Notable open & development class racers.... [Archive]

Stephen Ditmore

11-20-2006, 01:08 PM

I'm starting this thread at the suggestion of Vega. What are the most interesing boats, and who are the most interesting designers, competing in open & development class racing? The Francophones have an edge in reporting on the classes most closely followed in France. My beat will be North America. My first area of interest is hull shape, but that shouldn't stop others form exploring rig, appendages, structural engineering & weight distribution, etc.

Here are a few questions to get the ball rolling:

Tim Kernan is an interesting young designer on the U.S West Coast. In the January/February issue of Sailing World, Kernan is quoted saying of his ULDB Peligroso:

At true wind angles of 150 and 135 and a heel angle of between 10 and 15 degrees, the boat develops a step, and you can feel it. The hull is different, and there were people who saw it in the shop and said, 'I don't think it will work,' but the results have been a good vindication.
Does anyone know what Kernan is referring to? Does anyone have photos of the boat's underbody? http://www.waterplane.com/design_dencho70.html

In the same issue of Sailing World is a rundown of some Mini 6.5 designs. One is described as a JP Magnan design, and another as a Seb Magnan design. Are these two related designers? Do they live in France or Canada? How have their boats, and each of the others described in the article (including one by Rod Jonstone) performed? What are the distinguishing features of each?

Another west coast ULDB I'd like to hear more about is Tom Wylie's Jelik: http://www.schoonercreek.com/new_const/modern_sail/Jelik/Jelik.jpg

On the subject of Wylie, would someone like to crank up their VPP and run a fictitious race between a Wyliecat 44 and a Coutts 44? Who wins? Why?
http://www.wyliecat.com/yachts/models/wyliecat_44.html
http://www.rc44.com/
http://www.v1-tech.com/wp-content/files/File/RC44.pdf

I wish someone had gone to Finot for a Volvo 70 design. Anyone with me in thinking a Finot Volvo 70 might have given ABN-Amro some competition?

I wonder if there's much contact between aspiring French designers and educational institutions, hydro labs, and builders in or near Quebec.
There are great things happening at http://www.etsmtl.ca/ such as http://www.mec.etsmtl.ca/club/omer/.
At http://www.proboat-digital.com/proboat/200606/ you can read about an interesting French-Canadian boatbuilder (page 92).
Canada has several major towing tanks & hydro labs: http://iot-ito.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/

http://www.kus.hr/English/metoda.html is apparently a program for designing wide hulls with symmetrical heeled waterlines. Are any boats being designed & built using this software? Is the developer someone known to designers of open & development class racers?

Guillermo

11-20-2006, 05:56 PM

As you probably know, JELIK was lost:

January 13, 2003 - South China Sea

"Rumors of the loss of Jelik are true," reports Nancy Rander of Schooner Creek Boat Works in Portland. "Jelik, the sleek 77-ft racer designed by Tom Wylie and built by us at Schooner Creek Boat Works for Hong Kong yachtsmen Frank Pong, was lost December 18. We at Schooner Creek were told that while returning from the Philippines after first to finish and corrected time victories in the Hong Kong to Manila Race, Jelik's keel failed while 400 miles out, and she turned turtle. All seven crew were picked up by a Malaysian tanker, none the worse for the experience.

"As it turns out, the keel failed at the top hull flange attachment. This however, was not the original keel that had been designed by Wylie and built by Schooner Creek. Jelik has been undergoing a series of modifications, including new rigs, new keel, and new rudders. Her owner has enjoyed not only racing, but also experimenting with design and performance improvements.

"It was hoped that tugs could be sent to salvage Jelik, but as she closed the coast and ransacking became a possibility, the salvage attempts were abandoned. The loss of Jelik is sad for all who have known and enjoyed her."

And probably you also know this:
http://www.schoonercreek.com/new_const/modern_sail/Jelik/1998_professional_boatbuilder.pdf

Cheers

Stephen Ditmore

11-20-2006, 06:12 PM

I have read the Professional BoatBuilder article, but no, I didn't realize Jelik was lost. Thank G-d no one was hurt.

