How to speed up a Snowgoose?

[Cheechako]

do you have a full battened main?

[Snowgoose35]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

do you have a full battened main?

No sadly a skinny in mast furling main - very easy to use and safe for my 5ft 95lb wife but not much power - having said that of course with a huge genoa and teh aft set mast on the Prout anyway, opinion seems to be that all the drive is on the front in these boats...

[Cheechako]

There's your problem. You should be doing hull speed or above on a reach with a cat. The big roach is super important.. Convert your mast to a non furling and get a full batten main! or at least one with a sizeable roach and regular battens. Caveat: I don't really know Prouts... but generally to have a fast cat you need a big roach... is my understanding...

[monte]

Your speeds sound good Pete, I'd go for different sails if you want more speed on a reach, add a code 0 or gennaker. Don't go crazy with the weight savings because a 6.5 K average is pretty good. Maybe you could add a knot with a lot of weight sacrifices but at the end of the day it jus means you arrive in the anchorage 1hr earlier after a 70M sail we here you will need all the toys, anchors, outboards etc... You don't want to rely on just a fortress for the med.
Cheers from the canaries
Rob and Jen and Balrog

[Snowgoose35]

Hi Rob
Good to hear you guys are safely in the Canaries - give Balrog a stroke from us...
I have a 25kg Rocna on the front - the Fortress will just be my back up anchor and kedge rather than 30 kg worth of Bruce anchors!
I'll start investigating more fancy sails...


Cheechako - I could get a fully battened main but no big roaches with the Prout as it has twin back stays and being an aft set mast its only 3m from the back so not much of a boom either. The genoa on the other hand has a 7m foot on a 10.5m boat!

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

There's your problem. You should be doing hull speed or above on a reach with a cat. The big roach is super important.. Convert your mast to a non furling and get a full batten main! or at least one with a sizeable roach and regular battens. Caveat: I don't really know Prouts... but generally to have a fast cat you need a big roach... is my understanding...

I'm not a Cat, but can tell you that I really like my furling boom, fully battened main with roach, yet I can still furl like a furling mast. Seems to be the best of both worlds

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by monte

Your speeds sound good Pete, I'd go for different sails if you want more speed on a reach, add a code 0 or gennaker. Don't go crazy with the weight savings because a 6.5 K average is pretty good. Maybe you could add a knot with a lot of weight sacrifices but at the end of the day it jus means you arrive in the anchorage 1hr earlier after a 70M sail we here you will need all the toys, anchors, outboards etc... You don't want to rely on just a fortress for the med.
Cheers from the canaries
Rob and Jen and Balrog

I think he said 6.5 k on a beam reach, not average. Seems pretty slow for a cat on a BR.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Snowgoose35

No sadly a skinny in mast furling main - very easy to use and safe for my 5ft 95lb wife but not much power - having said that of course with a huge genoa and teh aft set mast on the Prout anyway, opinion seems to be that all the drive is on the front in these boats...

Hahaha. C'mon. How much performance can you get out of an in-mast furling sail. Was your ship designed to have an in-mast furling sail up front?

You do not get much drive from the genoa once broad reaching.

Get her a kite for the off the wind lighter days. You can easily gain a knot or more like this.

b.

[Snowgoose35]

We have a huge tri-radial symmetric which really powers her up downwind but an asymmetric for 90-120 is on the shopping list for next year...

It wasn't designed with an in mast furler - its just what was on her when we bought her and seemed very easy to two novices so we kept it...

[Stumble]

There are a lot of issues it sounds like you have, and frankly they are all important. Wether they are worth doing though is up to you...

1) for the bottom I would go with Baltaplate. It's a hard bottom paint that after application needs to be burnished. If you are serious about reducing drag it then also needs to be wet sanded. It's a lot of labor so either get ready for sore shoulders or to wright a big check to the yard.

2) replace the main with the biggest roach sail you can fit. I would probably also look at installing a backstay kicker to allow an even bigger sail. Full batons are required to get something like this to fly right, so the in mast system needs to go.

