| Perini Navi | 88M | "Maltese Falcon" | 2006/23 |

How do you tack a vessel (cat or mono) with a single mast dyna rig? in higher wind speeds and wave heights?

I understand Maltese Falcon has to back her sails on the foremast to come about in anything more than flat water.

I guess that would depend upon what you refer to ashigh wind speeds and wave heights, if it were really high in both cases I would guess tacking was out of the question and gybing would be the way to change course by sail.

It used to be standard practise for old square riggers to need to back the head sails to aid a change of tack, don't see why it should be that much different on a big new cruiser.

You are correct lobo, it can present a problem with a single masted dynarig. This might be even more noticable on a multihull vessel that doesn't have that weight inertia to carry herself thru the tack. Likely the mast would require very quick rotation. And/or maybe a headsail adaptation.

Here is the tacking manuver for MF as described by one of her crew in an earlier posting:
Tacking Big Bird
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/36088-post164.html

Thanks Brian for the link, I had seen that tacking procedure explained in a Perini Navi drawing before.

Probably best then to reserve the dyna rig for multi-mast applications, and not burden a single-mast setup with additional complexity from foresails. And go with proven conventional bermuda rigs, or maybe aero rigs, for our smaller yachts.

Absolutely, as long as you have more than one mast with square sails ....

Improving Sailing Qualities of Square Rig Ships

Not a bold approach...be adventurous like Tom Perkins in building the Maltese Falcon when MANY naysayers said don't.

Perhaps there are some lessons here?

BRIGS AND POLACRES WITH WINDWARD ABILITY
(Improving the sailing qualities of square rigged ships)
Philip Goode, A.M.R.I.N.A., I.Eng.
http://www.yachtingdirect.com/white_papers/philip_goode/weatherly_square_riggers.htm

A bit too adventurous for my liking, to sign up for a single stick dyna rig – knowing that you can only make it tack properly by later adding a foresail to the sail plan.
Adventure factor might become acceptable, once you get to a (beyond my) size range where 2+ masts begin to make sense.

Vaguely related question: very few bermuda rig cruising catamarans have in-boom furling mainsails, quite different from monohulls. Any special (cat related?) reason for that, beyond general weight reduction efforts?

In Estonia they were using wooden sails already in the late 1930:s...

In-boom verses Stackpack

In general the multihull vessels are utilizing much bigger roaches in their mainsails, and full length battens to support those roaches. The upper battens are most often not parallel with the boom and this would cause lots of problems with in-boom furling.

In-boom furling is not as straight forward as it might be supposed. The 'stack pack' system garnered greater use in cruising multihulls.
http://www.doylesails.com/cruising/stackpack/index.html

There are other reasons for this less popular use of in-boom furling on multihuuls, but it might get into significant more discussions.

Interesting AMG, is that first photo really a rigid wooden sail?

I am not sure, as this is from an old article. They had both combined wood/fabric and wood with thin veneer. Seen from above, the sail has a symmetric wing profile. They were better upwind than downwind compared to normal sails.

At the time they were common and they were convinced that wooden sails should replace the white on all boats...

Amaryllis Experiment

Looks to be some sort of thin membrane material that needed battens to help it with aero shape...both horizontal ones and one vertical one

But it goes to show you there was lots of experimentation going on even in those early days of sailing. Sometimes it hard to convince sailors to accept new ideas

..ie:
" I can with a good whole-sail breeze, boat to windward faster, by a mile an hour at least, than any other sailing vessel afloat." -Nathanael Herreshoff , the infamous yacht designer speaking of his revolutionary 25' catamaran design, Amaryllis.
.....the year, 1876

Youtube Video

Haven't been back to this subject in quite some time. Just happened across this nice youtube video of MF:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSE87_PadA8

David vs Goliath

I'm a wee bit late reporting this news, as somehow I was totally unaware of it :?:. I must have been somewhere in outer space.

Maltese Falcon vs Gunboat cat




...excerpted from the start of the TransAtlantic 2011 Race..
Newport, R.I. USA (June 29, 2011) – This morning, the tension was mounting dockside as 14 yachts made final preparations before they took the second start of the Transatlantic Race 2011 in a spectacular scene full of drama.

