Took the proa out in a bit more wind than would probably be recommended and it handled it great! a bit scary but very exciting! much spray flying around due to high speed!
Planning on making a proa with my boys over the winter. Your videos are great inspiration and a perfect demonstration of getting out and having fun evolving a boat rather than trying to build perfection in the workshop.
sounds awesome, do it! building the hulls is the easy, fast part. getting the rig working well is more challenging. Unless you live on a coral atol in the pacific you probably havn't recieved a thousand year old tradition, and don't really know what you are doing, so a proa needs to be designed for rapid design iterations. Filming actually helps a lot because sometimes you can see things on rewatching that you don't notice in the moment of sailing
We saw you sailing from the Harbour Bridge, we had been looking at how choppy the water was and then spotted a crazy person sailing their proa 😂 Cool to see what it was like for you, you must have been very cold!
I love it. I used to take my Laser out when it was blowing 30 knot's and one time It was blowing even more where I had to wrap my sail around the mast, put the boat in the water and then flip the boat on it's side to rig it up. As soon as it was rigged, I shot across the bay and was the only boat on the water. It was rad! I'd like to build a Proa but would need some plans to do it. Not sure where I can get some.
wow, that's a great technique! did you already know about that trick or did you invent it from necessity? here are my plans for this: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iqIodg9159W_cSaRjghruW7QZCiFhkjt?usp=drive_link but I also recommend the Gary Dierking book, building outrigger canoes
@@dominictarrsailing Great video! I have been hooked on Proas ever since watching everything I could find on Jzerro. I have downloaded your plans, was going ot ask you if they were available. I really love and appreciate all of your videos. Thank you so much!
hmm, I think that may be deceptive. We are sailing on a board reach here, so it's not the worst wave hitting situation. sailing to windward in these conditions definitely takes you up and over. Which is what I want, because this boat is a cruiser not a racer. Wasn't expecting it to be this fast! It's also very light, 61kg rigged. Half the weight of a hobie 14. This means it has a pretty sporty sail area displacement ratio, even with a modest sail area (6m^2)
I have this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VJtoSu59fmo.html of course, I know you mean, in this much wind! I waited until I was at the edges where there was some shelter, but next time I go out in these conditions I will practice shunting in the exposed area
yes me too! I think there are a number of subtle design aspects that discourage water coming in. Firstly, although the bow is almost but not plumb, as are the sides at midships, the gunnels are mostly almost straight, so at deck level, the bow is quite blunt, but at the bottom, it's much finer, so there is more flare at the bows. This both deflects water and also ensures reserve bouyancy at the ends, Also there is the manu, prevents the bow diving under (without them, I certainly would have seen solid water come into the boat at some point this day). Also, the manu are lapped on, then have a stringer along the top outside edge, so water hitting these steps get deflected out. Some times spray does land on the deck, but there is a coaming that causes it to run out the side. Watching this video, you can see that when the spay does lift up to deck level it's usually come past the manu, having a runner that stuck out on the windward side would deflect that, and if it was also set slightly below the gunnel, say, 5mm, then any water that landed on top would be more likely to run out than in. After this run, which was a little bit more than a mile, there wasn't more than a few litres on board. I got it out with an car wash sponge.
I have learnt a lot from gary, this is definitely influenced by gary but it's my own design. it's quite a bit smaller than the wa'apa (3 sheets, not 5) but I got the idea to put the leeboard on the ama from gary. Also I favour the tack coming high over the deck rather than sliding along the lee rail. Also I think I use the windward mast adjustment a lot more. btw, there is a link to the plans I drew in the description of the build video
@@dominictarrsailing Life has been busy my friend. Good to see you’re still out there doing it! Giving us keyboard sailers something to drool over! I’m hoping to *finally start on my canoe. I should have all the materials within a week or so…
Always great to see a proa sailing and in this case going for it; maybe up to the edge of the comfort zone! If you have a smartphone (in a waterproof case) you can run Strava and it would log your route and course, also give you a speed readout if you have the hands and eyes free to look! It would be fun to know what the actual speed is?
