Outrigger Junior AKA Going to the Dark Side
I gotta admit I’m in love with the new John Harris/CLC design Outrigger Junior. I don’t think John can design an ugly boat and OJ pushes all of my aesthetic buttons so dead on: from the curve of the beams (and that leetle bit o’ carbon) to the sweep of the sheer and then that gorgeous rendition of a crab claw. But…
It’s not a proa. My fundamentalist side just doesn’t like total asymmetry, both up/down, fore/aft and port/starboard. It jes t’ain’t natural. It’s as if the answer to my proa daysailer prayers winds up not being a proa, after all. These are heretical ideas.
I know that proas are the “theoretically” perfect sailing machine, but they fail all over themselves when theory gets down to practice. Shunting is a pain in the ass, and then in larger boats we have to deal with everything from shunting auxiliary engines to running lights. They make for great racers but for cruising… maybe not. I know that Gary Dierking cut his teeth on the proa, but his outriggers probably get built ten to one over the proas, and he makes an outrigger his personal cruising vessel of choice.
The tacking outrigger canoe comes with a host of advantages such as the ability to use any rig, one rudder, one daggerboard, a real transom, but it also comes with the strange arrangement that the outrigger must act as weighted ballast on one tack, and buoyant “anti-ballast” on the other. There are a few people out there building and advocating tacking outriggers, but they are very few - voices in the wilderness - as it were.
My question is: if you accept fore and aft asymmetry and tacking, are you better off just going all the way with a cat or tri, or is there some intrinsic benefit to the P&S asymmetric tacking outrigger?
I’m the wrong guy to answer since I built an Ulua and a pair of Tamanu hulls and have used them as a cat, tri and an outrigger… But for a daysailer having a rig big enough to feel and be sporty also requires the ability to right from capsize. That’s important for both cruising and for racing. Heretical here, but all three of the other options only have one rudder, bow, etc. Once you go away from the steering oar it kinda makes sense to have a dedicated bow and stern.
Dan
Hi Dan, you’re the man who would know! Of all the configurations you tried, which was your favorite?
But for a daysailer having a rig big enough to feel and be sporty also requires the ability to right from capsize. That’s important for both cruising and for racing.
I’m guessing that the outrigger is generally easier to right from capsize than either a cat or tri?
My question is: if you accept fore and aft asymmetry and tacking, are you better off just going all the way with a cat or tri, or is there some intrinsic benefit to the P&S asymmetric tacking outrigger?
The first that comes to mind is that a tacking outrigger can/should have it’s mast stepped in the hull rather than on a crossbeam which should make things simpler in structural terms (both the crossbeams and the bowsprit, no need for a dolphin striker etc.) and allows the use of an unstayed mast if you want one.
The second is that (in small boats at least), if one is willing to sacrifice stability a little, the ama can be made significantly smaller than a catamaran hull (less than 100% displacement) for reduced windage/weight/cost/etc, with the righting moment generated mostly/entirely via live ballast.
IDK whether anyone is better or worse off with a tacking outrigger over a catamaran, but the concept is not without it’s merits.
What I would love to know is:
1) Is it faster on port tack (ie pacific) or starboard tack (ie atlantic) and by how much? I would have thought pacific until you were overpowered?
2) Does helm balance change significantly or even change from lee helm on one tack to weather helm on the other??
3) Ditto with the rig, How much difference is there between the sail setting properly on one tack and with mast interference on the other??? Presumably, you would have to sail with the rig set up one side first and then the other to balance out the pacific / atlantic variable???
There must be enough experience of these outriggers around to be quite definitive????
The first that comes to mind is that a tacking outrigger can/should have it’s mast stepped in the hull rather than on a crossbeam which should make things simpler in structural terms (both the crossbeams and the bowsprit, no need for a dolphin striker etc.) and allows the use of an unstayed mast if you want one.
That’s a big deal. Maybe not so much for a small boat, but as the boat grows, so do the forces in an exponential way. One of the nice things (IMHO) about OJ is the freestanding mast. But even a stayed rig benefits greatly from being mounted on a sturdy hull rather than a connective beam (like a cat), that then must be made more sturdy to support the compression loads.
1) Is it faster on port tack (ie pacific) or starboard tack (ie atlantic) and by how much? I would have thought pacific until you were overpowered?
My guess is faster on Pacific in light air, and faster on Atlantic in heavy air, and where exactly is the cut-off point between better on one than the other? The play-off between these two modes would create endless fun in match racing.
2) Does helm balance change significantly or even change from lee helm on one tack to weather helm on the other??
Great question, but apparently the answer is… not so much that the rudder cannot easily adjust.
