Easy to reef - Gibbons rig. Video.
Monoproa with reefable Gibbons/Dierking sail
I found a small open patch of water, where i could try the sail on my Monoproa… There was very little wind, so its a rather boring video. I can not shunt it from a distance, but it is very easy to shunt it when i have it near by. The reefing system has to much friction. I can reef the sail by hand quite easily, and i think its much easier to make a working full size version, with better bearings.
Cheers,
Johannes
Why not in-mast roller-furling with a wishbone boom? Then there would be no need for splitting the sail.
That is a good idea, but I don’t like the added weight and complexety.
I am not through with this idea yet. I need to work on it a little longer.
I appreciate all the input I can get.
Thanks!
Cheers,
Johannes
Why not in-mast roller-furling with a wishbone boom? Then there would be no need for splitting the sail.
You’d have to attach the roller reefing drum at one of the ends of the yard, and redirect the line to the middle of the yard again. You would need to keep the furling stay inside the yard under high tension, with correpsondingly high compression on the yard. A split sail, with the gap covered by a curved boom, seems simpler to me. And if you want to build it, you can assemble such a rig from a number of commercially available rigs, like those used on Hobies.
You could have a furling drum at either end of the yard, and just use whichever one is the current tack. The supporting mast would have a gooseneck which attaches to the wishbone boom, which in turn supports the yard.
A little while ago Luomanen wrote this in another thread:
I had a thought about reefing; if the yard had a U bolt through it or something like that for the halyard to attach to, you could reef by just rolling the sail around the yard—as long as there were cut outs in the sail for the U bolt to emerge through on each roll. So there would be a row of holes in the sail between the yard and the clew, each the size of the u bolt, each one on circumference of the yard apart.
Does that make sense?
I think this makes a lot of sense!
Today I have started with a scaled down reefable Gibbons sail for my models.
Thanks Luomanen for a great idea!
I like the Crab Claw, but do not like the work needed to shunt it.
The Gibbons is very appealing alternative. The same simple low aspect sail, but much easier shunts…
Cheers,
Johannes
One reef-point done.
It seems to work really well.
I will try to rig my Deep-V proa model and go for a sail soon.
Cheers,
Johannes
Looking very cool, Johannes!
I’ve been grooving quite a bit on that rig as well. No complicated reefing gear (you do it on deck), no mast track and no re-tensioning the luff.
Speaking of which…it might need to get the “clews” retied to maintain luff tension when you reef. You might not, but if you do, it means a trip out to the end of the canoe to do it.
Another approach could be the one that Hobie Adventure Islands use to keep their luff tight as they roll up—rod battens. In this case they’d be parallel to the yard. You can even add some roach (roaches?) to the sail if you have them.
Keep on keeping on!
chris
I know this thought is a long way off what you’re proposing but what I think might be a solution could be worth thinking about. What about a centre board in the middle of the hull (fore and aft). A free standing/rotating vertical main sail only rig, sliding (winched if neccessary) back and forth in a channel in the hull (adjusting CoE). As long as you were able to get about a metre into the hull you should be able to carry around a 7 metre high mast. This sort of set up could also roller furl/reef around the mast.
A bit of engineering would be needed but I believe it would be doable. Something along these lines would go a long way solving the proas Achilles heel - reversing the rig.