Not all Swallow Boats are BayRaiders!

[Julian Swindell]

Hi Tony
Have a look at THE WORKING GUIDE TO TRADITIONAL SMALL BOAT SAILS by David L Nichols . I have a copy and it does give some guidance on sprit sails. You can get it from Watercraft magazine's Boat Builders Bookshop (as well as the Gaff Rig Handbook, which I have poured over for years.)
http://watercraft-magazine.com/wc_boat_des_books.html
Tom Cunliffe's Hand Reef and Steer is even better for using a gaff rig, but doesn't deal with sprits
Phil Bolger's 101 Rigs is also really good, and will tell you why many things which looked like a good idea at the time really weren't. I think it is out of print, but you can buy my copy for...oooh I don't know... how about £150?

[Tony]

Hi, Julian.

Yes, David Nichols' book is worth a place on anyones shelf.
I'm hoping that John Leather's is going to be as thorough as his Gaff Rig Handbook. What it won't have, I'm willing to bet, is comparative test data on sail types and the answer to my favorite work boat trivia quiz question:-
"Why do Hastings Luggers have Lute sterns?"                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

[Michael Rogers]

Why do Hastings luggers have lute sterns? To enable the likes of Tony to harp on about it. Boom-boom.

[Michael Rogers]

 Having had a go at being flippant, Tony, is your lute stern question a trick one? Because the obvious answer (also given by Edgar March and in the Chatham Directory of Inshore Craft) is that, particularly when the boat was being beached on an unprotected shore, the lute stern gave (or was considered to give) increased lift from following seas.

Apologies if I'm being a smartass here! I just love old craft.

Michael

[Tony]

Hi,Micheal.

Never apologize for being right.   Er.....except to your loved ones, naturally.

Incidentally, the first boat with water ballast I ever heard of, maybe 10 or 20 years before the BayRaider (...reviewed in “The Boatman” I think. I'll try and dig it up.) was the Winchelsea Lugger, a GRP version of one of the smaller Hastings luggers, complete with lute stern. It had a ballast tank with an open bottom and a breather hole at the top with a tap. It fill on launching if the tap was open and emptied, very slowly, as you winched it back onto the trailer.  The lute stern concealed the outboard well, I think. Not sure how the rudder was hung. The rig was, if memory serves, a boomless standing lug, sheeted to a horse on the transom.  (Not good to windward, OR on a run, then!) The reviewer quite liked it, I remember.

[Tony]

With a ruthless determination to seek the truth,  exhibiting all the skills of the investigative journalist, not to mention  a fine disregard for personal safety,  I have finally managed to track down the reference to Winchelsea Luggers and water ballast.

That’s right. I Googled it.   (Well, it was raining hard.)

It’s in “Watercraft” magazine No 7, Jan/Feb 1998.

[Tony]

Hey! Anyone listening?

What happened to all the talk about those sailing canoes, then?
Did I blink and miss something?

[Tony]

Swallowboats  Sailing  Canoes.

Hi, Jonathan

Any more news from Gwbert  re: the larger “Aircraft Carrier” canoe?

There must be a market for a boat like this ....especially in a “cheap and cheerful “ kit form.
Think of the places you could get to that even a S15 would be too much boat for.
I live in an area riddled with minor waterways (as shown below) as well as the rather scary bit of the River Trent  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OUcmTUTmho  and if we ever get any warm summer evenings again a canoe might be just the thing.

[Jonathan Stuart]

Unfortunately I don't have any more news. The canoes don't seem to have made much progress in the year since I last saw them so I suspect they have been built as time allows and it generally hasn't over the past year! From joining up a few conversations with Matt, I also suspect that there hasn't been the level of sales interest required to justify making these a priority whereas other, more profitable, projects have been progressing. When I was in Gwbert in Feb, Matt said they had just completed BRe 14 (I think), so that is almost 1 BRe a month since I took delivery of mine, and of course there is the BC26 and I have heard rumours of another new design in gestation. That all has probably pushed the canoes down the list.

[Tony]

................ and I have heard rumours of another new design in gestation. That all has probably pushed the canoes down the list.

Another new design?
Not the mythic SW42 concept cruiser ! 

(Enough to make you come over all "Smeagol" at the thought of it.)

Getting back to the cheap seats, perhaps Tom Fort's recent TV exposure might awaken interest in the possibilities of very small craft.    (.....although I can't help but think he would have been better off with a BR 17 or a BR 20e. Either would cope with the tidal bits of the Trent better than his punt - and the latter would have saved  BBC 4 a fortune in hotel bills.)

NB I stole the SW 42 pic from Matt's old website. Don't think he's noticed yet.

[Tony]

