In 2006 I made it from Everglades City to Flamingo in 17 hours sailing a Kruger/Balogh on mostly a broad reach.  The video is at   http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4070189264022781465#  This run was a hoot.  Fast forward to UFC 2010.  Same Kruger hull design.  Same 38 sq ft Balogh sail design, yet I broke an aka in similiar conditions, with a double reef!

The lesson?  While it is possible to push a hybrid rig very hard, there is an element of luck.  On a broad reach, there is a tendency for the boat to surf.  [following is some fuzzy engineering]  When the boat starts to catch a wave and surf, if the lee ama catches in the trough of the next wave there is sudden and significant drag.  This drag is transmitted to the aka, and can result in catastrophic failure of the aka.  The core factors are the ama's coefficient of drag, the design of the support structure for the aka and the strength of the aka.  Chief has an intersting ama design, that is similiar to the Wildwasser ama I used several years ago.  Only time and some very "gutsy" testing will tell where its' failure point is. 

To address all this, I set a max speed on my rig of 4-5 mph, unless the waves are under a foot. 

As I see the intent of the hybrid rig, it is to extend cruising range.  The more robust the sailing rig becomes, the more weight you add.  The heavier the sailing components, the more deadweight you have to paddle when not sailing.  If the design is intended to be used mostly as a sailboat (Class 4), I would start from the ground up with a sailing design and put the hybrid rigs aside.

Bill

To address all this, I set a max speed on my rig of 4-5 mph, unless the waves are under a foot. 

As I see the intent of the hybrid rig, it is to extend cruising range.  The more robust the sailing rig becomes, the more weight you add.  The heavier the sailing components, the more deadweight you have to paddle when not sailing.  If the design is intended to be used mostly as a sailboat (Class 4), I would start from the ground up with a sailing design and put the hybrid rigs aside.

hi bill, and thanks for the detailed reply...

In coming up with the hybrid design over the standard MKII sailrig - which I DO like - it was to preserve a little more of the kayak and shed a little of the sailrig.  Something a little more paddle-able even if the drag is now asymetric . I didnt like the idea of a trimaran setup cantilevering over the main hull and sinking it some what in the process.  I also believe the asymetric outrigger setup is more conducive to fishing, skin diving and photography.  

Ive thought to myself "will it REALLY paddle better though, especially with a weighted ama - even an increased weighted/displacement ama?".  I dont know. A lot is a leap right off the blueprints entirely and I have reservations about a better efficiency paddle-sail craft.  But again, I like the single ama approach and the cleaner lines and balance of the ama fulltime taking up ITS weight and the main hull full time taking up ITS weight.  The MKII standard by contrast seems so, well not beleagured, but in still air, just overly weighted with the whole contraption sitting across its deck.  The amas ride in the air when the keel is centered on the main hull in calm conditions.  So theres that weight, then theres the gear in  the hatches .  My West River 180 doesnt exactly have high volume like a Chesapeake kayak so if I can spread the burden out a bit and lose some of the bulk of the twin amas, I'm happy.

no free lunch though as they say in physics so what I "saved" is merely going to rear its ugly head elsewhere, but itll be interesting to see how and where it happens.  Ive got BSD's 32 square foot sail reefable down to 20 as everyone knows so I think I have a forgiving rig in that manner.  I just hope I can get a decent sail speed [5mph at 15knots] and a paddling experience that doesnt resemble an asymetric anchor drag ;)

Today is an important day anyway for me and the rig.  My wife and child are gone for the whole day freeing up room upstairs to align the ama/aka for the final time, finish my tiller, attach my leeboard bracket, drill the hole in the deck for the mast and attach the mast footing on the robust platform I glued in place last sunday.  

If I can get a day off

Pete -- Small world!  Yes, that was me!  (And yes, if you see an outrigger in Connecticut, reasonable chance it is me; some pictures of it at www.wtarzia.com/outrigger. It is also detailed at www.instructables.com under "Build a Short Dragon"). Were you in a truck and beeped when you drove by?  I live in Waterbury up route 8.  I launch at Lighthouse Point and usually sail past West Breakwater out to West Haven, then turn around where the waves start breaking on the flats and sail home outside in the Sound (when the water is not too crazy for a 16 footer).  My girlfriend and I eat at Chicks frequently (then I go home and pop an extra statin pill :-).

