Crab Claw? WHY NOT?

Have you read Sail Performance, Theory and Practice, by CA Marchaj ?


There is a lot of discussion on the merits of the crab claw sail configuration.
 
sarabande said:
Have you read Sail Performance, Theory and Practice, by CA Marchaj ?


There is a lot of discussion on the merits of the crab claw sail configuration.
Click to expand...

The Oceanic Lateen is a fascinating rig. I have been reading about it on the net for a few years now....
There are many configurations to it and it is very powerful. I have sailed many times with it and find it very easy to use, it will head up wind very well too.
It has one major drawback, reefing. I have used brailing lines and find them to be a good way to depower the rig, but they destroy it's shape and therefor destroy your windward ability too.......
some Wharram sailors claim that reefing them is a waste of time, so you may as well just raise a smaller one instead.
I totally agree with that. but I cant afford that. WHY NOT? is too small for keeping a bunch of sails on deck, nor does he have the displacement to carry the weight of extra sails.
I plan on carrying 2 sails, and the smaller one (that I have, it's off my bigger proa) has 2 reef lines in it (except for brailing lines, that I like because except for depowering, they are good for pulling up the boom instead of dropping the yard, very important if one got caught aback....) It's not ideal to tie the bottom of the sail to the boom in order to reduce size, but it works.....
Bottom line, I like the simplicity of the CC rig, I like it's performance, and I just need to experiment more with it and see what I really want to do.........
All d best
rael.
 
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