yes I'm planning to record some GPS tracks! I think I could go a bit harder than in this video, but when a gust comes it turns causes too much weather helm. See my latest video for a rudder that I've made. To go fast you need both power and control. There is clearly plenty of power available here, in fact, I'm brailing a bit (depowering) to stay on course. With a rudder I think I'll be able to hike out and hold the boat straight through the gusts! Also I'm gonna make a bigger sail so I don't have to wait for conditions like this to really send it!
bringing the various forces into balance is what I love about sailing and that's particularily emphasized in a proa. However, I am planning to add a rudder, for gusty conditions. Sailing with sails and weight shift works well in steady wind, but in gusty conditions, the wind suddenly increases, so the sail forces suddenly increase, but the hull forces are dependent on the boat speed, and the boat hasn't had time to accelerate yet. So you get a lot of weather helm suddenly. That means you can't really make use of the power boost that the gust gives you. With a rudder or oar, you can rapidly increase the hull forces to compensate for the gust. With an oar I think I could have held on to full sail, without brailing, and gone even faster! Of course, what's really great about sailing a proa without a rudder is that it teaches you a lot more about sailing. Things that would be mere subtleties when using a rudder become the most important control variables.
update: today I went sailing again, just slightly milder conditions. On the way back I steered with oar - didn't go as fast as I expected and my hand got very tired. I went back to balance steering and immediately realized I needed more ww stay! just how the rudder deceives you!
It is very impressive to see how much the whole rig flexes while going over the waves. Also, the waves look to be quite large judging how much of a tilt to the horizon you see. What do you think your maximum speed could be?
Unfortunately I wasn't recording a GPS track, so I can't say for sure. I _feel_ like saying 10 knots. or maybe 11 or 12. on the previous video I asked viewer to give me their guess, of a similar (but much shorter) speed burst. 10 knots was about the average. 10 knots is about 5 meters per second, and the boats 4.2 meters long so if a stick gets to under the platform in 10 frames it should be about that. I'm actually quite surprised how fast the boat turned out. I was trying to design a conservative all rounder, but I did make it light! rigged, it's 60kg. I'm 60 something. Anyway, making a light skinny boat is the easy part. To go fast you need to be able to hold on to that power so it needs balanced control. That's the challenging part!
@@dominictarrsailing This is awesome mate and so interesting to watch the handling vs my experience with conventional mast positioning and boom angles etc. Have been thinking of making a ply dinghy but would love to see this up close and understand how you made it. Will look at your channel to see what I find :)
@@getahanddown this playlist is everything I made about it ru-vid.com/group/PLT7Uycq16-Y_d5he61DfJWngikQwxh4Nf on the construction video there is a link to the plans that I drew also
@@lonniekropf808 oh great! I have several friends on the other side in Puna, and spent some time there a few years back. But probably safer sailing on Kona side, except within the Hilo breakwater
@@lonniekropf808 yes. Sailing a experimental boat like this you sometimes need to land on a beach and untangle things. That's probably why the hawaiian style canoes were quite different. Optimized for surfing into the beach, not sailing on a beam reach. Actually, when I visited in 2018, there was a canoe hanging up in "uncle robert's" it looked just like a gary dierking ulua (because gd copied the hawaiian style) but when I looked closely I saw that it wasn't a U shape all the way, it had a flatter section forward, for better surfing, I presume. I took lots of photos of it at the time but those are lost now...
Proa seems to absorb the bumps and roles nice. For such a small boat it handles the swells. I like this camera angle. After 8 months of work I finally have time off to finish my 11 footer. This is inspiring. No paint yet?
definitely gonna paint it, but I keep on changing it. I made a tarp cover to protect it from the sun in the meantime. gonna take it to a worshop with sander and vaccum so I can do a good, smooth shiny paint job (smooth goes faster!)
