wrote in message
ups.com...
Several navies have introduced SWATH catamarans and found benefits like
high speed, stability, and fuel efficiency. Worthwhile advantages, yet
no sailing versions of the SWATH concept seem to have emerged. Anyone
know of any examples sailing anywhere?
Reducing the scale of these military vessels down to regular sailboat
sizes would create a very tender boat since each hull would be only 50%
buoyant. So beefing up to perhaps 100% in each hull would be a first
design step. Apart from this pre-requisite, I see no serious drawbacks
to creating a superior performance and wave-piercing catamaran.
Anyone care to differ, ... or offer further design refinements that
might help make this the catamaran of the future ?

SailNut.


I suspect that the required size and strength of the rigging would prohibit
the success of a SWATH cat. Fully submerged hulls would have serious mass,
requiring a LOT of force to move. Further, the vessel remaining more or less
stationary relative to pitch and roll would mean that wind forces could not
be spilled by heeling -- not even to the (relatively) limited extent of
regular catamarans. So I envision ever-increasing sailplans requiring
ever-more-massive rigs to control them spiraling ever-outwards until the
physical structure of the vessel itself is incapable of containing them, all
just to travel slower than a rowboat.