While the first start of the day produced some high drama, the start for the two yachts in the Open Class was just as extraordinary. As the magnificent 298’ Maltese Falcon unfurled acres of canvas and entered the starting area, the Gunboat 66, Phaedo, owned by Lloyd Thornburg (St. Barthelemy) was dwarfed in comparison. Phaedo is one of the world’s most head-turning maritime creations and the carbon fibre, Lamborghini-orange catamaran has become one of the most well-known yachts on the regatta circuit. However, the spectacle of the Art Deco giant, Maltese Falcon, dominated the proceedings, announcing its intentions with a bone-rattling blast of colossal air-horns to warn spectator yachts that they were about to tack for the line. It was a full five minutes before the three rotating rigs, each weighing 30 tons, completed their revolutions and Maltese Falcon heeled over bound for the start of the Transatlantic Race 2011. Phaedo, however, was far more exuberant and timed the approach to perfection, coming up under Maltese Falcon. At first they were caught in the enormous wind shadow of their leviathan nemesis, but as Phaedo came out of the wind hole, gasping for air, the crew onboard hauled in the sheets. Pulling the trigger, Phaedo accelerated away from the opposition, but not for long. Weighing in at an unbelievable 1110 tons, Maltese Falcon soon overhauled Phaedo and the rest of the fleet in today’s start, achieving a boat speed of over 14 knots.
http://www.transatlanticrace.org/news/53-2011-news/297-ocean-theatre-dramatic-spectacle.html


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIWmgjlK2bM

The early portions of this you tube video show some of the sail handling gear in action, and a few model, and small vessel experiments in tacking:

Perini Navi - SY Maltese Falcon 88 meter - YouTube

...don't think I'd seen this before

A Stayed Dynarig concept

I had previously posted this reference discussion by Philip Goode on 'weatherly square riggers'.

Just today I ran across his discussion of a 'stayed dynarig':

Most practical proposals for sailing cargo vessels today are based on the Dyna-rig developed for that purpose in Germany in the 1960s and brought to outstanding culmination in the rig of the 2007 built Maltese Falcon. This rig is based on a rotating mast, the yards being fixed to the mast and rotating with it. This means that the masts had to be unstayed, leading to enormous cost not only in the bearings at heel and deck partners, but also in producing a spar strong enough to bear the bending load.

What brings Goode’s design into the realm of commercial viability is that, instead, it utilises a rotating mast stepped on deck and supported by wire rigging. The spar can thus be much lighter and, aside from a thrust bearing at head and heel, there are three simple bearing collars along the mast’s length. Practical experience of the 226gt sail training vessel Pelican of London has shown that lateral staying of the mast can be safely carried out by backstays which are anchored much further aft than usual and do not hinder horizontal yard swing until the yards reach 20º from ship’s centreline. Because none of these backstays hinder the yards, there can be as many of them as required. Even the conventional lower shrouds, which would normally be in the ship’s transverse plane, can be replaced by backstays to the lower hounds.

...more here...
The Motorship - Hybrid square riggers - the ultimate green ships?

Combination of Fore/Aft Headsails with Square Sails

T.S Pelican - The story so far - PART 2 - YouTube

Lunch with Tom Perkins

Rather interesting little article that has just appeared in the May 2013 issue of ShowBoats magazine.
"From Sailing Dinghes to a Game Changing 289-Footer, Tom Perkins' Yachting Life Mirrors His Meteoric Rise in Business"





One little aside I found interesting as well was 'his attraction to classic and performance cars;

"While I owned them, I really loved them, but when I sensed that the bottom was about to fall out of the market, I sold them all for vast sums of money. It was a good decision. Today I own just ONE classic, a 1954 Gullwing Mercedes 300SL in perfect concours condition"

I've had that same attraction for that particular car
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/yachtforums-yacht-club/3992-off-topic-winter-wheels-whatever-27.html#post110852

http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/yachtforums-yacht-club/3992-off-topic-winter-wheels-whatever-27.html#post110709

http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/yachtforums-yacht-club/11874-anyone-here-own-any-exotic-cars-8.html#post100570

http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/yachtforums-yacht-club/11874-anyone-here-own-any-exotic-cars-4.html#post83550

super video

Super video with great music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3fojxll0VM