Cat schooner by Nigel Irens...

[Alain]

Interesting concept from Nigel Irens: no boom on the front mast of this cat schooner beeing build in Nova Scotia...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maggieb/ta ... igelirens/
Wing and wing must be difficult...

[Michel]

And I thought I had nothing left to dream of after becoming owner of an F44.

This M2 is a further development of Irons' Roxanne and Romilly designs. In 1995, I went to England to see Nigel Irens and the launch of a Roxanne in Dartmouth. I did not go for a Roxanne (30') because the interior space was too limited. The boomless schoonersail was common on several English, Irish (and American?) cat rigged (mostly ketch, not schooner) fishing boats of the 19th century. Here are two examples described in Dixon Kemp's Manual of yacht and boat sailing (1st publ. 1878), the Humber Goldduster and the Groomsport Yawl.

image.jpg (71.01 KiB) Viewed 4011 times

image-1.jpg (80.78 KiB) Viewed 4013 times

And here are Irens designs Roxanne and Romilly http://www.nigelirens.com/nid_CRUISING3.htm