Atlantic meets Pacific

[brian.cunningham]

or East meets West
http://www.wharram.eu/photos/albums/Ethnic-Designs/Tahiti-Wayfarer/Tahiti-WayfarerW0007-20.jpg

[Stiletto]

Nice!:)

[Woxbox]

She looks great. Can you tell us how she sails & handles?

[Kim Whitmyre]

That's Wharram holding the steering oar. The design is the "tahiti wayfarer." I have no reports on the handling of this design, but here is a cut and paste from the Wharram "news and classified" area from Glenn Tieman relative to the handling of his larger, similar design, "child of the sea."
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Pounding and calling awoke me within Manu Rere as eager sailors arrived the next morning. By mid afternoon nine of us were at sea bound for the nearest free anchorage at 25 mile away Santa Barbara. The first few hours we were able to point our course but for the rest of the passage we had light headwinds and calms. It was a memorable night at sea of discussion, guessing at landmarks, and dozing. The breeze freshened toward the end and just as we sailed into the anchorage waving at other boats the lower bamboo boom broke. Some of the crew were by then pressed for time to meet travel connections however the departure of friends was a gradual process blessedly taking days before leaving me once again a singlehanded sailor.

During a subsequent passage I took down the mainsail rather than risk another spar breakage in strong headwinds. The rest of that night she stood under mizzen only and held her head to wind very well drifting just aft of sideways according to GPS. Again just about five miles outside King Harbor she lay to the mizzen only with a lantern on deck while awaiting morning light to enter. This way of heaving to is more effective than the usual backed jib.

When sailing too fast tilting the sails slows her down and takes some pressure off the rig. In the future once all the running rigging is installed I think this will be an important tool.

The last passage was reaching and running from Redondo Beach to Newport Beach in moderately light breeze. She exceeded 10 knots at times which was similar to wind speed. It was especially surprising how effective the exotic sails were when bearing away from a close to broad reach. Ordinarily a boat will slow down a lot unless a spinnaker is added but with her small sails Manu Rere sailed off fast. Although still too delicate in its early stage of development the crab claw rig seems to me more effective than even the excellent tiki wing sail rig.

More photos can be seen on http://GTieman.photosite.com/

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When I was on the first sail of Glenn's ManuRere in Channel Islands Harbor, we were able to tack easily in light air by brailing either the main or the mizzen. This design is 38', and the tahiti wayfarer is 21', so there must be some differences in handling, but the crab claw rig probably handles similarly.

[brian.cunningham]

The crabclaw sail is an interesting rig. They put more sail at the top, where the air is travelling faster at the cost of heeling moment. When pivoted to their lower position, the crabclaw rigs become more a lanteen rig
http://www.wharram.eu/photos/albums/Islanders/Islander-65/Islander%2065%20A4%20Red%20Hull.jpg

I like the idea of steering with the sails, especially when you have such long thin hulls.

Here's a more traditional crabclaw sail.
http://www.aloha.net/~vaka/imgthumb/sail2t.jpg
There's various theories as to the merits of the shape at the top.

[Kim Whitmyre]

Here's a shot from Glenn's site showing his self-steering arrangement:

http://gtieman.photosite.com/~photos/tn/7846192_1024.ts1169075631838.jpg

Self steering on a broad reach with mainsheet on one side of the tiller and bungee on the other side.

[brian.cunningham]

Here's neat pic from the Polynesian Voyaging Society (http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/index.html) showing all the Hawaiian names for a voyaging canoe's parts.

http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/Hokuleaparts.gif