It's all true, very powerful sail! Best part about it is, your sheeting angle can be way off, yet they keep driving like crazy....
Second best thing is, I have made many
sails in a few hours for almost free... Very simple and
cheap to make yourself, yet very effective, I had Proas sailing very close to windward, 45-50 degrees, was normal performance for any sail, no matter how bad it looked.
BUT.... You can't reef them! As a cruiser that's frightening, on a Proa more so than on a
Catamaran. On a Cat the
mast is at mid ship, making sail changing easy, since it's better to change
sails than attempt to reef. On Proas changing sails is very hard almost impossible, due to
mast position and the general layout of the
boat.... It's a long story, to make it short on Cats, mast is at mid ship. Spare sails are kept on
deck near the mast. The hulls are on the sides, so nothing gets in the way...
On a Proa the mast is all the way to leeward, over the Vaka. Sails would be kept to windward on
deck towards the ama. The problem is Crab Claws have long spars, when dowsing the sail, it all comes down on the Vaka, now somehow these long spars needs to get pushed, between the mast and standing
rigging over to the windward side of the boat, now it can get lashed to deck, a smaller sail in the same way, needs to get dragged over, past the mast onto the big
hull, finally get rigged and raised.....
Spare sails are too much weight to carry around, and hard
work.
Crab Claws could be depowered by pulling the boom up with the brailing lines, now you are sailing along with a crunched up piece of cloth, that cant sail better than a beam reach, if you are trying to get off a lee shore, good luck to you!
Great rigs! as long as used correctly by experienced sailors...
On my first 2 Proas I was scared to sail away into the unknown... Finally I started cruising and enjoying sailing on my third Proa once it got Junk Rigged. It's a hybrid Junk designed for shunting, The only true Shunting Junk in the world, since the sail is moved forward towards the bow on every shunt.
VIDEO below saved Balkan Shipyards. The first 'Lateen rigged SHunting juNK' (the 'LaSHuNK') in action during sea trials... Best Micro Cruiser in the world! This boat has gone very far and became the blue print of our Proas.
Keep Shunting, Balkan Shipyards
https://youtu.be/F7TjCkXuoLg?si=XpzbOx6nIRrH9G7v