Here’s one for the Techies. 
Going to wind ward,  a balanced  lug  isn’t going to point quite  as high as the BayRaiders  can so I’m used to playing “tail-end Charlie” in such company. (My lugger  points higher if I fly the jib in addition to the lug sail, but if tacked to the stem, without a bowsprit, it catches on the yard when tacking so I don’t often bother with it.)
 How is it then, that in light airs my 5.8m CBL “Four Sisters”  is faster  downwind than an epoxy ply  BR 20 (Morbihan) and faster on a broad reach than  a BR17? (Lake Bala)
In the Morbihan she was carrying a 25kg Yamaha 4hp + 12l fuel as well as full cruising gear, 90kg of church roof  as ballast,  and an 80kg skipper (Oh! all right ....85kg)
 In ghosting conditions – not enough wind to fill a spi -  she went past BayRaiders, Skellig IIs,  various Vivier designs  (Not “Pen Hir”, obviously!) and practically everything around her own size (....and I have the photos to prove it) this with the tiller locked  while her skipper rolled cigarettes, brewed a coffee and hunted for a missing bag of nuts.  Unfortunately the effect is only temporary as with a decent wind “Four Sisters” rapidly hits hull speed of about 5 knots and has to watch while everything else goes past her.  Even with the 4 hp going flat out you can’t push this hull any faster than 6 knots - getting up on the plane is not an option!
On Lake Bala this year, going to windward in an F3/4 (reefed),  she was doing 4 knots (Av) and 5 knots in the gusts and , of course, the BRs went faster and pointed higher.  Running and broad reaching  back in the afternoon with the wind dropping (still reefed – just too lazy to shake it out) I was still recording her hull speed at times but even when the lake was glassy smooth with just light zephyrs  she still kept enough speed on to make rowing unnecessary.  (Apart from a short stretch in the dead zone in the middle of the pond.)
Is this down to hull shape? (no transom to drag) or the efficiency of yer bog standard balanced lug sail in putting up a lot of sail in the winds way.....known to science as the Barn Door Effect?
Can’t believe that a BayRaider hull is less slippery than CBL so I imagine it must be the sail.

This being so, I wonder if anyone has thought of putting a big lugsail on a BR? A balanced lug is very user-friendly for single handed cruising sailors, hoists without stress, drops in an instant, easy to reef, is brilliant reaching and fast down wind.  With good luff tension, a bit more string to adjust boom and yard positions, even its pointing ability, the Burmudian be-all and end-all,  can be  much improved.  Any doubts about that? Have a look at the Goat Island Skiff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN8ONtO9-90  (Is that the guy from ZZTop?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B2BHZKH6r4o  (This is the Yawl version of the GIS.  Boats are handier with a mizzen, I think.)

Of course, for the ultimate in control, a fully battened lug sail is the answer.
Step forward “Cavatina”!

[Michael Rogers]

Tony, the second of those videos is spectacular, and I can't for the life of me work out where the camera is, and how they get it swooping round the boat like that, especially as it is, relatively speaking, so steady.

I think the balanced lug is an underrated sail, and your suggestion of a lugsail-rigged BR is a fascinating one. The only down side would be the upwind side, close on the wind at that. How could we persuade one of our BR friends, or Matt, to try it ? (Yes, I know, budgetary constraints etc.) The predominance of bermudan rigs generally is a curious thing (perhaps akin to the musical dominance of pianos over harpsichords, but we won't go into that, here at any rate), particularly as the only way they can keep up downwind is with those unwieldy beasts called spinnakers. I don't race, but I wonder if close-hauled capability is particularly prized "round the marks'.

There are indeed some strange aspects of different hulls and rigs. Eg the Storm 15 is a witch in light winds, including upwind - isn't that right, Paul, Terry and others? I hope science won't explain it all in time: some mystique makes it all much more fun. I say that as a founder member of Eccentrics Inc.

As to your last remark, Tony, I can only say that I - ahem - agree, and Cavatina looks forward to some more stepping forward.

Michael

[david]

Hi Michael,
                  The crew is responsible for the great camera work. The camera is on the end of a boat hook aimed to look back at them and the boat! (You can see the crew extending their arms).
  There is also a cool video of this same boat, where they use the mizzen to back into a dock space. Good boat handling skills.

David.

[Julian Swindell]

I can add that the Deben Lugger goes like stink. I could just about keep up with her close reaching reefed in a strong wind at last year's English Raid in Suffok, but once on a braod reach she was away from me. Mind you, there were two of them and only one of me...

But Lara, a balance lug rigged Ian Oughtred Elf, just tore everyone to pieces in all directions of wind. And they only had one sail (but the skipper was a national sailing canoe champion and built the boat, which I covetted.)

http://youtu.be/rjjCG2Fi7cA

[Tony]

Hi, Julian.
Broad reaching is what Luggers do best – even “Four Sisters” with her 7 year old UV-blasted sails is no slouch ( Ask Steve Jones and “Nona Me”). 
As for the Deben Luggers..... my pre-production Deben lugger, “Wabi”, has a larger than normal mainsail and a heavier hull layup than the production models but she’ll see off a Bayraider  easily when they are ballasted up in a seaway.
Put a high peaked modern  lug sail on a BayRaider Ex (think Nigel Irens “Roxanne” and “Romily” and take a look at http://www.roxane-romilly.co.uk ) and you’d possibly have an incredible boat that performs well in all weathers AND is easy to tow.
 Leave the mast where it is, maybe;  set the jib on a furler on the end of the bowsprit ( you’d need to do a bit of design work to stop the yard catching the forestay) and think how THAT would shift – with or without ballast! 
It won’t make the beautiful BayRaider any less beautiful, either.  Anyone with the cash to commission such a boat and an urge to win Sail Caledonian might want to have a chat with Matt about it.
Yes, BayRaiders are good - possibly the best all-round trailer-sailer on the market (name a better one!) but that doesn't mean they cant be improved.

As for “Lara”  (balanced lugsail, again!) Yes, she’s as slippy as anything but needs a better sailor than I to get the best out of her!  I met her at SeaFair Milford Haven 2010 and gave her a tow to Pembroke Dock  (with 4 hp Yamaha against the tide - no wind) although she didn’t really need it with those dirty great carbon fibre oars - and watched her short tacking to join us on the pontoon at Lawrenny Arms.  She’s beautiful and very capable in the right hands but far too tippy  to suit me – I don’t want to be sitting out to keep a boat upright these days, so an Ilur or a 16’ Trouper (!)  would suit me better. Less performance but drier sandwiches!