@@adrianbonwitt5924 two sheets 4mm, one sheet 6mm meranti marine ply. see the build video ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-EdEAhlnCRko.html (which also has a link to the plans I made in the description)
I have in the past thought I was saving money using cheaper ply and had it delaminate. Gary Dierking says you can test the ply by boiling a sample then letting it dry out again and if it doesn't delaminate it's good enough. well sealed with epoxy, of course. my other proa was built with exterior construction ply wood and lasted very well even in complete neglect
It's a harbour, I sail from one side to the other, in pretty much a straight line. Out the right hand of the shot the water extends several nautical miles.
I'm steering with the sail and my weight. The sheet, adjusting the windward stay, the brailing lines. shift my weight back or forward (or out) and also the leeboard.
@@dominictarrsailing :) sure this one is coming same on my side :) editing video but when It will be done I will let you know. BTW do you think I can refine your sketch more and republish it ? I made it longer it's 4.7m still using 3 sheets. Now I'm after first test rigging setup. I learn a lot and it rose more question in my head then I was expecting :) proa is a different beast! Good to know that your good man !
just looking at the map and taking some rough guesses its just under 1.3 Nautical miles from Ponsonby Beach to little Shoal bay and you make it in just under 11 minutes including paddling and getting started. I'm guessing your average speed is between 7-8 knots which means your top speed must have been over 10 knots, I dont think there would be a faster way to cross the harbour .
Haha yup! I took a gps recording the next day, I clocked a peak speed of 10 knots, although it wasn't as windy as this day! The design challenge now is holding on to that peak speed for longer.
Yes you can. it's not a fast shunt, it's a very careful shunt. In my opinion it's safer and more controlled to shunt than to tack. To tack you need momentum to carry the bow through until at least the sail can back and push the bow over. Multihulls are usually very light and also have long hulls that don't like turning so they are typically a bit hard to tack, with big waves like this it's worse because the wave is slowing you down too. You might have to gybe instead, which means barrelling down and prossibly surfing! However, to shunt you just stop, take a breath, and pull the sail over. several people have asked about this so I'll try to film it next time. In this session I did 4 legs across the bay with 2 shunts (and one stop on the beach) but a little camera trouble
the yard and boom are both made from old windsurfer masts that I picked up at various dump shops (that is, a shop attached to the dump were you can buy stuff that's been saved from the landfill, which many towns in NZ have now!) Otherwise I'd use bamboo, bamboo is great if you can dry it out well, otherwise it doesn't last very long...
@@VigilanceTech yes i am well aware of the asymmetric style, but shall draft works better for me here in nz, because im often sailing in tidal esturaries and if i need to drag it through the mud, flat bottom is much better than v! Also i wanted something with decent volume that could paddle okay.
I love your proa and apocalypse cat. How do keep proas big hull empty? Bilge pump? I have a proa kind of boat too which evolved out of two canoes I built few years ago and evolution is still going on. Greetings from Estonia and if you wanna see my boat just check my channell.
The manu (curvy up bits on the end, means "bird") are the first line of defence, then on the deck I recently installed coaming (similar to how the spray skirt attaches on a kayak) that means any water that makes it to the end deck runs off. In conditions lighter than this, very little water comes in. I was thinking about adding a floor half way up, that would be self draining. But this design is only 3 sheets of ply to build, and I would like to preserve that. So I might just make a spray skirt type cover
@@craigstenhouse679 hmm, I looked into that. I havn't sailed a boat with one before... would they work sailing both ways? apparently they leak a little, so water comes in if you are not moving. That would rule it out I think because I often have this boat floating next to my catamaran. Maybe if there was one that could change direction and also have a tap to turn it off?
@@dominictarrsailing Yip, you can shut them off...maybe you need one at each end facing in opposite directions? They were really effective in a couple of sunbursts that I used to sail.
@@dominictarrsailing If you look up venturi self bailer you'll find them...I just had a look, and surprise, surprise, they're bloody expensive if you buy a new one from one of the big marine shops...
ah I have seen this blog before, but I think I didn't realize just how much content there was! I now see there is a whole dissertation! (and of course I've seen the impressive video of his proa sailing and shunting quite quickly!)
