Author: Christian

After testing Proasis in stronger wind conditions around 20-25kt we made the experience that our mast bent a bit to much. Therefore we decided to increase its stiffness. Fortunately we found a really good offering for UD-and carbon sleeve which can be laminated quite easily.

Last weekend we set up our test rigg for the first time. Made out of old windsurf-masts, a piece of Bangkirai wood and our polytarp sail we built two years ago. We are looking forward to test it soon! The real sail will have a better shape, some other improvements and less wrinkles ;-), but for the first sea-trials it will be sufficient.

Some impressions:

With a little delay, here is a time-lapse video of the building progress. The video contain 32,562 pictures, taken every 30 seconds. We documented almost every building steps, but some days are missing, because Henrik didn’t managed to turn the camera on or I forgot to charge it :-/ – so don’t wonder if there are some gaps. 😉 Enjoy watching.

Maybe an odd way to start building a boat, but the very first part of proasis will be the rig (naval term for mast, sail and all other parts belonging to them). Why? That’s a bit of a story:

Originally, proasis was supposed to get a free standing carbon mast (free standing means no shrouds to hold it up) with a soft wing sail on it (see a video of something similar here).

Aside of the not very sustainable carbon part we never got happy with the design:

• Much additional work for the mast construction
• High expenses for the materials
• Even more work for sewing the sail (it needs sewed in shape!)
• High bending moments in the leeward hull around the mast bearing
• Unsustainable design, many new and non degradable parts involved

We thought about many workarounds and fancy designs but eventually came back to the (Marshallese) oceanic lateen sail!

Proofed for centuries on the pacific, the biggest ocean of our planet. For us the best sail possible:

• Decent performance (we measured the performance of marshallese canoes!)
• Simple and cheap to build (spars and flat cloth only)
• Low center of effort
• Low stress in the sailcloth

For the spars we were lucky to get tons of old windsurfing mast for free by our sailing club:

The windsurf mast were simply transferred into mast and booms and laid out to test the geometry for shunting:

Next week we will get some cloth and sew the sail. Stay tuned!