Luc,

  If someone wants a tri, they should get a tri, because a Harry is always going to lose the tri comparison.

  I don't say that to be flip -- the tri is just going to be better at traditional accommodations and tacking because it only goes in one direction.


TACKING

  Setting up the sheets for tacking on a Harry would be simple.  You could use snatch blocs on the leeward hull in order to control the sails from "aft" when doing a tacking race, and then use the standard blocks/winches the rest of the time.

  The problem is with weight location.

  The tri can afford a nice wide hull in the aft area, and then concentrate crew and engine weight there in order to compensate for the sailing loads, balancing out the boat with a shorter and narrower bows that don't have to resist pitching (as much).  As a result, these hulls can also have enough rocker in them to allow for tacking.

  The Harry has to keep its weight in the center because it goes in both directions.  A design where both ends are wide and buoyant wouldn't work as a fast multihull, and would have the added problem of the crew having to shift weight from one end to the other when shunting as a proa instead of tacking.

  So the Harry ends up with the long hulls with little or no rocker, allowing the bows to slice through the water while also preventing pitching, but also making it more difficult to tack.


ACCOMMODATIONS

  Tri interiors can be convenient in the sense of having a central table. 

  You could do that in a proa, but would have to balance the windward extension with the total folded width.  The wider you make the extension, the narrower the beds become, and it's difficult to move them to the ends like two v-berths because the hulls get so narrow as you move to the bows.

  The "typical" harry design allows for big double or queen beds, supported over the beams, with a place beneath for the beams to fold.

  Maybe there's enough of a compromise to where there could be enough of an extension to windward to allow seating on both sides of a table -- one side on a bunk, perhaps with a flip-up cushion/back, and the other side on the bump-out to windward -- while still keeping the large beds and a folded width small enough for trailering.

  The Exhilierator 40 takes another approach, turning the two beds into a huge saloon for a fast, lightweight, trailerable multihull.  I don't think there are any tris or cats that can compare.

  It lacks a head compartment in the windward hull, but the design could probably be massaged to allow for a head and a slightly larger galley and still keep to a trailerable width.  Or, if that just won't work out, it could at least maintain a transportable folded width under 10' wide (trailerable in the US with a wide load permit, but not requiring lead or chase vehicles).


HARRY CAT

  You /could/ create a foldable trailerable tacking catamaran with the accommodations to one side, like the Harry windward hull.  You'd just move the cockpit and saloon/bed area father back in order to balance out sailing loads and allow for some rocker.

  I was planning on doing this at one point, being impressed with the Cat2Fold design (http://www.cat2fold.com/), but not wanting to be restricted to bunks that were 4' wide with a wall on both sides.  Just make one hull wider, or have an "overhang" under which the other hull can slide when folding...

  But then I found the Harry's, which do that while offering other significant advantages.

  Personally, I'd love the convenience of sailing the boat in unidirectional mode.  But I don't think I'd be willing to give up the other Harry benefits of that really long leeward hull combined with the righting moment of keeping accommodations to windward. 

  I also wouldn't want to give up the ability to shunt.  Tacking is fun, and in a fully-crewed boat, pretty fast.  But if you don't have several hands on deck. tacking can get pretty hairy.  If you're singlehanding with a highly-canvassed light multi, just about 8 knots of true wind is a  great day.

  But what if the wind pipes up to 30 knots or drops to 2 knots, and you're pinched between a shoreline and an island or ferry?  At that point the ability to safely change direction and keep clawing to windward, without risk of disaster or the need for crew, is priceless.

---

  So I'm personally sold on the Harry design, even if it isn't as good a trimaran as a trimaran.

  My biggest glitch with the proas is now down to autopilots and navigation lights.  But given how much less it would cost to build an Ex40 than it would be to buy a Dragonfly, a second autopilot and set of nav lights is probably a non-issue.

  But I will admit to looking at used Dragonfly's once or twice a year.  They are simply a great design.

        - Mike

 

I follow your reasoning robriley.

Schioning offers kits. They are comparatively despite the use of flat panels very complex to build compared to what an HP could offer.

To hook onto the gestalt of tris one could as well build a ww hull fusing two front halves of a regular tri central hull butt to butt with an entrance to the side. For the same boat length the interior space is 30% longer in the HP. The superiority of the longer lw hull is the obvious.

How hard would it be to reconfigure the sheets and so to allow tacking for round the can races ?