3) Ditto with the rig, How much difference is there between the sail setting properly on one tack and with mast interference on the other??? Presumably, you would have to sail with the rig set up one side first and then the other to balance out the pacific / atlantic variable???
You would think the Sunfish class would have this all figured out.
My question is: if you accept fore and aft asymmetry and tacking, are you better off just going all the way with a cat or tri, or is there some intrinsic benefit to the P&S asymmetric tacking outrigger?
I do like symmetry and I have a hard time understanding the tacking outrigger. I see it as an unsymmetrical catamaran, but I can also see that a tacking outrigger has some benefits too.
If I drop shunting and accept tacking and for and aft asymmetry I would prefer a trimaran. I feel like a multiple personality acting out the last fight in the movie “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” where the three actors are a Wharram catamaran, a Dick Newick trimaran and a Russell Brown proa. The problem is I can never define who is who, since it always changes around depending on who I am at the moment.
I guess I have to build one of each during my lifetime.
Cheers,
Johannes
Hi Dan, you’re the man who would know! Of all the configurations you tried, which was your favorite?
But for a daysailer having a rig big enough to feel and be sporty also requires the ability to right from capsize. That’s important for both cruising and for racing.
I’m guessing that the outrigger is generally easier to right from capsize than either a cat or tri?
No help there. I like them all. The easiest to right must be the outrigger—but I never capsized mine before selling it to Pete. My heavy mast might have made it harder than it should have been, but Pete has it set up with carbon windsurfer masts and a stub rig. Gotta be easy for him now. Cats can be tougher if they are bigger. I never capsized the H18 or the Tamanu as a cat either, but as a cruiser I’m not sure it could be done with weight in the hulls. The low volume amas I had for the Ulua as tri did submerge, but that gave me plenty of time to dump the sheet and I never came close to capsize. I did come close to swamping with 4 adults. Chop was coming over the gunwale aft fo the rear seat in the old configuration. As with the new owner Pete, weight is going to be of increasing importance. Blown out L5 S1 disk in the low back….
I love Gary’s new boat: self bailing, reefable rig, sweet sailing ama shape, able to be sailed, paddled, motored, daysailed, and campcruised. I can see the outrigger jr doing all those things too, but it’s more of a daysailor as it’s currently set up. I do love the centerboard though. If it were my design I’d rig a brailing line like Gary used, maybe set the centerboard off center, add a footwell, and make a folding ama. Or maybe just have Gary do a kitset with CLC?
I like the tri currently being built by a Watertriber that uses the Hobie TI stuff with a bigger volume vaka and slightly bigger amas. I didn’t really like how slow the TI was though. I ended up buying the Strike 15 plans but don’t have the time to build at the moment.
Dan
If this is the dark side, then that’s my side!
John has such a lovely eye for what looks right. I think we have a modern classic on our hands, people! And if it sells in the droves I expect it will/should, we are going to answer a lot about the trimaran tack/proa tack question. Racing will show us what works.
I’d love to see a safety ama of some kind. Maybe there’s a molded bubble under the trimaran tack seat so that it acts like a safety ama for that moment of pause, before the dreaded snap roll. You just ship one molded glass part with the kit. You could do it with plywood, I guess, but it feels easier to get volume out of a curved form. In fact, my inspiration for the idea is the fairing under the outboard leg on Madness.
But 165 square feet! Damn! That’s 15 more feet than two laser sails. That feels like a lot, but it is low. Reefing is already the next big question. Hopefully there’s more innovation that can happen. Zip panels? folded with zippers? Lacing along the center? There’s the reefing system that was on Gary’s blog recently, where they lower the yard a bit. Again—I hope its a big hit so that we get more folks banging those details out.
That said, go big or go home. For lake sailing that could be a hoot. But even lakes get spanky.
I love the stubby, raked, unstayed mast, with big bendy spars. Maybe they figure it’ll just twist off in a breeze.
But its surely harder to stick into the mud than the 26’+ masts on beach cats.
Should it have a footwell? It might be nice. But it looks racy without one; like a racer from a super cool retro-future. Perhaps even one by the Bruce McCall of the proa world, our editor.
I’ll do mine with a bright finish and cut vinyl polynesian flower graphic stripes just below the sheer.
A wetta might be more forgiving than OJ. And off the wind, the wetta has that screecher. But the OJ has to cost 1/4 as much. Plus your loving labor of course.
Definitely a yes on the tiki/surf flower graphics. I’d paint it up like a woody surfboard.
I found this example from Bruce McCall. Seems about right.
My question is: if you accept fore and aft asymmetry and tacking, are you better off just going all the way with a cat or tri, or is there some intrinsic benefit to the P&S asymmetric tacking outrigger?
