Sunday 23 September 2012

Couple of quick sketches of where the design could go. A development of the current design. Lug rig with moving leeboards. Beam wide like international canoe sliding seat. The colourful one is minimalistic strip planked wave piercing hull. The B&W one wider dory hull with attached outrigger, more a laid back touring / expedition boat.

Back at work so not much movement on the proa, the mast partners are made and bolted on, new leeboard slider made, two new hatch holes cut.

Other news - the number 57 sail - see earlier has now been turned into a 'storm sail' for the RS vision and was used to great effect last Saturday. Slow controlled up wind work and a wet sleigh ride down wind with the asymmetric.




Thursday 30 August 2012



Have been visiting my folks and found two pictures of my first proa. The pictures are taken at the Weymouth speed sailing championships the day after the 1987 'great storm'. I arrived at the week with a very under developed craft with a sort of square rig with poles attached to the foot. The sail moved forward during a shunt using the poles.The position the yard was attached to the halyard was also controllable during the shunt. The hull was asymmetric and steering by weight shift. The helm suspended from a trapeze.

The asymmetric hull's CLR was far to forward for the rig. Also I had great difficulty getting enough luff tension and considering the conditions overnight the sail was cut into a triangle. This was used as a jib with the tack hauled down to the the bow, shutting was by hauling the tack to the new bow. This was a very violent operation with a completely slack luff and storm force winds.

The craft was able to sail upwind in this configuration but failed to complete the speed sailing course, very good fun though. I was only a naive 23 at the time.

One interesting point about the craft was that it had a single beam connecting the hull and outrigger, the mast and stays holding it all together. Weight steering from a trapeze worked well.

However I learnt the hard way how far forward the CLR moves forward on an asymmetric hull and now favour symmetrical hulls and board style lateral resistance control for 'Western' rigs

Friday 24 August 2012

Busy few weeks in the boat shed, garden gate seating platform all finished bar the painting. The mast partners made and dry assembled waiting coating. As detailed above the latest design for the board linear slider all dry fitted, waiting some epoxy work. Have changed to a rigid bar and bearings as it just simplified everything, made it more reliable and feels right.

Saturday 4 August 2012

Have had the proa in the garden and experimented with the how and where I will sit. Tried the trampoline but far too flexible and uncomfortable. Tried just using beams but this would be too hard to move around. Finally as pictured two alloy tubes (never throw anything away have dragged these around with me since the 1980's) and a old but never used garden gate. Have purchased (£9.99) a folding hiking seat (blue thing) and this feels just right. Just sitting in the seat I get great vision of how it will all be completed and that the design is spot on.

Have also been sketching some ideas around improving the steering further and the idea off adding a tiller to steer - many ideas more to follow......

Sunday 1 July 2012

Rubbing strip for leeboard. This is located on the leeward chine under water. The white strip is Acetal, very low friction and impossible to glue! see below 

Fixing on the impossible to glue Acetal. 50mm Kevlar tape was laminated to a glass table. When cured this was countersunk bolted to the Acetal witj the addition of 25mm penny washers. A pine reinforcement strip had previously been bonded to the hull. Using a Foursner bit this was counter bored  to take the nut and washer. The Acetal and Kevlar assembly will be bonded to the pine reinforcement. Very pleased with this solution to such a tricky problem but may still add some counter sunk screws. Obviously this would all be much easier if building from scratch and not modifying a existing craft.

Friday 22 June 2012

Welcome to the Proasail Blog where you will find details of my experiments with small Proa sailing craft.
Left click on photos to enlarge 
this is the TP02 proa with centre wishbone boom mainsail and two counter rotating  rudders. It worked OK but due to the low freeboard I was unhappy with drag the rudder cassettes created.
Steering arrangement of TP02 

Construction details - hull is light and other than issues over the rudder attachments very strong 
Basic arrangement, a very simple construction foe ease of build and cost - it is a development project not a work or art - 'development boats should be disposable'
TP03 - the next design
This is the proposal for TP03. A simple lug rig with a single dagger board, steering is achieved by a combination of sail trim and daggerboard position. The intention is to have a simple, easy to rig robust touring proa rather than aim for all out speed. So far I have done a bit of hacking about as detailed below



holes cut in the deck to take two new mast sockets and old fittings removed
new bulkheads have been bonded in and reinforcements to take the mast foot added 
reinforcements for the leeboard strop and controls added
Strop testing


Strop fixing details


how the board will work

Lee board control - a work in progress