I worked for Sparkman & Stephens briefly, just after the launching of Sleighride: http://www.sparkmanstephens.com/design/sleighride_pic.html. While I had no hand in the design, I approve of the way it was engineered. The keel was held on by a large diam. SS shaft running through it transversely in the bottom of the boat. The other keelbolts were there mainly to locate/orient the keel. I'm not clear exactly what happened in Jelik's case.... but I'm of the opinion that there are too many keel failures.

Having said that, Jelik was designed, built, raced, was modified, and raced again. What have we learned from the Jelik experience?

Thanks for bringing me up-to-date, Guillermo.

Vega

11-20-2006, 08:39 PM

As promised...;)
My preferred racing boat is one that is not yet on the water:) : It's Brit Air and it will be Launched in June 2007.

It is an open 60 designed for the solo Vendee Globe and has some innovative characteristics: The very sheltered cockpit and the huge quantity of solar panels incorporated in the superstructure (energy for the canting-keel). The designer is Groupe finot (Finot-Conq).

"Jean-Marie Finot: "BRIT AIR is the product of our past experiences. She is going to be a powerful and stable boat. It’s rather like the idea behind Geodis, the winner of the third Vendée Globe. However, she was designed by integrating the specifications of today’s boats, with movable appendages."
The Finot Group designed this boat around the 60-footers they had already successfully designed, (4 wins in the 5 Vendée Globe races, 3 wins in the BOC). « We began to develop this style of boat with Alain Gautier in 1990. As these boats have evolved, we have modified our designs accordingly, adapting them to Armel Le Cléac’h’s specific requirements concerning his use of the boat. The work was a joint project between Armel and Gaël Le Cléac’h (boat captain), Pascal Conq, David de Prémorel and Erwan Gourdon to define the deck structure and layout and the most suitable cockpit, the best sail design, and internal layout corresponding to his personal needs. What they were aiming for, in particular Armel, was to obtain something simple, which would offer reliability, a light touch and ease of handling. Our common goal was to finish up with a reliable, sturdy and fast boat, enabling the racer and the boat to return safely to port, while at the same time enjoying themselves to the full.»

"Like all the racing prototypes built by Multiplast, BRIT AIR will be made of a sandwich of carbon composite with a honeycomb core (Nomex) heated in the oven, using female carbon moulds, in order to ensure perfect homogeneity of the whole section during the baking process. This manufacturing process based around skills developed by Multiplast, is known around the world in ocean racing circles and in the industrial sector."

http://www.vendeeglobe.org/uk/actu/5141.html

http://www.multiplast-yachts.com/news/index.cfm?action=news&ID_Actu=123&NumLangue=2

http://www.finot.com/

Doug Lord

11-20-2006, 09:04 PM

Here is a new,very cutting edge fourty footer. One of the most innovative features of this boat are the wings on the canting keel bulb-an idea pioneered by Mr. Dovell quite sometime ago on Atomic and smaller boats. The advantage is no forward cannard or dual fwd daggerboards.
NICE - Sailing Anarchy Forums
Address:http://www.sailinganarchy.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=43991

Guillermo

11-21-2006, 01:57 AM

What about the Black Sea 40, designed by our fellow poster Stephen Baker?
http://members.aol.com/Saildesign/private/scbweb/bs40.htm
From there:
"....His time from Charleston to Cape Town in the first leg set a new 40-foot record of just over 44 days, only 4 days slower than the leading 50-footer. During this time, he also achieved the longest day's run for a class II boat in this race of 239 miles, an average of almost 10 knots. This record was achieved while Viktor spent 22 hours down below recovering from surgery to his elbow performed following e-mailed instructions from the race doctor. There was no power for autopilots, so the boat was literally sailing herself. This sort of control and balance is exactly what the boat was designed for."

Cheers

Vega

11-21-2006, 05:49 AM

:

Tim Kernan is an interesting young designer on the U.S West Coast. In the January/February issue of Sailing World, Kernan is quoted saying of his ULDB Peligroso:

At true wind angles of 150 and 135 and a heel angle of between 10 and 15 degrees, the boat develops a step, and you can feel it. The hull is different, and there were people who saw it in the shop and said, 'I don't think it will work,' but the results have been a good vindication.
Does anyone know what Kernan is referring to? Does anyone have photos of the boat's underbody? http://www.waterplane.com/design_dencho70.html

.... My first area of interest is hull shape,

Very nice boat. In the site you provide they have some plans of the boat.