I lived in Naugatuck until 2004, up on the hill in Andrew Ave apartments.  That was where I built my first outrigger -- in my bedroom (don't all newly divorced men build boats under interesting situations?). I would take a walk around the neighborhood and pass by a yard that always a couple of skiffs, a kayak, and recently a larger sailboat (I still stroll the old neighborhood sometimes to get away from noisy Waterbury) -- I don't suppose it's possible this is you?  Perhaps that would be pushing the statistics too much.

My sail area is good for this boat since its total weight is ~280 pounds, a lot to move in typical light NE air.  The area will do until wind 15mph, and gusts to 20.  Steadier winds over 15, and I would have to reduce or die of heart attack first, drowning second. The large ama was originally made to allow a shunting-proa mode of sailing, so it is heavier for ballast. I ended up staying with tacking mode, so I need to build a lighter volune-forward ama for it.  Yes, the akas are heavyAfter I heard an aka cracking two miles out at New Haven on that first outrigger, I built my second boat with 3x3 douglas fir amas and I have no more nightmares. Break an aka, you swim home. 

I have a galumpy tandem kayak I use to paddle in the swampy river  at Bantam Lake, so you are far ahead of me in that arena, but if you ever feel the need to slow down and relax, maybe we could go for a paddle. If you add a sail rig, I can bring Short Dragon. My phone is 203 465 1077.  -- best -- Wade/TTIN 

(apologies for the personal blabbing, people: I was overwhelmed by the coincidence of having a watertriber live 4 miles down the road!)

I'm sort of wondering why you are interested in speed while broad reaching. Just about any boat is going to sail up to its potential on a broad reach.

It seems to me that what sets the overall performance is sailing upwind and how your boat will handle surfing downwind.

Of course comfort and keeping the boat moving at all times is important too as Wizard has proved time after time.

More data then in response to Chief's post about ww work:

For my boat, going upwind cuts down on speed quite a bit.  In the same good conditions, if I can make a regular 8 knots on broad or beam reach, then on a close reach I am down to 6-7. If I pinch to windward, 4 knots is typical. Bad chop reduces this to 3 (for me bad chop is 2-3 feet, frequent in shallow New Haven area with SW wind). 

Outriggers usually do worse pinching up than other boats, and cat-ketch rigs as well; the fact that I have both and do get to windward is a pleasant fact. However, my best CMG course to windward is probably 55 degrees off wind. Trying to improve this with a jib out on a bowsprit  now, but results are ambivalent early into this experiment (have been fussing too much with the logistics of 3 sails on a small boat to really attend to CMG).

Performance comparison for paddlers: this boxy sharpie hull and relatively high weight make this canoe a sluggish paddler. During calms: can maintain 3 knots for say an hour (leeboard up!) (but I am not a paddler); were I faced with paddling for hours at a stretch, doable speed would be 2 knots.  GPS measured.  With a headwind, forget it --the 24 inch deep hull (amidships), ~ 15 of that over water and with the amas and masts, paddling is just a way to  make the last 500 feet to the ramp. -- Wade

Pete -- I have a side-seat on the ama side for 'hiking out' when I am on the "proa tack" (ama to WW) but I am not much hiked out; rather, I am sitting out a couple of feet at most,  with my feet either dangling in the cockpit or on the aft cockpit seat.  My ama is very heavy at ~70 pounds and 6 feet out from centerline is good ballast.  If I sail as shunting proa (not yet on this boat) I can flood it with ~100 pounds of water too.  If I sail from cockpit, the ama flies on that tack.  If the water is not too crazy, I do stay in the cockpit and keep the deep-V ama lifted so that only ~6 inches of the deep rocker in the middle touches water; in those conditions, speed improves noticeably (you heard my comments on youtube as I sailed lifting the ama a little; you also heard my nervous excitement because I have had to dive over the ama to push it down in a gust :-)   

(My cockpit now looks different from the old photos, having just added watertight chambers everywhere except for the aft cockpit/footwell for solo sailor, anticipating EC 2011, and also to feel better in that bad wave pattern between the breakwaters at New Haven -- I have encountered steep 3 footers out there, especially with tide running against S/SW wind.  When you pass through it you have had a small adventure.)

