Need hull cast from my plug

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Paul. Our limited experience of square rig sailing is…difficult.

It is so difficult to keep the wind in the right quarter for any length of time unless your sailing water is very long, and it is one of the reasons I used muslin for the London sails.

I even thought of somehow stiffening the muslin (whilst keeping the porosity of the material) to give that “Airfix” model full sail look all the time. As it is, the sails tend to spend a lot of time “aback” which is not the best, however the sails are deliberately relatively tight so this is not too obvious.

I have a nice period looking 60mm two blade period prop for the London powered by an MFA 2.5:1 geared 540 usually running on 9.6V (ship 48 inches hull length), and this struggles sometimes to exert authority when going into wind due to mostly the incredible bluff rear end (and mine is nowhere near as blunt as the real thing) and the likely inefficiency of the prop. Reversing is almost a non-starter due to the hull proportions. It will stop, just about, and will reverse a bit, but this is accompanied by mountains of froth from the prop going astern at full throttle.

Another thing is the size of rudder you will need to sail. Big, very big and massively over-scale otherwise steering will be impossible….unless…like the London, you keep the prop turning to provide the necessary water flow over the rudder. It is unfortunate that although in a moderate breeze the London DOES sail (go along under sail power alone) strictly speaking it is not sailing due to the light motor assistance….

Ashley

[Paul Williams 34Participant @paulwilliams34]

Ashley – I discovered the hard way that the square sails on the schooner foremast had such a dominant effect on steering -plus the embarrassment of sailing backwards ! So I am not expecting sailing a square rigger to be easy, especially with such a tubby hull form. Having said that, I will aim to utilise the wind rather than fight it, although our small club lake is prone to turbulence and dead spots.

Schooner has a massively enlarged rudder and certainly needs it all.

(Will aim to send you a PM)

Paul

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