folding 22, 27

[havliii]

Bill, Are you out there? What about a folding wide beam catamaran? I sail my cut down 20 (9 foot beam) and love the boat, however, ........... here it comes............. I am beginning to lust after a longer and wider boat!!! Yes, 2 footitis is creeping into my dreams. Instead of collapsing, by sliding tubes into each other, what other methods might work to build a folding catamaran. I have to sail off a trailer and want to keep the rigging time well under an hour. Using our current system we can step the mast and be off the trailer in 35-40 minutes, typically sailing away from the dock in under an hour.

[havliii]

I'll post my own answer, since Bill has already answered the question on another forum.......


Hi Guys,
I went down this road in 1976. I knew that to build a faster catamaran the boat had to have more sail thrust, a bigger engine. To generate more sail thrust you have to have more righting moment than the other boats. THEREFORE THE BOAT MUST BE WIDER!!!
Then I considered all kinds of variable geometry beams,etc. to have a wider boat to sail and a narrow,8ft wide, boat to trailer. The simplest, least weight and cost impact method I found to accomplish this goal was telescoping beams. This mechanical arrangement added about $1000.00 to the cost of producing the beams/tramp/boat and about another $1000.00 to the trailer cost for telescoping cross beams/arms. These cross beams were rigged with cables so that the trailer winch could be used to telescope the boat out to 12ft or in to 8ft.
The manual trailer winch could even be replaced with an electric winch which made the telescoping operation 'push button'.
To telescope the boat either way added 15 minutes to set up or take down time. The beach cat sailing public turned the idea down; only a few hundred boats were sold in ten years. The NAMSA PN for the SC20 was 62 when the Tornado was 64.
Today the fixed beams and tramp can be installed on an ARC22 catamaran by two persons in 20 minutes. The mast and standing rigging takes another 20 minutes. Spinnaker pole requires 10 minutes. Rudders and steering requires 10 minutes to install. Sails up takes another 15 minutes. Load the spinnaker and rig spinnaker sheets takes another 10 minutes. So, all in all it takes about an hour and a half to take an ARC22 fron trailer to sails up. Hinged beams might reduce that time 5 minutes and add $1000.00 to the cost to produce the boat. The hinges and machining and precision pins are going to cost $500.00. Then comes the impact on the dolphin stricker system, the jib traveller track and the main traveller track on the rear beam. For 5 or 10 minutes savings and 5% to 10% more cost to the boat; I don't think it is worth it.
Bill

here is the link to the original post http://www.catsailor.com/forums/ubbthre ... 5&page=all

[havliii]

Okay, so I found Bill's thoughts on the matter and a great thread on folding catamarans. (the internet is a magnificent resource and seems to never forget) What I seek is a 12 foot wide boat that rigs in 40 minutes flat and floats off a trailer, nearly ready to sail. (An hour and 1/2 rigging and launching is totally unacceptable if you do this drill 30-40 times a year.) Here's another big catch and dilemma for me, most days I rig solo, my crew is of the fairer sex and does no heavy lifting! Period. That's a big hurdle, try rigging a fixed beam, 12 foot wide boat in an hour and a half, working solo. (I rig my SC 20 solo on a regular basis! everything is dialed in and the systems perfected for doing this.)

Here's what I am really dreaming on: I want a folder that sits nearly ready on the trailer, 4 steps in launching, step the mast, float off the trailer, open the boat, move the shrouds, cinch the hyfields. Every step of the rigging has to be manageable by someone working alone and even better by a woman of 125 lbs. I know this is a tall order. But heck, it's 2015 times and materials have changed, maybe a fresh look at this 'old' idea is not so preposterous.

(I edited this post hopefully to clarify)

[Mac M]

Why not look into tilting trailers? I've often thought I'd like to have my 20 on one so I could take it places. I know it's been done before, I have the pictures! I almost bought this boat a few years back. The seller said it was road legal amd that he trailered it extensively. He stated his set up time was a little over 30 minutes not including sails.

If anyone figures them out I'd like one too!

[Matt Haberman]

You wont find too many people trailing a 12' wide boat on a tilt trailer. At 12' wide you will be over the DOT legal height when you get the boat tilted high enough so your under the DOT legal width of 8' 6"......

If you don't have any bridges to deal with you might be able to pull it off, although in our neck of the woods you would have a lot of powerlines in the way just getting from my house to the beach.

[havliii]

Mac, I don't know how that trailer ever got street legal, Matt is correct on the max height and I shudder to think about the bridge clearance issues.

I did not quantify all of the requirements/issues/hurdles that I have on my wish list. There are many places that I sail that you cannot launch a 12 foot wide boat. The max width of the ramp is typically 10 feet or less. You can open the boat out to twelve feet once afloat but you cannot fit it down the access ramp in the wide mode. This issue crops up all over the USA and is not isolated to the mid-Atlantic region.

