Lateen Sails

Hi everyone, and first off, my first love is for 15^th century caravels, with lateen sails thank you. Unfortunately, I am not a ship builder and will likely never have one. I did however, come up with an idea that would facilitate moving the yard from one side of the mast to the other when crossing the eye of the wind, thus hopefully reducing manpower requirements somewhat. The idea may well have been tried and rejected, and of course even if workable, could not be used on a ship that was intended to be a period replica.

Having observed many images of caravels that appeared to have all the lines in place, I observed that a few of them did not appear to have any lines emanating from the mast at a point above where the yard attached. That point is critical, as the yard will herein be attached very close to the top of the mast.

In practice, the sails would be pulled up to the yard by appropriately placed lines. The “rotator” shown in the following link would then be flipped over as shown and the sails could then be let down on the other side of the mast.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=90F2DFCE00CBACE8%21210

A problem will arise if the sails do not follow the yard all the way over and they become entangled atop the mast or yard, so they would have to be drawn up tight or some control lines would be required. Of course  a host of other problems might also be possible. So is this idea workable?

My only experience to this point is reading and looking, and my wife looks at sailboats and thinks they are silly. So who knows what the future will hold.

My thanks to all for your time, and thoughts and comments would be appreciated.

 

 Hi, and thanks for the response. It seems that for a lubber looking for wind power, simple really might be better. Did see a picture a few minutes ago that showed a mast on both sides of the boat with one of those lateen like sails with a yard like thing on the top and on the bottom. It looked really cool, and maybe even slightly easy. Thanks, and happy happies. Shoepuppy

Hi everyone,
I am also working on a small lateen sail sailboat solution for farm goods transportation to the city. Please look at the pictures in http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sailboats/saveiro-sail-boat-51648.html#post708626 and on the  youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-Smzst8hPA with I tried to swing the sail over the mast and normally there is no problem. If it stucks on the top of the mast, simply fast pull the main sh*t loosens it (yellow in the video). But the best is to shorten the distance from the top of the sail till the top of the mast.
From what I saw in other sail boats, a good solution is to use a line in the front part of the sail connected to the bow and make the sail so that you can turn it vertically behind the mast. Then you attache the line again to the bow. This means you need someone with you in the boat. Since I sail alone a prefer to have the longer version of the sail. Please look at the video.
You might wonder why this sail and not to buy a perfect one in the shop. Well, there is no shop here and second reason is that I did it all for maybe 30-40 euros.

Does anybody know how to make my lateen sail faster?

Thank you,

Pedro

I think I follow you. If I've got this right your idea will only work on an unstayed rig, shrouds would get in the way.

Another rig that suffered from a miss shaped main on one tack was the lugger. This problem was addressed in the "Dipping Lugsail". The yard and sail were dropped, the tack disconnected and the whole shooting match re-rigged on the other side and raised again......it took about 10 minutes to tack. Not terrible popular with the crew I wouldn't have thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugger

Yes, it works. I did it today on my laser/lateen sail experiment.

I cuted a piece of the yard in the boom side and now I can quickly put the yard on port or starboard. I pull the yard to a vertical position, change the side of the mast and the it loose again. The yard is connected to the mast but the boom is free. Tacking is already much faster. The connection of the yard to the mast is now 15cm higher too.

Doing this I noticed that the boat sails faster upwind in the vertical yard position. Not while reaching.

Yes, I needed two control lines to swing the yard from one side to the other.

sorry if it sounds like I am inventing the wheel and boiling water. I read carefully your opinions and ideas and try to make this better.

thanks,

Pedro