DRAGONFLY Trimarans User Forum

There's a seemingly interesting article on www.baadmagasinet.dk/online/content/v3/ ... 1166631398

Unfortunately it's in Danish. Is there any Dane on this forum willing to translate it to another Anglo-Saxon dialect?

Sure !
Here is a resume: (I wonder if I can do it with my DF800 )


Danish Dragonfly crossing the atlantic in good shape.

Dragonfly trimaran "Skagerrak" with crew Tina and Jens Thuesen crossed the atlantic in 14 days and 26 hours. They did it in
the Atlantic Rally for cruisers (ARC). The journey which are 2700 miles, went from Gran canaria to Caribia, St. Lucias and
had over 200 participiants.

Here is the danish report:

13-12-2006 08:08 by Jens og Tina from Caribia
Trimaran ”Skagerrak” which are sailed by Tina and Jens, is the first doublehanded boat to pass finish line in ARC 2006.

But unfortunately wasn't it enough to line honours in the multihull class, says Jens Thuesen.
The final results after handicap is not ready until end of week when the rest of the boats arrives, but right now we are on the third place after calculated time.
We were boat number 35 crossing the finish line and the fourth multihull, when engine hours are withdrawn.
We were leading in the start of the race, and had one of the fastest boat, if not the fastest. But after a couple of days it went clear that boats, which could sail 100% 7 by 24, would be the first to arrive because of the strong winds.

Many boats lost rudders and broke their masts.

ARC 2006 gave some of the strongest tradewinds which had been seen during the ARC. The strong winds meant recordtimes for the ARC race.
There was only a few days with light winds. This cocktail meant brokens masts, lost rudders and a lot of broken sails in 33 knots wind and a waveheight of 4-5 meter.

"To us it meant that we during the nights sailed a little to conservative, we could have had a speed of 12-14 knots, but decided to reef and have a good nights sleep.
With full crew, which means four or five, we could have taken line honours and been the first to cross finish line."

30 knot during night
During the nights the winds was around 30 knots, and here is a Dragonfly running more than 15 knots, if you want.
Our spinnakers were to big for the heavy winds, and we recommend now a least three spinnakers for a race like this.
We broke during the ARC only a spinnakertube. Rudder, rig, sail autopilot and electical system worked without problems.
Against all common sense we started with equipment which was not tested, a new rudder from Quorning boats and new sails from Quantum sails.
But boatbuilder Jens Quorning and sailmaker Jan Hansen are professionals, and we are one of the few boats which didn't experienced small damages.

In the bar after the race there was a lot complaints about the rolling downwind sailing, but we could smilingly tell about wineglasses standing stable on the table the last night offshore.

Thanks!
The ARC might be a bit more cumbersome in a DF800, but at least she'll keep your wineglass steady on the table just as well.

The article of the DF 1200 in the ARC is from us. We should have shared our information with you, our dragonfly colleagues, with priority before other medias. Sorry guys.

We do not have a detailed written logbook; we are working on it but do not know if we ever complete it and/or put in on-line. But here some findings and answers to questions we had our self before the ARC:

Is a dragonfly suitable for an Atlantic crossing?

-Yes absolutely, we would do it again in the same boat. I think a df 35 would be great as well.
-A 920 or 800, I would not recommend, it would make (a lot) more fun, but you will need more than two people in the smaller boat as you need to be able to react faster 24 hours a day, the waves are very big when it is blowing and often breaking. So you might need 4 multihull experienced people incl. food and water security equipment etc. I think it would overload a 920./800
-We did not break anything except a spinnaker sock we cut down in the mast top. Our boat was 3 years old.

Any surprises during the crossing?
-150 Litre diesels is more than enough if you have 4 solar panels, we came to St Luica with at least 200 litres to spare
-A 1200 is wet and loud when surfing straight down wind in waves
-3 kg of meat is enough (fast crossing and only 2 people)
-You can catch and land a fish doing 12 knots through the water keeping the spinnaker up
-2/3 of the fruit will rotten after a week because of bad quality in the canaries
-A large heavy cruising catamaran can travel faster than you when the wind is high and you are doublehanded and don’t dare set the kite nights in 25-30 knots of wind.
-You will find good reaching conditions in less than 5 % of the race
-Racing and beeing just a couple onboard is a bad idea if the rest of the competiors are fully crewed
-The trampolines have up to 30 flying fish in the morning

And in the caribean?
-The harbour masters do not understand and/or beleave you when you by radio explain You can fold your boat, just sail in and fold.
-Beeing able to fold was the only way we could find a berth in a number of harbours examples were: St Kitts, Spanistown Virgin Gorda, Road Town Tortola, Atlantis paradise Island Bahamas, Riverbend marina Florida.

What You also need, what they do not tell you:
-A helmet and good climibing gear, you will have to enter the mast sooner or later in high seas, practice.
-At least two spinnakers, ideally 3. one of them small and strong, practice spinaker handling in 30 knots of wind before you go.
-More chain than Jens Quoning recommends. We used 35 meter/10 millimeter chain. Short and heavy, this is the lower limit.

How is performance?
-We were faster than the Outremer 45 and the rest of the multihulls and most monohulls in the start. But after a few days we fell back due to bad routing tactics. We went into crusing mode after three days after a scary mast climbing experience.
-If you race minmum 3 persons is needed.
-a conservatively sailed df1200 performs like a 50-60 foot monohull downwind, beam reach is a different storry.
-Our best 24 hour run was 219.5 NM on the total cruise.

