On 23 Mar 2004 01:46:47 -0800, (Frank Maier) wrote:

Wa
nna go through the Chinese-fire-drill laundry list to do the same
preparation for a ketch, flying as many as five different sails? Hurry,
hurry, Hercules!

Well, the idea is to have furling on the most used sails: staysail and
jib. In heavy weather, you have the mizzen and a staysail, or maybe
1/3 jib unrolled. Yes, they can be pokey and they don't point well
compared to a sloop, but they have other advantages on broad reaches
and the like. Personally, I don't find another stick a big hassle, but
it's a great place to mount the radar and other bits and pieces.

Oh, and the safety factor or having an extra mast for redundancy, in case
one comes down...? Well, if you'll notice, many ketches use a triatic stay
as part of their rigging. This ties the masts together! If one comes down,
they're both coming down. Twice as much work, even in failure more!

You know, I haven't seen that particular widow-maker on ANY schooner
or ketch outside of a picture book. I agree that they're a menace, but
I can't say I believe anyone seriously uses them anymore.


The ability of a ketch to customize a wider variety of sail combinations
than a sloop is theoretically true. So what? A sloop with a roller furling
jib and some kind of short-hand-friendly flying sail (asymmetrical
spinnaker, cruising 'chute, whatever) is capable of easily and simply
creating a pretty damned wide variety of sail configurations itself.

Yes, with a taller mast, which means bigger main, etc. What I like is
the committed staysail stay, which can be the last sail up in big
wind, and yet is far kinder to drive than a mostly rolled up yankee,
say.

The
"fact" that a ketch can put up staysails in combination with various size
sails on her dual masts, along with various types of jibs, etc. doesn't
necessarily mean that the ketch has a *better* ability to fly the perfect
sailplan for a given condition.

No, it doesn't. But the possibility is there, and I find I can handle
a marginally larger ketch than sloop due to individual sail areas. I
lose on pointing, but gain on downwind. Also, when you comtemplate
less-common options, like a mizzen spinnaker, you can rig maximum sail
for prolonged light-air conditions.

I guarantee that a sloop with a roller
furling jib and an easy-to-handle flying sail will make better time and
arrive at her destination with a more rested crew than a ketch in almost all
conditions, especially if there's any windward work involved.

Maybe. But I would hesitate to make blanket statements of that kind
other than I agree they don't point as high generally.

And by the way, IMO, you should replace your standing rigging every ten
years. Wanna get a coupla cost estimates of the price difference between
rerigging a sloop and rerigging a ketch? Ouch!

Sure, but if anti-ketch sentiments prevail, I'll get a great deal and
will save enough to re-rig, right? G

For the sake of saving me a lot of time, I'll just throw yawls into this
group. Not perfectly appropriate; but good enough for Usenet. For a defense
of the yawl as the only possible "real" sailing rig, see any of Don Street's
writings. He loves his yawl with a passion.

Yawls are great, too, in certain conditions and waters, but I bet
Don's one of the few people who can still sail one effectively. You
see the occasional new ketch design, but a yawl? Not unless it's
custom.

The other multi-mast type of rig, although not mentioned in the OP, is the
schooner. Guess what I think about them? cynical grin

I find a ketch solves most of the problems of a schooner, unless I am
delivering tea from China to Baltimore, in which case I'll go with the
schooner. Recall "Atlantic": schooners are no slouches, or don't have
to be.

snip


SLOOPS

A modern simple sloop is really an elegant setup, especially for
single-or-short-handers. A main with single-line reefing, a roller-furling
jib, and some kind of easy-to-use flying sail give you a rig which is simple
and easy to handle, easy to adjust for changing conditions, and a lot
cheaper than buying all the sails you need to power a ketch through the same
range of conditions.

Well, I *own* a sloop with a beefy rig and a huge (maybe too huge) J
measurement, but I may go with a cutter/ketch eventually, because I've
sailed both and think the ketch has its place. But hey, as long as
we're sailing, I don't care if it's a log with a blanket on a stick.

I can anticipate how you view junk rigs or gaff-rigs...G

R.

On 23 Mar 2004 13:39:41 -0800, (Frank Maier) wrote:


To be blunt, my short answer is, "Yes." Even for full keel, heavy
displacement, low aspect ratio, multi-stick etc. boats, my personal
belief is that passive methods are not as good as active methods. In
shorthand, that'd be "lying a-hull is passe." Like all
generalizations, it's too broadly stated; but again, we're not writing
full-length novels to each other here and we hafta use some shortcuts.

I would tend to agree if only because of the psychological benefit of
doing "something" over nothing. But realistically, the boat, the
weather and the crew would dictate entirely my response, were it mine
to call.

R.