A twelve foot wide catamaran is a giant pain in the butt for many reasons, but I want one none the less. (I actually already have one and could easily reassemble it in the OEM mode but it just doesn't work for me.)

[DanBerger]

OK, I have to weigh in on this, and keep Bill honest.

I bought Bill's modified 20 a few years back and it had solid beams. It was a PITA to trailer it and it took more than an hour to set up. He's close, maybe 2 hours, but still, it took two guys and power tools to put it together. He did have some tricks, though.

First, we used a battery operated impact wrench to put the beams on. It was like NASBOAT. the problem with that was that I didn't have an expanding trailer, so you had to wrestle the hulls off the trailer and have one guy holding each one while one guy ran around and drove in the bolts. Then, it took two people to put the trampoline into the tracks with usually one other person running side-to-side to feed the boltrope into the tramp tracks.

Now, his trick was that he had buttons on the beams so we only had to loosen the lines and take them off the buttons. We would only loosen the back ones so we didn't have to re-tighten the front ones. Then, while one guy is setting up the rigging, the other guy can tighten the rear lacing lines of the tramp. That usually went on faster than I thought but it got old real fast.

To Bill's credit, he was probably WAAAY more focused than we were...

Now that I have a telescoping 20 and I am experiencing the pains of putting it together, I think there might be a short cut, but you need an expanding trailer.

So, you should be able to compress the boat without taking the trampoline off. This would require a two piece tramp. So, the starboard side would always remain tight and you would have to loosen the port side so that it would bunch up on the beam as the boat is compressed. I think you would have to install a knee buster bar in the center of the boat on the larger diameter beams to keep the beams from being pulled towards eachother and then binding the smaller beam into the larger beam. You would put buttons or bolts on the bottom of the knee buster bar and loop the middle of the tramp lacing strings around them. That way, the port trampoline would fold out like and accordion when extending the boat. You would have to have a hand crank to extend the boat so that you can get sideways tramp tension. When fully extended, you put in the bolts and then all you have to do it tighten the rear half of the port trampoline.

OK, go ahead, everyone, chip away at my theory.. I can handle it

[havliii]

Dan, thanks for adding your thoughts. There's no way in this lifetime or the next that I am lacing a trampoline every time I go sailing. Not happening. I will give up sailing and putter about in the garden before I do that. There are solutions and yours may be one.

I'm going to hijack this thread for a moment. (it's my thread anyway) At the end of this logic trail, it's really all about access to water. Getting a boat to the water is the issue and THEN being able to launch it. Virginia is one of five states that allow private ownership of the water, that is criminal. Even the King of England had to give this position up (before we kicked his ass in the revolution.) The decree was that all waters AND the stream banks were public domain. That is the way it should be, no private landowner should have title to the water or the river banks and there should be access to the water across every single property that bounds the waterways. Private ownership of the adjacent land without an easement effectively locks the door to the waterway.

In Montana if you own land adjacent to a 'navigable stream' you have granted a permanent easement for fishermen to cross your property to gain access to the waters for the express purpose of fishing. They can walk across your property at any time day or night to gain access to the 'public stream bank.' This is the way it should be.

If I had access to launch sites where I could rig and LAUNCH a 12 foot wide boat, some of the issues would go away. But I don't expect this to happen in my lifetime.

[fjviola]

I think what ya'll are gravitating toward is an "ARC 21"
Other than the extra time to rig a Gin Pole for stepping the mast, we are out on the water nearly as quick as when I piloted an SC17
Franklin Viola
ARC 21.01

A74U7736.jpg

[Bill Roberts]

Relative to Dan's comments about setting up and taking down a 12 ft wide SC20.:
EVERY BEACH CAT SAILOR THINKS THEY KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERY BRAND OF BEACH CAT.
yOU CAN'T TELL THEM ANYTHING!
If Dan had come to Florida and picked the boat up and gone sailing with me and taken the boat apart with me
and loaded it on the trailer with me, he would have a somewhat different opinion about the difficulties and time taken to take the boat apart and put it together. When everyone that takes an old SC20 and takes it off the trailer and puts it together for the first time, they invent the whole process themselves. The correct order/quick way of doing things gets all jumbled up and scrambled and one step gets in the way of another and it takes much time and people become frustrated.
Example---You should never have to "relace the trampoline". You might have to put a little slack in the tramp lacing on one side but that only takes a minute or two and tightening it back up takes another couple of minutes.
Many old SCs that I have seen have been modified and remodified by so called experts and "fixed" up by people who knew nothing about what they were doing and the boats are now pieces of junk.

