Heaviest sailing gear ever!

Andre Cloutier

Firestarter. Wicked Firestarter.
This came with a very early prospector i collected, though i am not sure it originally came with it. Main, mizzen and big leeboards. But the biggest piece is the twin rudders, never seen any thing like it. At first i thought home made as it came down from the rafters, but this is factory made gear.
 

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Interesting. Despite perhaps seeming a bit clumsy and excessive in execution, that's actually a pretty clever concept. The leeboard-bracket-like attachment system would allow a secure, clamp-on and detachable rudder system without having to drill any holes in the stem or permanently attach any rudder hardware there. If you made the bracket with some beam adjustment, you could even use the fore and aft placement of the bracket to fine tune the rig balance with relation to the sailplan's center of effort. I suspect that a bit of careful slimming-down of some of the components might make a pretty substantial reduction in the system's weight without compromising too much strength. A couple of longer, narrower, higher-aspect rudder blades with a little shape would probably also improve performance. Yes, it's a bit outside the box, but I kind of like it.
 
I suspect that a bit of careful slimming-down of some of the components might make a pretty substantial reduction in the system's weight without compromising too much strength. A couple of longer, narrower, higher-aspect rudder blades with a little shape would probably also improve performance.

And if you are really clever in your reshaping, you can foil along with the AC72s... :eek:
 
If Benson still has that Wahoo with the daggerboard slots on both sides maybe we could lay up some curved daggerboards with foils on the bottom and build some rudder blades with end plates and set him free.
 
If Benson still has that Wahoo with the daggerboard slots on both sides maybe we could lay up some curved daggerboards with foils on the bottom and build some rudder blades with end plates and set him free.

Shouldnt take more than 3 or 400 ft of cloth to do it. I'd pay to watch that..;)
 
I played with Bruce Foils as a combination Lee Board and stabilizer. Maybe if I had mounted 4 of them and a Spring System to suppress them into the water, and figured a way to keep the sail from pushing the bow down and only weighed 4 lbs it would have worked.
I actually like the twin rudder concept.
 
Does the rudder mount in front of the stern seat? If so, tillers could be flipped back, and the connecting board lie closer to the stern seat. I suspect a design goal was to create a quicker turning boatwith a shorter distance between the rudder and the leeboards.
 
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