Amel downwind rig.

[billknny]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

And now thanks to this thread, you know of the Oysters which have one or two vertical poles and tracks on their masts.

What use is the second pole put to on an Oyster? Do Oysters set a second jib for downwind work? If so how?

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by billknny

What use is the second pole put to on an Oyster? Do Oysters set a second jib for downwind work? If so how?

Here’s a picture taken last week showing the pole location. We have two head sails on our cutter rig so we can pole out the yankee and either the staysail or asymetric spinnaker.

[billknny]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Here’s a picture taken last week showing the pole location. We have two head sails on our cutter rig so we can pole out the yankee and either the staysail or asymetric spinnaker.

Are both poles the same length? I would guess they must be rather short to be useful for poling out a staysail or yankee?

Without going to the spinnaker--do you know the square footage of sail you can spread for a downwind run?

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by billknny

Are both poles the same length? I would guess they must be rather short to be useful for poling out a staysail or yankee?

Without going to the spinnaker--do you know the square footage of sail you can spread for a downwind run?

We have one spinnaker pole, the second pole is an option, so we use the boom to pole out the staysail if needed. We have just under 2000sq ft of sail including the main sail with preventer and yankee , or 1500 with two jibs for down wind use. Total sail area of all three sails is 2090.

[RaymondR]

The mast is Isomat which has a double groove down the front. You may be able to get a bracket to fit into the grooves however I decided that for prototyping purposes I could fabricate one from alloy flat bar.

The lines coming out the bottom just outboard of the hinge bolts are the out-hauls.

[RaymondR]

This image shows the genoa hauled out on a down wind run. I pretty well always have the genoa poled out on a downwind or forward quartering run to stop if flapping when the boat rolls.

[RaymondR]

Running down wind in a light breeze with both the genoa and a genaker set.

[RaymondR]

The mast bracket.

The bracket is built in two halves which, when bolted tight lock the bracket into place on the mast, by doing it this way I can move the poles up or down to optimize the angles.

[RaymondR]

The poles are raised with a topping lift and stow in front of the mast.


Future developments:

These poles are 60mm dia X 3mm wall thickness and I think a little heavier than what is required. I will taper the poles using an outer section of 50mm OD X 2.5mm wall thickness and may make them telescoping.

Brackets are good and just need tidying up and powder coating.

Turning blocks just above deck level on the mast for both out-hauls and the topping lift are required so that I can jibe the genoa without leaving the cockpit (I'm an old codger and not near as nimble as I used to be and don't like leaving the cockpit in heavy rolly weather)

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

The mast bracket.

The bracket is built in two halves which, when bolted tight lock the bracket into place on the mast, by doing it this way I can move the poles up or down to optimize the angles.

Very nice work. Looks like a great setup. Do you use anything to stop the stainless brackets chewing up the softer aluminum?

[Albro359]

Our AMEL designed and built setup works just fine with the genoa on the port side and the ballooner on the starboard side for downwind running.
For reaching....say 90 to 120 degrees we use a pole for the gennaker and put up the mizzen ballooner (for non-Amel folk that's like a gennaker but hoisted on the mizzen mast, tacked to the cabin top) and we fly with gennaker, main, mizzen ballooner and mizzen.
In 2014 we sailed from Suvarov to Samoa with that rig 24 hours a day for 3 days, never took it down and did over 200 miles a day...every day....

[daletournier]

I think the benefit of the Amel rig is the ease of which you can get two similar sized sails out front in a way that dampens roll (as Bilkiny explained). . I currently go wing on wing using the main and jib, which is poled out. My pole is mounted like ken's.

Of course my setup works but I see the Amel setup as more ideal for long ddw passages in the trades.

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

Very nice work. Looks like a great setup. Do you use anything to stop the stainless brackets chewing up the softer aluminum?

The brackets are aluminium, I don't like working with stainless and avoid it as much as possible.