Another example: I helped sell an old SC22 to some guys out west. They were going to come go sailing with me and take the boat apart with me and load the trailer with me and it was going to be a good exchange. At the last minute this did not happen. I had to disassermble the boat myself, repair trailer hull padding, pack wheel bearings and have new tires put on the trailer. This was all stuff they, the new owners, were going to do. They did not go sailing with me and get a chance to ask 1,000 questions and become much smarter about the boat. What the heck, they didn't need that anyway, they were beach cat sailors and they already knew everything they needed to know. So they got a friend to pick the boat up and tow it somewhere.
When they finally got the boat to water and put together, the first thing they noticed was that when the mast bent during sailing, some of the diamond wires went slack while others stayed tight with the inner and outer diamond rig. Well something had to be wrong in their opinion! They had never seen that before. There were phone calls to the factory and back and forth and bla,bla,bla.
After a few more weeks of sailing and more phone calls to the factory, somehow the top of the mast becomes bent forward while flying the spinnaker. Some beach cat sailors know what causes that to happen but I won't say. As I remember the story they ruined that mast attempting to straighten it so they got another one. Then that one broke and it had to be "improper diamond wire adjustment" acccording to them. Then they got another mast from the factory rigged with inner and outer diamonds and so far so good. My point is that if those sailors had come and picked up the boat from me and gone sailing with me, they would have understood about the mast diamonds and a whole lot of other stuff and they would have been much happier owners of the old SC22 with many fewer problems.

[Bill Roberts]

Havliii,
If you owned a telescoping SC20 and a telescoping trailer from the factory with an electric wench you would be singing another song. The push button wench was used to telescope the trailer and boat out to 12ft wide. Then the tramp was tightened down the center. Then the electric wench was used to raise the mast. All of this was done within 30 minutes.
Very few customers bought factory trailers. I think only one or two customers bought the trailer with the electric wench.
Once we put a salesman on the road with van, boat and telescoping trailer with electric wench. he made many stops in Fla and along the Gulf coast. Set up and take down times were always quick and easy with one person. There was always much conversation with onlookers. Some thought the trailer was more interesting than the boat. I think he sold one boat in New Orleans. The boat was great and the trailer was great but together it was too much, too much of a step in technology and cost. The speed of the boat frightened some people. It was too big of a step from Hobie Cat sailing.

[gahamby]

Tell me more of this "electric wench". Is she comely? Does she have a fine ankle? Which part is electric?

[havliii]

Bill, I love you man. You are my inspiration, I mean that sincerely.... but ........ I have many issues with the telescoping 20. One of the issues is ramp width and launch sites, no amount of electricity or trailer perfection is going to fix this problem. I can't launch the boat in the 'wide mode.' No matter how perfect the system is, if it doesn't fit down the ramp it is useless to me. Kind of like upgrading a blind guy to a color TV, what's the point?

My 'cut down fixed beam 20' is a dragon slayer. I may not have the righting moment of the design boat, but I can go anywhere, launch anywhere. Would I like more beam? Damn right I would! but I want my cake and I want to eat it too.......... I NEED A WIDE BOAT THAT CAN BE LAUNCHED IN A NARROW SLIP, then opened to a wide profile with a modest effort. Sell me that boat.

Bill, you have changed my life, (that is the highest compliment) sailing Supercats has been a great joy for me and my wife. We sailed yesterday in near perfect conditions. We're ripping along, flying the hull, no trapping, just cruising at 17-18 mph and the wife says, WE NEED SOME WHITECAPS! I nearly fell off the boat. I have the video.

[Bill Roberts]

Gahamby, this wench had blond hair and blue eyes. There were also two black buttons. When you pushed the upper one she would grind to the left and tele out. When you pushed the lower one she would grind to the right and tele in.
You can find them in most marine catalogues for power boats.

[J Drew]

Ok, I couldn't resist, here's my two cents.

First, the legal height of any motor vehicle is 13'6". So even if the boat was completely vertical with 18" of clearance under the bottom hull, it would be legal. When you tilt it to an appropriate angle and max width of 8'6" down the road you go. Low clearance locations can be found in any commercial road atlas and telephone wires have to be15' off the ground. I might worry about low trees.
Tilted trlrs weren't popular because of the damage to the bottom hull because of cradling and road debris with the bottom hull so close to the ground.
My opinion is that it's easier to take the beams off than get the boat so high up in the air, but to each his own!

The other point is the set up time.
I have a telescoping trlr, fixed beams and all the latest updates. I build the boat myself and if nobody is distracting me I can do it in about 1 1/2 hrs, honestly, from box to sails. But I'm not chatting with anyone or watching the birds or beach combing.
One of the things that really saves time is the hooks for lacing the tramp. The hooks are fastened to the beams and the lacing line stays on the tramp. I can go from the tramp folded on the ground to tight on the boat in less than10 min.
I got the hooks from Tom.
I'll post pics of the hooks when I get home next weekend.