from wind loads. Sailing master and performance expert
> Rick Willoughby made sure everything ran smoothly and had a bunch of
> ideas to improve things.
>
> The tacking angle was poor, as the track shows. This was due in large
> part to lack of main leech tension and hence jib luff tension (a
> turning block pin was on the verge of popping out, so we did not
> tension things as much as we could have), and jib sheet tension (no
> block or jammer). Despite this, upwind speed and hence vmg was
> not bad, compared to the mono racers that were around at the
> time.
>
> Conclusion: There are a few bugs to iron out,
> but once they are, this will be a very comfortable cruiser, easily
> capable of sailing at wind speed.
>
> Any questions, let me know.
>