How do you sail one of these...

[watervole]

 I have a story that I really want to write.

 

Unfortunately, an integral part of the story is a traditional Oceania Voyaging craft (as seen in Moana).  This type of vessel is capable of circumnavigating the globe.  One already has...

Watch on YouTube

 

My problem is that I want to write about what it would be like to be part of the crew on such a ship and how one would learn to sail her - because part of the story involves a group of total novices and one very experienced sailor, going on a journey together.

 

But I have no idea where to start.  I know a small amount about some English forms of sailing (but not very much) but nothing at all about Hokulea and how to operate a crab claw sail - this is all I've been able to find, and having it in audio rather than written makes it even harder to follow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmH337ckZQw

Is this how it's moved around?

Watch on YouTube

 

Basically, is there anyone (I know at least a couple of you are proper sailors, and my best experience is an attempt to sail in a straightest line in Poole harbour with my daughter watching every second) who would be willing to work with me to write something that sounds plausible and interesting?

There is no purpose to this story - it doesn't even count as fanfic - unless you count a story 2000 years in the future and loosely inspired by Moana as fanfic.  It's just that I want to write it.

Comments

[igenlode]

I know nothing about Polynesian sailing beyond Thor Heyerdahl, and very little about lateen rigs beyond Tim Severin (and Wikipedia is indignantly adamant that a 'crab claw' sail is not a lateen rig, possibly because they want to avoid the suggestion that Arab civilisation had any influence in its development).

The idea of a rig that has a *permanent* windward and leeward side is an interesting one, and would have led to some unique developments in the internal layout of such a vessel if scaled up, one would think...

This is an interesting article by a hobby sailor taking out his home-made crab claw rig for the first time: https://proafile.com/multihull-boats/article/a-bloody-fine-first-day-with-a-crab-claw-1

[watervole]

INteresting write up. I only understood about half of it, but he must have rigged something wrong if the sheet caught the sail when he tried to tack (at least, I think that's what he's saying).

On the other hand, I have no idea how to avoid that problem...

[watervole]

Ah, I just watched the little video near the end of my post - you sort of move the bottom of the sail. It doesn't stay attached to the mast. (He may have been doing that for all I know - but it would seem to avoid catching any ropes - but I willing to concede that he knew far more about it than I do!)

[igenlode]

That whole site https://proafile.com looks extremely useful for your purposes.

(I hadn't considered the steering problem - if your boat has no bow or stern, you can't very well have a rudder! But presumably they just used steering oars, like most ancient sailors.)

The diagrams in this post illustrate pretty well how the basic rig works - a pair of stays running from bow and stern up to the top of the mast, the narrow point of the sail swinging from one end to the other of the hull as the mast flops over (think windsurfer), and the mainsheet attached to the permanent 'down-side' of the sail. You can also visualise how the mainsheet would tend to wrap itself around the sail as the bottom corner of the latter (the 'tack') passes along the side of the boat between the mast and mainsheet -- what I can't picture, not having viewed any of the videos, is how one would be able to avoid that happening!

It sounds as if Wade Tarzia was using the 'endless sheet tack line' (what he calls 'the endless shunt line') arrangement. The 'aka' is apparently the little outrigger hull. I'm not clear whether it was actually the mainsheet or the 'shunt line' that was wrapping itself around the sail as it pivoted!