This one should be in the "Most beautiful boat" thread:p

Regarding hull shape, the shape of this one is necessarily very influenced by the rules under he would be competitive, and according with the designer, a lot of them: “The DC 70 was designed to race competitively under PHRF, IRC, and Americap”.

The hull shape of the open 60’s is very different. They are optimized to go downwind. I think that a more generalist international rule is needed, something in the lines of the Open 60’s rule. Several sizes, a limit of draft, of bulb height, a minimum AVS and little more. This would provide probably different approaches and different hulls, all searching for absolute performance and not performance under some very strict and limiting rule.

Crag Cay

11-21-2006, 06:24 AM

I am not suprised that Frank Pong had made several modifications to that particular Jelik. Even twenty five years ago, Frank had one of the top big IOR boats, at a time when the RHKYC was a major player in offshore sailing. Although not a memeber of the club's team (La Pantera, Uin na Mara, Vanguard) that finished as the third 'country' (out of 19) in the '79 Admirals Cup, beating him (occaisionally) was a major scalp.

He was the first person I had ever seen do a 'hull and keel' transplant, instead of simply ordering a new boat. In about 80 / 81 he had Tony Castro (IIRC) put a new hull and keel under his original deck and rig. He claimed this was so the crew remained familiar with the layout, but he also knew that the more extreme late 70's era big IOR boats were going to be worthless once the implications of the Fastnet disaster sunk home. In fact one of Singapore's team boats lay in the marina semi abandoned for months with everything below like on the Marie Celeste, after the crew stormed off her in disgust at her 'sailing manners'.

What happened to those days? Nineteen different countries at an offshore sailing event.

SailDesign

11-21-2006, 06:53 AM

Guillermo,
Thanks for the air-time. I have always loved that deisgn, and am happy to say that the boat Viktor sailed in the Aground Alone has gone on to produce the fastest Scandinavian solo around the world non-stop (Jan Moeller of Denmark as "3M Innovation") and won the last OSTAR (or whatever it is called now) in its class as "Hayai" in the able hands of Nico Budel, the oldest skipper in the class as far as I know.
There is a sister-ship in Jamestown hoping to get back in the water soon. I have my fingers crossed...
Steve

Stephen Ditmore

11-21-2006, 11:56 AM

Regarding hull shape, the shape of this one is necessarily very influenced by the rules under he would be competitive, and according with the designer, a lot of them: “The DC 70 was designed to race competitively under PHRF, IRC, and Americap”.

The hull shape of the open 60’s is very different. They are optimized to go downwind. I think that a more generalist international rule is needed, something in the lines of the Open 60’s rule. Several sizes, a limit of draft, of bulb height, a minimum AVS and little more. This would provide probably different approaches and different hulls, all searching for absolute performance and not performance under some very strict and limiting rule.

I agree that ULDB 70s and Open 60s are different, but both are downwind oriented, both are different from a conventional IRC or IMS boat, and in general, both have hulls that are less dictated by the rules than by the need for speed. I would suggest that the real difference is the fact that the Open 60 rule is focused on limiting length, while the ULDB 70 Association, I suspect, places greater emphasis on sail area restriction.

I'm going to try to get more info from the ULDB 70 Association in order to clarify. 'Round the bouys in the San Francisco Bay Big Boat Series, Peligroso has generally lost on handicap to a Mark Mills designed DK46, which has a much higher displ/length ratio. The ULDB 70s are optimized for the Transpac and other downwind, offshore events.

