Wouter thingy,
Why do you do things like this? You know that all you are doing is confusing some readers. You know that any beach cat can be made faster by increasing righting moment as long as the boat is not pitching moment limited. I know of no beach cat design that is pitching moment limited sailing to windward so on this point of sail, speed can be increased. Do you know of a beach cat design that is pitching moment limited sailing to windward?
On the SC20 by 20 we could double trapeze it sailing to windward standing aft on the hulls. Our feet were on a hull 20ft away from the leeward hull.
Reaching and flying a hull we would sit on the windward hull 20ft away from the leeward hull. We would not trapeze because the boat was near its pitchpole limit with us just sitting on the windward hull 20ft away from the leeward hull. We were still generating much more righting moment and sail thrust than a team trapezeing on a 12ft wide boat. Downwind the overturning/righting moment doesn't require the use of the trapeze, just watch the bows; trapeze out the back of the boat if necessary to keep the bows up. This is no change. So on two out of three points of sail you can make most boats faster by making them wider than the highway width limit. Making a boat infinately faster was only mentioned by you and as you know is not possible and only serves to confuse.
This wider boat thing sounds like an opportunity for invention to me, Wouter. Even your little F16hp could be made faster. How about a boat or a version of an existing boat for handicapped persons wide enough that handicapped persons could generate as much righting moment as a trapezeing team? Then they could race together, boat for boat.
Bill



AHHH, but reread the following phrase again.

“PS. I put a SC20 together once that was 20ft wide and it sailed fine. To windward it was a rocket. Reaching don't trapeze. Downwind same as a normal SC20, watch the bows.”

Don't you notice that little "Reaching don't trapeze" thingy ?

Why is that bit included ? Why can't you trapeze on this course ?

And Steve; I wasn't saying that the total volume of the leeward hulls needs to increase; just that the longitudal pitching restance needs to be increased in order to make effective use of the extra width.

What have you won when you've replaced capsizing with pitchpoling ? Either way you can't transform the sailpower that you have into speed.

But by all means guys, if you believe that you can make boats indefinately faster by making them wider and that no other design aspect will limit you gains to something far less than expected then widen your boats.


Wouter