ARIEL SCUTTER ref Admeasure/Tonnage

[ebb]

The cat is OUT of the bag.
Given serious thought to giving 338 a bowsprit.

In fact I've run it by a designer who crunched the numbers for us, the centers of effort, etc., and suggested, that because of the strength of the mast, running backstays weren't necessary. (He was the guy who also suggested raising the boom END to gain standing room in the cockpit!)

He produced a cad drawing of the rig with a 3 foot sprit - the jib stay going to the masthead, the stay paralleling to a a point on the mast where runners might terminate. Also ran the idea past a well known rigger who suggested using modern no stretch line and blocks for the runner tackle. Might need some extra winches. On a cruiser, you might want all the shrouds and stays you can set up at times.

Richard Moot's Triton #17 'Soubrette' was the original inspiration. You will see beautiful pix on the West Coast Triton maintenance pages of the conversion. And read the reasoning behind it. Cutters have always given me a charge. To see a boat that one family has owned since the beginning reborn as a two headsail rig is surely something to ponder. Soubrette has a wood bowsprit.

The conversion is so straight forward and seemingly simple, the arguement so persuasive, the result so beautiful - that I have always wished that Tim L. had scuttered us plebs thru it, piece by point.

338 will have a s.s. pipe/tube 'wishbone' sprit with legs that fit against the port and starboard toe rail, curve outboard alongside the stemfitting, coming to a rounded point where a plate will terminate the two leg pieces and provide the attachment for the bob and jib stays. A long curvacious 'V'. Some straight cross pieces will weld the legs together, provide a platform for anchor channel, and be thru drilled for bolts thru the deck. That's the idea...

All seems clear to me as a concept.

The details are muddy, I haven't found any PRACTICAL help on this.

[I've heard that 95% of cruising is in light air. A ladened boat can use the help larger and lighter sails provide.]