3) replacing the mast. Unless the larger extrusion came from a multihull it's probably worthless. Cats and trimarans have vastly different RM curves, and need much stiffer mast sections than a mono of the same size. The mast on my 24' tri for instance is actually a larger section than on my Beneteau 381. If you want to put on a larger mast you need to have someone run the numbers to make sure the new section is large enough, and stiff enough to handle the excess RM of the cat.

The other issue is that multihull designers tend to undersize sail area for a reason. A mono just heels more and more as it's overpowered giving pretty obvious clues that it's getting overpowered. A multihull however just sails flat until it flips over. By intentionally restricting available sail area a designer can reduce the likelyhood of this occurring. Of course in performance boats this is pushed, but then you have skilled and watchful crew paying attention to the boat all the time.

If you do go with a larger rig, particularly one this much larger I would really suggest one of two things (if not both) 1) adding load cells and auto trip cleats to the boat 2) have the NA who does the rig redesign also do a sail plan with wind speed reef requirements. It is very difficult for most sailors to recognize when a multihull is being pushed hard since from onboard not much really changes.

4) reducing weight - it is always better to reduce weight. How seriously you push this is up to you and the living conditions you are willing to accept. It's usually pretty easy to remove a couple hundred pounds of just trash from a long term cruising boat, relatively easy to remove more, but with each successive attempt to remove weight it gets harder and harder to find more. So taking off the second dinghy is easy, but you really do need one. Removing anchors 3-6 is a no brainer but you probably do need at least two. Spare parts are heavy, but also useful and expensive when away from home so it depends. Cutting off protruding bolts is helpful but only adds up to a few pounds, and is a lot of work. Sanding away the interior gel coat may save a few pounds but is messy and incredibly labor intensive.

However all of this will only get you up to whatever the hull speed of the boat is faster, and make it easier to maintaine. Adding more power won't add much to speed, but will add a lot of load on the boat's fittings. Since I don't know the Snowgoose at all I wouldn't guess what that speed is. But I am sure if you called Prout they would be happy to make some guesses.

[FSMike]

All else being equal, monos with lots of sail area need more ballast.
Multis with more sail area need more overall beam.

Boatman & Boatguy & I are in the same boat here (sorry).
If you need more performance switch to a different design.

[barnakiel]

An in-mast has huge benefits for easy handling. But a huge roach has some benefits for performance!

I would not convert back. I would stay with easy handling and look for the performance factor elsewhere.

I am SURE you can. I bet you can. Do not give up.

We can sail regular 90 mile days in our 25'er when she is clean. It is a fixed three blade prop with considerable wetted area sort of a boat. You should be easily sailing 120 mile days in a 36'er cat.

Cheers,
b.

[a64pilot]

He'll get something from ditching that furling main, and apparently he can afford to, so why not?
What's wrong with in boom furling?
I'd do that before I tried maintaining a racing bottom on a cruising boat?

Cutting off extra fastener length and sanding away gelcoat? Man, you guys are serious, wow That's a lot like drillanieum on a bicycle.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Snowgoose35

We have a huge tri-radial symmetric which really powers her up downwind but an asymmetric for 90-120 is on the shopping list for next year...

It wasn't designed with an in mast furler - its just what was on her when we bought her and seemed very easy to two novices so we kept it...

Take it slow with that asymmetric. Cats seem to be very happy with symmetric kites.

Where is it that your speeds suffer? High winds? Light winds? Mid range?

b.

[Southern Star]

Sorry Snowgoose, I completely mis-read the size difference in the rig! Yes, that would dramatically inrease your potential sail area - as well as dramatically raise the Ce for the sailplan. I, for one, would worry about transverse stability in gusts....

One question: was the new mast designed to be used with a single spreader rig? If not, simply lengthening your stays and shrouds may be insufficient. At minimum, I suspect that you would have to increse the length of the spreaders, which would of course have a negative impact on sheeting angles upwind if your headsails have any overlap.

Brad