On the "trimaran tack" (ama to lee) I sit in the cockpit reclining like the Grand Turk against my mizzen mast, so comfortable that I feel guilty :-)   The ama lately has been getting pushed under when I reach/close reach at the higher speeds, no doubt because I added the jib, but instead of added complexity of another hiking seat, I just must build a shaped foam-and-glass ama with volume forward, since deep-V shapes in plywood limit the shaping possibilities (probably why Wharram cats seem to hobbyhorse a bit?)

You will enjoy exploring the outrigger sailing mode, but I have no clue about kayak conversions.  The amas will rotate the hull to lee a little, maybe, but I guess you will have inflatables with less draggy impact?  But I intuit you could get some lee helm at first until you learn where the board must go.  Expect the first shakedown cruise or two to leave you downhearted. It comes together soon enough.  My canoe is a perpetual prototype, so I feel that way often enough; sometimes the sun suddenly comes out, you take an extra tack to delay heading in, you insist on enjoying it, and it's a good day.  --Wade

CrestedSpray:

You asked about perfomance with the Dreamcatcher/BOSS rig beating into the wind. Not so good.

The BOSS rig works OK for reaching and downwind. It isn't so great beating into the wind. My tacking angle is pretty flat making upwind work extremely frustrating. The stronger the wind the worse it gets. This is one of the reasons I decided to design the TRC system. I know that upwind performance for a converted canoe/kayak is never going to be great, but I think there is room for significant improvement.

I will know if I have succeeded in a couple more weeks.

First thanks for the compliment.  I got out of the boat in Tampa and swore I would not do that event again.  Well time heals all wounds and I am trying to figure out how to get the time off to do another UFC or maybe the next Yukon Race- not the YRQ but the one that goes past Dawson. 

Regarding the rudder- I used an oversize rudder that Etch gave me. I believe it is a balanced blade and it works great in heavy winds.  But foolishly I did not rig a down haul.  Apparently it floated up and put excess strain on the rudder cables.  When I got to Sebastain Inlet I felt something poking my leg... It was fraid strands from the cable!  Fortunately I had spares and with Running Mouth's help I put two new cables in.  From there back to Tampa I used the comma.   The lessons learned is that either you MUST rig a sound downhaul or figure out how to re-rig the boat with a thicker cable running through tubing in the aft compartment.  My kayak is a NW Discover, it was not designed for sailing, and it was built with much thicker rudder cables.  The concern with increasing the cable strength is the increased stress on the pin the rudder rotates around.  Thicker cables will add to the stress of the pin and may cause catastrophic failure there.  For now a downhaul seems like the best solution.  Additionally, from Key Largo back to Tampa I kept the speed below 5 mph, unless the waves were under a foot or so.  The lower speed keeps the stress off the rudder and reduces the probability of breaking and aka- like what happened the first day of the UFC.  There is a third option- a whole new rudder mount.  But that would significantly change the design, look and feel of the boat- something that I really do not want to do.

Regarding the new amas- the same aka design appears to have been used.  The difference is that a the end of the aka there is a plastic saddle.  Picture an inflated ama mounted to a piece of plastic that goes across the ama pretty much from one seam to the other.  The ama itself is different as there are two pieces of webbing that are an integral part of the ama, so changing the mount used would require new amas.  IMHO the old design is good, but no idiot-resistant.  The new design does not have those two ropes that hold the ama on, one less thing to have go wrong.

Finally,I have looked at the rules.  I do not see anything that would prevent you from taking one of your sled dogs along for the trip.  When you get to the portage, just hook him up and ride!!  (That comment should start some talk... and probably a rule change.)

 Cheers!

Bill

LMAO- waiting for follow-up posts.

I find using a pry with the paddle on the leeward side takes a lot of stress off the rudder; in fact I rarely use the rudder off the wind and steer with the paddle exclusively; helps with keeping the canoe on course (rounding up to windward) under full canvas.

You can lean to windward, paddle to the windward side and draw the stern to windward as well; it takes some practice but is a priceless when trying to keep all amas out of the water and burying when off the wind. It burns energy but keeps you actively paddle sailing and focused. Don't fall out of the boat!! :-)

Kap