This may be more than you want to know, but here goes anyhow:
I have built/sailed a Malibu Outrigger and owned/sailed Hobie 14’s and Hobie 16’s. I am currently sailing Dan’s 21’ Ulua rebuilt and re-rigged to suit my own patterns of use.
The MO and H-14’s in Hawaii and the H-16’s, one H-14, and the Ulua in New Jersey
My impressions:
- Almost anybody can right a Hobie 14 - as long as the mast does not fill
with water. But if it does (as in an old mast with old sealing compound)
you aren’t going anywhere until you un-step the mast and roll up the sail.
Been there done that - in the Molokai channel, no less.
Tacking outrigger with stubby mast: the issue goes away.
- I see Hobie’s mast tip floats as a mixed blessing. Yeah, they keep it
from going turtle…. but in heavy air, turtle is what you want to keep
it from blowing away. A guy I windsurf with had to be rescued from
the middle of a local bay after his Hobie did a blowaway on him to
a shore a couple miles downwind.
- I think that any two normal adults can right a 16, but it’s unlikely
that one person can so it unassisted.
Some people *do* have the knack of righting a 16 unassisted.
I’ve seen a guy who didn’t weigh over 170 right one consistently off of
the Outrigger Canoe club in Waikiki. He did something with getting the
wind blowing under the sails, but I could never make it happen in New Jersey.
I weigh about 220# and need a bag full of water slung over my shoulder to
right a 16. It’s not pretty and it takes some strength, but it works.
OTOH I could recover the Malibu Outrigger from full turtle with no problem
at all and would wager that somebody who weighed quite a bit less
could do it too.
- Once the lawyers had their way with the Hobie 16 mast (“Comp Tip” - a
fiberglass section above where the shrouds attach) rigging a 16 became
too much trouble for me: the thing was just too heavy.
OTOH, rigging my 21’ Ulua with a stubby mast setup is extremely quick/simple/easy.
Can’t speak to the Malibu Outrigger because it was moored.
- When causeways and/or bridges come into the picture, score 1
for the stubby setup: quick/easy to lower/raise while on the water.
- The MO made a far superior diving/swimming platform than the Hobies did.
Easier to strike/raise the sail, easier to climb up on, more amenable
to just sitting around with the legs hanging in the water, and so-forth.
- The Malibu Outrigger’s two main drawbacks were swampability and the
daggerboard. Where the stubby passed through the deck, a boot was
required because the whole inside of the hull was exposed. The
spec hatches were just caps held in place with bungee. Either system
failed and/or sufficient time laying on it’s side waiting to be righted
and you’re swamped. Only happened to me once, and that was more than
enough.
- The other drawback of the MO was that your butt sat at the same level
as your feet - as opposed to various catamarans with outboard hiking
benches like the Hobie 17 and NACRA boats. CLC’s Outrigger
Junior seems to mitigate this issue.
- Performance-wise, MO vs H-16: no contest. The Hobies turn on a dime,
they slice through chop beautifully, and they’re fast. (although I have
to note that I sailed my Malibu Outrigger off Waikiki with the pack
of H-14’s that was racing there for the national championships and
was staying with them upwind…. can’t recall how it went downwind.
Having said that, how much performance does one need? I’m what I
call a “feelgood” sailor and the MO gave me more than enough of
that.
- Going in-and-out through surf on an H-14 was *fun* as in “Let’s turn around
and do that again!” whereas with the MO and H-16’s it’s more “Whew!... we made it!”.
But I suspect this was more about boat size/ease-of-righting than type.
- The MO was a stone chick magnet. Pull it up on the beach, pretend to
splice some line or something… and interview the applicants as
they step forward.
Having said all that, as my state of decrepitude approaches windsurfing’s
becoming impractical, I find CLC’s Outrigger Junior calling out to me.
To wit:
- It looks light enough for one person to manhandle up and down the
beach and on/off a trailer.
- Unless there’s something lurking in the design, it looks pretty much
swamp-proof to me.
- It should be sufficiently easy to rig: Plug in the stubby, lay the rest
on the deck, and hoist away. At least that’s how it is with the Ulua.
- It should be reliably easy to right - based on my experience with the MO
and Ulua.
The “Safety” ama thing doesn’t move me. *The* issue is whether the boat
is recoverable from capsize and if I can’t afford to lose, I don’t play
the game.
I find getting dumped is part of the fun.
I have been thinking some lee-side floatation for the Ulua, but that
would be to aid in recovery from swamp - something to lift the hull out
of the water so it’s contents get dumped on the way back to being
right-side-up.
- There seems to be plenty of canvas. The Malibu Outrigger was notoriously
overpowered. I didn’t have the stock MO sail - used a sail from one of
Woody Brown’s 20-footers instead… but it was about the same size and
being overpowered was definitely part of the boat’s charm.