On 23 Mar 2004 19:35:47 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote:

wayne, I personally know a guy who believes it is foolish to sail in winds
above 20 knots.

Well, it is....It's also foolish to bungee jump, use the black slope
while skiing or drive 150 Mph with a motorbike....


Cheers!


Remco

On 3/23/04 6:36 PM, in article ,
"DSK" wrote:

Should I have put a smiley on that last post?
Sheldon Haynie wrote:
Well a properly designed Yawl or ketch does not have excess weather helm as
the Main mast is farther forward than for a sloop.

Maybe it depends on how you define "properly designed." Some of the
yawls I've sailed in company with were old low-aspect sloops with the
boom docked and a mizzen stuck in place.

Well most rig options/conversion are not per se a good design, but a
compromise. In very light breeze, without the mizzen, we can get a lee helm,
sort of a reminder to put the bow down and drive.


Most of those are gone now.
OTOH we have a dock neighbor with a Seafarer 34, originally a yawl, but
now sailed as a sloop, and the owner reports that it handles the same
and that they always dropped the mizzen anyway when beating.


As do we, careful measurement shows faster upwind (there is an oxymoronic
comment for CCA designs) without.


In some of the old advertising brochures, such as the Allieds or the
Cape Dories, you can see the sailplans for the yawl version right next
to the sloop version... is the mast in the same spot?

IIRC the Bermuda 40 was never offered as a sloop?


The B-40 was offered as sloop or Yawl, the mast was raised 2 ft in Mark II
and raised a further 2 ft and moved 2ft aft in the Mark III if I recall.



... And with a centerboard
you can tune to your hearts content, just 125 cranks up to down.

Agreed. One more advantage of a centerboard. Plus you can get it up out
of the way going downwind.

Or come right into the beach at 4' draft



You can trim the mizzen to set a neutral helm on most any reach, or if you
are trying to point higher than about 50 degrees to true wind just drop it.

We set the mizzen staysail at about 80 degrees apparent, similar to the
asymmetric chute in usage. While the mizzen is only about 90 ft^2 (hoist 20,
boom 9) the staysail is closer to 350 ft^2. (Perpendicular about 25 and luff
28 or so) this is 50ft^2 bigger than my Main. (35 hoist and 17 foot)

Nice sail to carry in good winds of 5kts or higher, since it is low set it
is not very effective much below that. It is a very easy sail to set and
strike and trim, compared to setting a spinnaker.

Your leeway will vary.

I kind of like having the mizzen mast right where it is handy. It makes
a nice secure hand hold and a great mounting point for radar. It does
get in the way of the solar panel arch though

Well my mizzen carries the radar, fog horn, various antenna, flags and such.
A Solar arch or davits is sort of a compromise too, handy but not my idea of
a good design feature... Then again many would look at my brightwork and
run.



Fresh Breezes- Doug King


--
Sheldon Haynie
Texas Instruments
50 Phillipe Cote
Manchester, NH 03101
603 222 8652

(JAXAshby) wrote:
frank, I know you won't understand this, but I am posting it anyway so that
other people can laugh at you.
you see, frank, when someone is REALLY dumb they are too dumb to even begin to
realize they are dumb. most usually these really dumb ones -- such as yourself
-- just go right on claimig they personally knew everything it was possible to
know by the time they got out of 6th grade the second time.
got you have gainful employment, frank. wouldn't want you to be a drain on your
country's welfare system.
you may continue to babble, frank.

Thanks. Here's a babble just for you.

Every time Jax opens his mouth, he's as fallacious as a rapper's
chickenhead is fellatious.

A partial list of Jax's most frequent fallacies:

ad hominem and tu quoque: Jax always goes straight to the ad hominem.
If someone else beats him to an insult ("Jax, you're an idiot!"), his
fallback is the tu quoque. "No! You're an idiot!"

ad verecundiam: Then there are all the famous (to him) people he
knows. This constitutes arguing from an authority. "I know a(n
important) guy who says you can sail upwind under bare poles." And the
self-aggrandizing version, "I had sex with a Playboy bunny. Therefore,
I am a desirable person." Of course, we know that one is *kinda* true.
Masturbating while looking at a certerfold is, technically, having sex
with a Playboy bunny.

ad numerum, refined by ad crumenam: The ad numerum gets him to the
ballpark where he wants to play. "Most smart people (in the Jax
universe) believe X." From there, he refines it to an elitist version
with an ad crumenam. "The very smartest people (Jax himself and maybe
God, on one of His good days) believe XsubY." Usually with an ad
hominem thrown in, just because that seems to be his favorite, "But
*you* are a low-IQ prole and couldn't even understand X, much less
XsubY."

