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will do it for you. Ask the right questions. Act, not react. And above all, don’t let anyone control you.’


About Polynesian catamarans The Pacific Islands were colonised over a long period of time, probably somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 years ago, by people sailing from southeast Asia or Australia. In other words, these people crossed huge, open stretches of ocean at a time when in our part of the world we were still using stone axes. We hadn’t even invented the wheel.


These vessels were catamarans with some sort of crab claw rig, and the sailors used navigation methods that are still a mystery today. When James Cook arrived in the Pacific in the 18th century he was shocked to see how fast the local sailing vessels were and how well they performed. Apparently he measured the speed of one of them to be 17kt.


In our day and time the great English catamaran pioneer James Wharram intro- duced a lot of the ancient principles in his famous Wharram cats – simple, usually self-built catamarans in plywood and glue, and more recently epoxy, designed as cheap, ocean-going boats. A great number of them have crossed oceans. Some have safely circumnavigated the world. Hans Klaar is inspired by Wharram’s ideas, but Ontong Java is based even more on ancient Polynesian drawings and build- ing methods from the Pacific region – adapted to his own ideas and experience.


sophistication. Upwind there is obviously a big loss of performance against its more modern equivalent, but for long-distance passage-making this may be adequately compensated for by the gains when reach- ing or running – which is what you mostly do offshore. This is why the rig is some- times also called the Oceanic Lateen Rig, sharing characteristics with its European counterpart but historically oriented for sailing much longer distances.


At first glance primitive by the standards of today, the crab claw rig shares features with the more refined lateen rig that is also today happily powering local sailing craft along all over the world… just as they were doubtless doing some 5,000 or so years ago. Will our descendants (we remain optimistic) be fishing under solid wing-mast rigs or double-luff carbon sails in the year 7020? We choose to doubt that


The crab claw rig


Modern tests of the crab claw rig have surprised a lot of designers and sailmakers with their unexpected efficiency. Theoreti- cally at least, in some conditions it seems to be more efficient on open wind angles than a Bermuda rig of a similar level of


In addition the crab claw rig is simple to handle, cheap to build and easy to repair with the most basic materials. The crab claw rig comes in several variants. Origi- nally it powered vessels that could sail in either direction, so called double-canoes or proas. The sail could be trimmed fore and aft at will, tacking by allowing it to weather vane then sheeting back in at the new ‘end’ of the boat.


The upper boom is simply suspended from the top of the mast, with the front part of the sail sticking out in front in a small triangle – to my eyes looking a little like the tack of a modern gennaker. Ontong Java tacks and gybes the way we’re all used to doing; but in fact she has an even simpler version of this rig type. Klaar’s mast is simply used to hoist the upper boom – in a way like the top of a gaff rig. But while the sail is still triangular on Ontong Java there is nothing sticking out in front of the mast – the front corner remains at the mast foot with a small jib added to improve balance when needed. Øyvind Bjordal





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