Proa Trials

I spent quite a bit of time this past week on my latest proa adventures.... I reckon I might have been exposed to some burning bamboo smoke for I have used a fair amount of it on a couple of proa experiments.

At the moment these are add ons to plastic kayaks... one will be a tacking proa with a hobie kayak sail and a small ama mounted on bamboo cross arms.... also known as aka.

The other is quite a bit more beefy and will have a crab claw sail on a a pretty substantial rig made mostly from common construction lumber. It will be a shunting type sail rig. shunting it where the boat can sail either direction but will always have the outrigger on the upwind side. That will be a first for me... I'm going to make the sail from polytarp.... also a first for me.

The plan is to make new main hulls at some point out of something much lighter but for now this will get me on the water with the shunting rig and to see how it works out.