G'day Oceanplodder,

Slocum sailed from Thursday Island to Cocos Islands in seventeen days and
according to him was only at the helm for three hours in that period.  But remember
that "Spray" was a long keel boat , heavy, with good directional stability.  It is also
probable that Slocum had steady winds from one direction though he does not say
much about that. The rig he had at that time was that of a yawl.

Straight sailing was something that proa builders seemed keen to achieve so it may
be possible to achieve though its sensitivity to weight placement may result in a lot
of restriction of movement on board. 

Perhaps some proa owners could try to sail dead straight for at least one hour and
see how much movement was necessary to achieve that and how much desired movement
was prevented for the same reason.

Regards,
Peter Raymond






oceanplodder2003 wrote:

-
I've also thought about this and I'm convinced it's possible, probably
easy with the schooner, lately I've been considering the una rig and
that should be possible too.
The schooner rig- Remember that Slocum got Spray to steer downwind by
over easing both sails, should be relatively easy to do something similar.
With the una rig my thoughts are to adjust balance by having the
forward rudder used as a daggerboard and by raising or lowering it
balance should always be perfect, then adjusting to self steer
hopefully becomes possible.
Just read that, wasn't too clear, hope it was understandable.
-- In harryproa@..., "doha720" <doha720@y...> wrote:

G'Day,
Here's a question that no one would probably tried yet.
Can you put a sail up so that it is pulling somewhere forward of the mast, tie the rudder straight forward, and hace the boat sail itself downwind overnight?
On the Schooner rig this could be the forward mainsail sheeted out.
Actually I was only thinking about the schooner rig and haven't thought about the single rig they have on the biger boats.
This is to saingle hand across a stretch of water taking more than a day.
Doug

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