Having said all that…. Ease of righting is a litmus test for me and I wouldn’t
even *think* of acquiring the CLC offering until I had dumped one and righted
it a few times or, at least, watched somebody do the same.
3) ... How much difference is there between the sail setting properly on one tack and with mast interference on the other??? Presumably, you would have to sail with the rig set up one side first and then the other to balance out the pacific / atlantic variable???
The several sources I have read about balanced lug rigs (which resemble the CLC’s setup in the sail setting against the mast on one tack) say that the difference is not detectable.
Also, as Editor/Administrator observes, you have the SunFish class….
Thanks Pete, that was an exemplary reply!
The only aspect about OJ that worries me is the BOA when assembled is 12 feet! No trailering while assembled. I know John spent a lot of effort to make the boat easy to assemble, and I think it is… “for a multihull”. And a lot of the appeal of the boat is the simple elegance of those gorgeous S-curve beams, which would be lost if you cut them up to be foldable for the trailer. The stub mast is “plug and play” so at least we are ahead of the beach cat there.
Michael
The only aspect about OJ that worries me is the BOA when assembled is 12 feet! No trailering while assembled.
That, plus the need for lashing (as opposed to ratchet straps) would have been a deal killer for me until I read Gary Dierking’s account of folding iakos on his Va’a Motu: http://outriggersailingcanoes.blogspot.com/2011_11_01_archive.html
Shan Skailyn seems to be copying them too:
http://tinyurl.com/p6898q2 and it seems like they are in operation per http://tinyurl.com/ps7sjva and http://tinyurl.com/ponhs2t.
Coming back to ratchet straps; using them my best time for trailer-to-water’s-edge-ready-to-sail for Ulua has been 19:38. Call it twenty-five minutes max…. and that includes getting it off the trailer and down to the beach.
Edit 2013 01-09 15:15:
Finally, as much as Outrigger Junior is calling out to me, I’d have to admit that if somebody offered up a stock/spec (especially the fiberglass production version) Ulua I would probably buy it in a heartbeat. Not because it’s so wonderful compared to the CLC offering, but because I know it well enough from my experience with my stretched version that I know it would be good enough for what I want to do.
[quote author=“PeteCress” date=“1389289327Edit 2013 01-09 15:15:
Finally, as much as Outrigger Junior is calling out to me, I’d have to admit that if somebody offered up a stock/spec (especially the fiberglass production version) Ulua I would probably buy it in a heartbeat. Not because it’s so wonderful compared to the CLC offering, but because I know it well enough from my experience with my stretched version that I know it would be good enough for what I want to do.
I hear you Pete. There is such a lack of offerings in the have fun sailing department besides the Hobie offerings like the Wave, Getaway, and the AI/TI boats. Everything seems racing oriented much to the detriment of the sailing public. Consider the boom and bust of Windsurfing. Might have been a fad, but it might have also been the push for performance made the sport unnecessarily expensive and complex. There are a couple boats out there that are of interest, but nothing really close to spot on. I love the Holopuni, but really a 30x14+ foot tri that takes hours to assemble? Pass. However, a production boat like the Ulua or the Va’ motu would have lots to offer:
—drier ride than any beachcat without being so removed from the experience that one can still drag a hand in the water
—still “fast” though not beachcat blazing fast. Does it matter? Judging by the success of the Hobie AI/TI or Weta, I’d say no.
—Can be paddled with decent ergonomics or like Dierking does, use a 2 hp outboard.
—Can be loaded up and used for camp cruising. For me having good tramps is mandatory. Comfortable sitting and sprawling is key.
—fast assembly is a must. Pete’s example of taking 20 minutes to set up is on the money. Taking the Wave off the Suburban and assembling it took 30 minutes which was too long for my wife.
—gotta have a reefable boat. Safety demands it and sometimes I’d like to sail slowly with the kids even if it’s blowing 15 knots.
—kick up blades are essential as well
There are a million canoes and kayaks sold and the emergence of $150 SOT boats at Costco with a paddle get lots of folks on boats. However, the entry point for sailing seems to be so much steeper for a noob. It shouldn’t be and in reality is not given the number of deals on used sailboats out there, but it’s a perception that still rings true. There are lots of beachcats as well, but those are in decline despite the interest in foiling, AC72’s and whatever bleeding edge tech out there. Most folks really don’t want to race round cans anyhow. Perhaps that why the EC has risen to 140 entrants this year. Camping, beachcruising, daysailing with the family, and still going “fast” is appealing. It not absolute speed that entices anyhow, it’s the perception of speed. Going 30 in a go cart is much more fun than going 80 on the freeway.
I’m in no position to do a startup boat building business, but I do think there is room for a 5-10K boat that ticks lots of those boxes.
Dan