cpcanoesailor - 16 October 2013 08:22 AM

I have never seen or heard of anyone sailing to Jan Mayen or the South Georgian islands in a Melges 24 or any other light sailboat.

Check out Roger Taylor and MingMing:
http://www.thesimplesailor.com/voyages.html
I enjoyed his second book too. He’s not crazy, just very pragmatic and disciplined.

No not crazy but an English Exentric if ever there was one (I am English so can say that that) part of his philosophy centres on battening down the hatches most of the time and minimising his exertion to minimise water consumption. This was central to reducing the water required so not to overload Ming Ming on his offshore passages. Personally I don’t sail to be locked in a tiny box and knocked about for weeks on end.

I think Roger has proved that with good steamship amazing things can be achieved in the most unlikely of craft, it is all about respecting the sea.

Tink

cpcanoesailor - 16 October 2013 08:22 AM

I have never seen or heard of anyone sailing to Jan Mayen or the South Georgian islands in a Melges 24 or any other light sailboat.

Check out Roger Taylor and MingMing:
http://www.thesimplesailor.com/voyages.html
I enjoyed his second book too. He’s not crazy, just very pragmatic and disciplined.

To be fair though, the Corribee is a very seaworthy/seakindly little boat.  They’ve been around Britain and across the Atlantic quite a few times.  And while it may only be ~250lbs heavier than a Melges 24 (2000lbs vs 1750lbs) it has much, much higher waterplane loading (16.25ft LWL vs 22ft, and 7.2ft beam vs 8.2ft).  Rough calculations put the Corribee at nearly twice the waterplane loading, and with a deep-v hull compared to a flat bottom.

http://sailboatdata.com/viewrecord.asp?class_id=2892
http://sailboatdata.com/viewrecord.asp?class_id=7011

Long lean light and flat. If you want to sail around the world / then perhaps a proa is not the right boat for the voyage.

A proa can be anything between a heavy tug to an ultralight speed-machine, just like a catamaran can be an AC-72 or a heavy tug boat or anything between.

Both boats in the pictures below are catamarans, but designed for very different uses.
Saying that a proa is the wrong kind of boat for a circumnavigation is just as wrong as saying that a monohull is too fragile and small for carrying crude oil across the oceans based on an afternoon sail with an international foiling Moth. It is a matter of designing the craft for the intended use. 
Saying the word “proa” is like saying “monohull”. It is a class of boats with a special layout. I am sure I can design a proa-submarine or a proa-supplyship or a proa-whaling-ship or a proa-oil-tanker, just as well as a cruising proa or a pure carbonfiber/epoxy foamcore speed-freak. There is no inherent limits on the uses of the proa-layout, except our fantasy and imagination. The proa does not need to be light weight, long and slender to be a proa, just like the monohull does not need to have several tons of lead hanging under the bottom to be called monohull.

Cheers,
Johannes

I have not been following this forum for some months. (I was having a backpacking adventure in Northern California.) But I just got back home and resumed work on my big model, so I thought I’d check in again and see what you all were up to.

This is a great thread. I read every comment with much interest. The deep V shape completely agrees with my experience for a boat that has a lovely feel.

To all that I would add that long overhangs and as much hull flare as practical give you a boat that is both dry and more tolerant of the overloading that working boats tend to get. One of the crew for both of Rod MacAlpine Downie’s Crossbows commented that despite the slim lines, the wicked rake on the bows made for a very dry boat—something that bluff or wave-piercing bows sadly fail at.

Crew comfort is fantastically important for true seaworthiness. There is little suckier than getting cold and wet every time you go out. Fine for a racer, maybe, but for day in, day out sailing? Nah. If you’re not working to a rating rule that penalizes LOA, why go in for fads or stylistic trends?

Also, as far as light weight and load carrying capacity, the two are not—as has been pointed out—mutually incompatible. The U.S. navy has done quite a bit of retrofitting of old ships by replacing steel superstructures with aluminum. Lower CG and greater load carrying capacity in one shot. (Though I’ve heard that aluminum, unlike steel, when shot up by tracer rounds emits a deadly poison gas.

Cheers,
Rick