Page 191 - The Complete Rigger’s Apprentice

vestigial mainsail, of the ludicrously large headsails? sails is a matter of opening the doors and slack-
If we see these craft as “normal” or “desirable,” it ing away the halyards. The entire sail inventory is
might just be because of some unfortunate condi- stowed in the room below the doors, where they can
tioning. be hanked on or off in a cockpit-surpassing level of
comfort and security.
Effects of Hype The Sundeer approach would be hard to retrofit
Shortcomings in attitude, education, and culture to most boats, but how about this one: bear off. That
lead to shortcomings in boats. And that, in our era, is, when it’s time to deal with headsails, change your
has led to vastly profitable “solutions.” These are heading to bring the wind abeam. The boat’s motion
generally based on sound principles, but are hyped will be much gentler, the mainsail will blanket the
to mask the nature of the flaws they are supposed headsail, and the apparent wind will be much less.
to solve. It’s amazing how few sailors think of this, but then
For example, we’ve all seen boats trumpeted as we’ve all been overly influenced by the press-on-re-
having “all control lines led aft, so you never have to gardless acrobatics of racing.
leave the comfort and safety of the cockpit.” But the There are many other ways to respond to boat
question arises: When did the area outside the cock- handling challenges, rig-related and otherwise. But
pit became uncomfortable and dangerous? Similar no matter how effective these responses may be they
hype exists for roller-furling headsails, which save are only Band-Aids, things we do after the damage
us from “venturing onto a heaving, wet foredeck.” has been done, unless we employ them as part of a
It is true that aft-led control lines are a boon conscious design sensibility. I do not want to, and in
for singlehanders and racers, for speed and conve- any event am not equipped to, write a comprehen-
nience. And it’s true that roller-furling has opened sive treatise on yacht design. What I do want, as a
sailing up to a lot of non-acrobats. But that’s not rigger, is to understand how details of rig and hull
the same thing as danger and discomfort being van- can be optimally interrelated, and I have found that
quished by these devices. I believe that it’s no coin- a few design considerations can help illuminate this
cidence that this “comfort and safety” concern arose question.
with the dominance of the IOR. If you have a wet,
skittish boat, you’ll leap at any gizmo that promises The Transverse Righting Moment Curve
to make life a little less alarming. Earlier in this chapter (see “Shroud Loads”) the
And in any event, the “solutions” themselves transverse righting moment (RM) curve (Figures
have downsides: When the roller-furling mechanism 5-22, 5-23, 5-24) revealed the maximum load that
breaks, jams, or otherwise goes into a snit, usually the rig would have to bear. But this curve can also
in high winds and seas, you have to go onto that reveal a lot about how a given hull will behave in
foredeck anyway, armed with a crescent wrench and varying conditions, and thus what kind of rig design
a lifejacket; and aft-led lines can overflow a cockpit details are appropriate.
in a hurry, making it a crowded, confusing place. It Figure 5-23 shows the RM curves of three ves-
can be enough to make you want to escape to the sels: a cruising trimaran, a racing monohull, and the
comfort and safety of an office building. Dashews’ Deerfoot design.
To compound things, hype has obscured a The tri’s curve rises very steeply until about 25
host of simpler, more dependable, and invariably degrees, then plummets abruptly. From 90 degrees
cheaper alternatives. One dramatic example is the to 180 degrees the hull is in “negative stability”;
“trapdoor” for staysails aboard Linda and Steve that is, it wants to remain upside down. The racing
Dashew’s Sundeer (see Chapter 8). Instead of being monohull’s curve rises less sharply, peaking at about
fixed on deck, the forestays and jibstays run right 55 degrees, then drops—also less sharply, entering
through trapdoors to the keel. Lowering the stay- negative stability at about 115 degrees. Note that

170