Some other infos
-After the ARC we went north and west through the Caribean, Puerto Rico, Turks and Caicos, Bahamas and ended up in Florida the beginning of February. A recommendable cruise.
-We spend from the the 19th of november until the 5th of februar. That’s enough time for the cruise.
-our kids came by plane at christmas, we did not take them for the crossing (6,9 and 17 years), we were afraid they would get boared and then need to much attention.
-crossing took 14 days and 26 hours
-Zero engine hours

Plase ask questions on this forum I will be happy to answer them.

Jens,

Congratulations. The Outremer you outsailed, was it a ¨light¨ too?

If you, Stephen Hewitt, or anyone come across a nice 1200 (or even 35), let me know?

Thanks much.

Thanks for sharing your experience Jens.

I have two questions:
1) You wrote (in comparison to 5-60ft monohulls): "beam reach is a different story". Could you explain that?

2) It was mentioned that you had a new rudder. What was the reason? (I heard that the rudder on my 1200 was replaced years ago because of a factory recall from Quorning. Was that the issue?)

Beam reach most cruising mono hulls will stay behind. Beam reach in plus 20 knots of wind a 1200 is much faster than a mono hull.

We had a lot of pressure on the original rudder downwind. We drilled the hole in the second rudder ca. 7.5 mm more forward so it was almost too neutral, but good for the auto pilot.

We by the way now changed boat to a DF35 Ultimate. We changed because we now do shorter cruises and more races. The 35 is faster and more fun to sail and steer, but the live-aboard qualities in the df1200 (as we expected) are much better. I am sure in 10 years the second hand prices of the 1200 will be higher than today because of the superb craftsmanship and timeless look.

Jens, thanks very much for superb review (bullet point snippets on surprises are much more readable than long detailed narratives, but don't let this stop you from publishing the narratives as well).

Jens wrote:We had a lot of pressure on the original rudder downwind. We drilled the hole in the second rudder ca. 7.5 mm more forward so it was almost too neutral, but good for the auto pilot.

We by the way now changed boat to a DF35 Ultimate.

Can you explain a bit more about the rudder - which hole did you drill 7.5mm forward? The hole for the pivot bolt so that the tip of the rudder would be closer to the centerboard when lowered? Did you have too much weather helm with the original hole?

The reason I am asking is that I keep experiencing weather helm with the new to me DF 35. I am sure it is mostly due to my poor sail trim, but I never experience the opposite error of too much lee helm. The rudder being too aft either by design or because mine gets stuck before it is fully lowered is one possible explanation in addition to my sail trim ineptitude.

How is the helm on your DF 35?

Yes exactly the rudder came a little closer to the centreboard, more forward.

If this is the right medicine for the 35 I’m not sure. The helm on our df35 is much lighter and sensitive compared to the 1200. Much more fun to steer.

When pressed very hard it can lose grip, it can stall, most time you can get control back by steering into the wind and get the laminar current over the rudder back.

I fly aerobatics and you here often have the same situation, even on purpose to start a spin. I guess on the df35 what we get is a "high g stall", and in a plane it is a good thing, because it takes the load of the profile and the wings don’t break. So even though that you might end up inverted (in the aircraft, not the df35) as a result of a high g stall, at least you still have wings, which comes in handy when you are flying. So a much bigger (wider) rudder might be the right thing, but the load would get very high. I learned more about aero- than hydrodynamics, not sure if the same theory apply.

To prevent weather helm and keep the “angle of attack” (angle between water flow and the profile) down we typically reef the main before the genoa. I asked Jens Q. about this and he said that’s fine and ok. I think they recommend reefing the genoa first, primarily because it is easier.

Straight downwind we use a (smaller 100 m2) spinnaker up to 26 knots true wind, some times with one reef in the main. This gives you a nice ride with a minimum load on the helm and good boat speed.

Jens wrote:When pressed very hard it can lose grip, it can stall, most time you can get control back by steering into the wind and get the laminar current over the rudder back.

The high G stall is an interesting point -- I am not yet proficient enough to detect it by feel, but on my first sail I burned out the autopilot fuse because the autopilot motor couldn't handle the pressure (MOT STALL error code), I imagine this is similar to your aerobatic plane breaking the wings rather than stalling (whuch would've returned some kind of OFF COURSE type error)

Jens wrote:To prevent weather helm and keep the “angle of attack” (angle between water flow and the profile) down we typically reef the main before the genoa.

My helm feels balanced with 1 reef on the main, anywhere from 10kts up, which feels a bit too soon, mut maybe it's me.

Jens wrote:Straight downwind we use a (smaller 100 m2) spinnaker up to 26 knots true wind, some times with one reef in the main.

Thanks -- if you were to prepare for another short-handed ARC on your DF 35, would you pick a smaller 100m2 gennaker over furling code zero if you could only have 1 other sail beyond the main, the genoa, and the big gennaker? Would you get a storm jib or is furled genoa enough? I need to make a 1200nm passage at some point in the coming year.

We tried out dead downwind spinnaker sailing in up to ca. 30 knots of true wind in Fyncup a couple of weeks ago. We had one reef in the main and our smaller 100 m2 asymmetric spinnaker. We had a very comfortable flat ride doing an average 15 knots. The sea was flat, it is south of Fyn.

The boat never attempted to dig in. I think up to 26 knots of wind even in larger waves you have a more relaxed and faster ride than with full main and poled out genua. The sailing centre is lower and the Spinnaker gives a good lift.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayS7dnTdBfA

(The boat speed is not calibrated well, means boat speed and true wind shows a little high)

After racing 135 NM we ended up on the finishing line with less than 10 minutes apart from two DF920 extremes and a df28sport.