Re: Geniuses are among us
Steven W. Barnes (oldsurfdude@worldnet.att.net)
Fri, 26 Mar 1999 17:25:44 -0800
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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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Gordon wrote:
>
> Well, okay, as the second greatest genius, I am wondering how that crab
> claw rig would be when the wind hits 25-30 or more knots. In the neutral or
> "umbrella" position, the wind would still get under it, and as the boat
> heeled more canvas would be exposed, accelerating the capsize tendency. The
> reefing system consists of reducing the angle between the two spars to
> depower the sail, but I can imagine all that slack cloth billowing and
> flapping. I guess you could just lower the rig, furl it, and run with bare
> pole.
>
> This genius finds the concept difficult to visualize. I'd sure like to see
> such a rig up close and in action. Of course, the vortex lift principle is
> intuitively obvious to the most casual observer, so I won't attempt to
> explain it. :)
I have seen the rig at work a couple of times. Every summer, in San
Diego at a park on the harbor just south of Seaport Village, they hold a
Pacific Islander Festival. It has included some of those replicas of
Polynesian voyaging canoes that have the crab claw rig. The times I saw
it, (I forget the name of it, but it is a huge double hulled canoe) it
was in about 10 knots of wind and doing just fine. But this was the
primitive one and did not work in the same way with the same hardware.
It did not have that cross piece, which brings the rig over the top of
the mast to change tacks.
I gotta go, now. More later.
:)
Steve Barnes sailing a Capri-16, #74, no name yet,
and selling a WWP-14, Popeye, #561, in San Diego.
OLDSURFDUDE