Re: Pacific Proa

Posted by CLC on Sep 28, 2005

The original design brief was for a minimalist sailing cruiser, fast and fun. I went off on a tangent with mine, over-rigging it by about 60%. Still, it sailed extremely well and the only capsize was due to carelessness on my part. The capsize was messy to recover from, though not as bad as any given Hobie Cat capsize. After that I rigged mine with a capsize-recovery system copied from the beach cats.

Hull #2 was built with a more conservative rig, the one I originally intended for my boat. I had the chance to sail #2 a good bit and it was everything I hoped for; fast, weatherly, easy to handle, and probably pretty hard to capsize.

The plans assume that the builder has a fairly sophisticated knowledge of performance sailboats, and anyone contemplating a proa or any sort of fast multihull should be well-grounded in handling those types of boats.

http://www.clcboats.com/images/boats/proa2.jpg

In Response to: Pacific Proa by David Howie on Sep 28, 2005

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