ad nauseum: Y'all know this one. "I'm smarter than all of you." "I'm
smart; you're dumb." "My middle name is MENSA." "My IQ is eight
bazillion, based on a test I took once, given by a group which would
get membership dues from me if I scored at least eight bazillion. And
I did!" "Did I mention how smart I am?" And on, and on...

non causa pro causa: Declaring that independent events actually have a
cause-and-effect relationship. "I couldn't find the Gulf Stream.
Therefore, the Gulf Stream is difficult to find." Well, I guess a
psychologist might wanna call that one "transference" or something.
It's the Gulf Stream's fault, not mine.

and frank gladly shows one and all that he is not really, really, really,
really dumb by being really, really, really, really dumb (note the incorrect
usage of the word "transference" he just today found in the dictionary).

frank, I know you won't understand this, but I am posting it anyway so that
other people can laugh at you.
you see, frank, when someone is REALLY dumb they are too dumb to even begin
to
realize they are dumb. most usually these really dumb ones -- such as
yourself
-- just go right on claimig they personally knew everything it was possible
to
know by the time they got out of 6th grade the second time.
got you have gainful employment, frank. wouldn't want you to be a drain on
your
country's welfare system.
you may continue to babble, frank.

Thanks. Here's a babble just for you.

Every time Jax opens his mouth, he's as fallacious as a rapper's
chickenhead is fellatious.

A partial list of Jax's most frequent fallacies:

ad hominem and tu quoque: Jax always goes straight to the ad hominem.
If someone else beats him to an insult ("Jax, you're an idiot!"), his
fallback is the tu quoque. "No! You're an idiot!"

ad verecundiam: Then there are all the famous (to him) people he
knows. This constitutes arguing from an authority. "I know a(n
important) guy who says you can sail upwind under bare poles." And the
self-aggrandizing version, "I had sex with a Playboy bunny. Therefore,
I am a desirable person." Of course, we know that one is *kinda* true.
Masturbating while looking at a certerfold is, technically, having sex
with a Playboy bunny.

ad numerum, refined by ad crumenam: The ad numerum gets him to the
ballpark where he wants to play. "Most smart people (in the Jax
universe) believe X." From there, he refines it to an elitist version
with an ad crumenam. "The very smartest people (Jax himself and maybe
God, on one of His good days) believe XsubY." Usually with an ad
hominem thrown in, just because that seems to be his favorite, "But
*you* are a low-IQ prole and couldn't even understand X, much less
XsubY."

ad nauseum: Y'all know this one. "I'm smarter than all of you." "I'm
smart; you're dumb." "My middle name is MENSA." "My IQ is eight
bazillion, based on a test I took once, given by a group which would
get membership dues from me if I scored at least eight bazillion. And
I did!" "Did I mention how smart I am?" And on, and on...

non causa pro causa: Declaring that independent events actually have a
cause-and-effect relationship. "I couldn't find the Gulf Stream.
Therefore, the Gulf Stream is difficult to find." Well, I guess a
psychologist might wanna call that one "transference" or something.
It's the Gulf Stream's fault, not mine.

On 24 Mar 2004 13:55:27 -0800, (Frank Maier) wrote:


Thanks. Here's a babble just for you.


ad hominem and tu quoque: ...
If someone else beats him to an insult ("Jax, you're an idiot!"), his
fallback is the tu quoque. "No! You're an idiot!"

ad verecundiam: Then there are all the famous (to him) people he
knows. This constitutes arguing from an authority. "I know a(n
important) guy who says you can sail upwind under bare poles." And the
self-aggrandizing version, "I had sex with a Playboy bunny. Therefore,
I am a desirable person." ...

ad numerum, refined by ad crumenam: The ad numerum gets him to the
ballpark where he wants to play. "Most smart people ... believe X."
From there, he refines it to an elitist version
with an ad crumenam. "The very smartest people (...maybe
God, on one of His good days) believe XsubY." ...

ad nauseum: Y'all know this one. "I'm smarter than all of you." "I'm
smart; you're dumb." "My middle name is MENSA." "My IQ is eight
bazillion, based on a test I took once, given by a group which would
get membership dues from me if I scored at least eight bazillion. And
I did!" "Did I mention how smart I am?" And on, and on...

non causa pro causa: Declaring that independent events actually have a
cause-and-effect relationship. "I couldn't find the Gulf Stream.
Therefore, the Gulf Stream is difficult to find."

Wow! Now that's what I call an educational post.
And I know an educational post when I see one.
Nobody better....

:-)

Brian W

"I had sex with a Playboy bunny.

centerfold. also a centerfold from Viva

I know a(n
important) guy who says you can sail upwind under bare poles.

Important? well, he did climb mountains.

My IQ is eight
bazillion, based on a test I took once,

SAT, GCT, Stanford-Binet, proctored Mensa, and a bunch of others.