Carl,
<<What is the problem with the drum style for an ocean passage, given thats exactly what I plan to do>>
Depending upon your priorities, nothing is wrong with the drum rudders. It's a very subjective matter.
---
If I were to purchase a monohull, I'd purchase an ETAP, because not only are they unsinkable, they can be actively sailed while full of water, and can even recover from a 90-degree knockdown while full of water.
Most monohull sailors don't think this is an important feature. Some reviews say that unsinkability is nice, but not worth the loss of interior space due to the foam-filled double hull.
Is it just a "nice" feature? For some, yes.
For me, it's a requirement for any boat I intend to sail more than a mile off the coast (I don't mind swimming longer distances, but my crew might, and the water temp in
Maine can put some people out of commission pretty quickly). I'd say that unsinkability is like a seatbelt and airbag. You'll probably never need them. But if you do, and you don't have them, things can get pretty ugly.
But since people are accustomed to sailing very heavy boats that sink if there's a hole in them, unsinkability is seen by most as a novelty, not an important feature.
---
Kick-up foils on multihulls are a similar nice feature to have that matters to some people and not to others.
But for me, if hitting a whale, sandbar, log, or submerged container could render your foils useless until you find a boatyard, or even worse, sink the boat, that could make for an ugly day.
I want to be comfortable with what might happen if my kick-up foils collide with whatever lies unseen beneath the water. I'd love for a grounding out to mean nothing more than
cursing, retrieving my foil on it's line, setting it back in place, and sailing away.
Many people are more than happy to sail everywhere with tall daggerboards, and most never hit a thing. I've known a number of Corsair owners, and only one of them ever had issues with the daggerboard -- and he made the mistake of chartering the boat out to people who couldn't read charts, resulting in multiple repairs to the daggerboard and crash box.
Statistically, if you go with drum rudders in the hull, you'll probably be fine. Just as if, should you decide not to wear a seatbelt in a car, you'll also probably be fine.
To each his own.
I'd say that any harryproa on the water is a great thing, regardless of its foils, daggerboards, leeboards, mini-keels, and such.
- Mike
On 6/15/2010 10:16 AM,
Omar Khayyam wrote:
Mike, in your last post you said "And if you want to go fast, avoid steering balance issues, have an easy up/down system, and stay away from experimental designs, the drum is a good choice. Especially if you're not going to make an ocean passage."
What is the problem with the drum style for an ocean passage, given thats exactly what I plan to do.
Thanks,
Carl.