Perhaps this sheds some light on the subject: http://www.vgyd.com/designing_transpac.html

Vega

11-21-2006, 01:44 PM

The DK46 is a more conventional boat however that boat(IRC) have done very well on hanicap:

"The Round the Island Race, with over 1600 entrants one of the worlds most popular, attracts the largest and the smallest yachts for a 60 mile course around the Isle of Wight. With windspeeds shifting between 0 and 12 knots over the 8 hour race the two DK 46’s rose to the top to beat some of the best known racing yachts in the world: the 100’ canting keeler Maximus, the Fastnet winner Nokia Enigma, and the Sydney-Hobart winner Aera as well as trans-Atlantic racers Leopard and Sojana".

But I am not sure this means anything about hull shape.

I would look at length of the boat and a limit on draft. The sail area will be in proportion with the RM that the boat can generate no mater how.

A interesting comparison, regarding hull shape would be a comparison of the performance of the new 40DK (IRC) with a 40 class boat, the cruising and racing versions and the Transpac 41xsturbo.

The hulls are very diferent.;)

http://www.vgyd.com/41xs_drawingboard.html

http://www.dkyachts.com/p3_dknews.htm

http://www.pogostructures.com/?m=4&s=72&l=en

http://www.class40.com/index.php?section=14

http://www.dkyachts.com/p2_boatrange.htm

Stephen Ditmore

11-21-2006, 02:05 PM

O.K. Vega, I accept that IRC effects hull shape (and that Mark Mills knows how to design an IRC boat). But Peligroso and the other ULDB 70s ARE downwind oriented boats. I think the more relevant comparison might be an Open 50 with a Transpac 52 (both of which I would count as development classes for the purpose of this thread).

Or, if you prefer stick to boats in the 40 foot range, specs on the new Reighel Pugh Grand Prix 42 can be found here: http://www.reichel-pugh.com/Grand_Prix_42_Brochure.pdf
It has a displacement of 4,200 kg on a waterline of 12.2 m, much different from the DK 40's 6500 kg on a 10.4m waterline. If Pelegroso's hull shape innovation is relevant to Transpac 52s and Grand Prix 42s, then it seems to me it's relevant to this discussion. And do we know it's not relevant for the open classes as well? Whatever it is, though, it's not apparent from the sections in the published drawing, is it?

What about the stern wave supression winglets on rudders first seen on Paul Bieker's I-14s. Are any of the offshore classes trying them? Peter Van Oossannen seems to be claiming intellectual property rights to something similar...

Doug Lord

11-21-2006, 06:23 PM

Check this out-anybody know any more?
index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=35108
Address:http://www.sailinganarchy.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=35108

Vega

11-21-2006, 08:04 PM

It is a boat designed by Martin DEFLINE. The guy is only 30 years old and looks like a kid, but full of talent. I think you are going to like his designs.

I am following with interest is work. The cruising boats (Tonga) with two folding keels are amazing, but I have never seen a test of one.

Regarding the smaller models, they have been praised by the French Press.

Stephen, look at this 50 open...it may work.

http://www.defline.com/architecte-naval/architecte-naval.htm

http://www.defline.com/architecte-naval/gamme/defline/course.htm

Doug Lord

11-21-2006, 08:46 PM

Thanks, Vega! I referenced your info on the 90-110° thread under "Stability" as well.

Paul B

11-21-2006, 10:31 PM

But Peligroso and the other ULDB 70s ARE downwind oriented boats... If Pelegroso's hull shape innovation is relevant to Transpac 52s and Grand Prix 42s, then it seems to me it's relevant to this discussion. And do we know it's not relevant for the open classes as well? Whatever it is, though, it's not apparent from the sections in the published drawing, is it?

I know Tim has posted here in the past andmaybe he will again. If you see Peligroso it looks like a normal modern boat. I think the step Tim is talking about is a performance step, not a physical step in the hull you seem to be thinking.

Peli is just fine upwind as well as down. She is simply a modern take on the old ULDB 70s, which were IOR limited. Peli is not and is about 30 sec/mile faster than a well sailed "Turbo" Sled from the 1980s in a bouy race. She is a much more powerful looking shape, at about the same length and weight as the old sleds.

There isn't much out here for her to race against around the cans. We were sailing a little 48 footer against her in some of the bigger regattas this year, and for the most part it was boats 48 to 52 feet, with one or two old sleds and Peli. She looks nice, but who knows how she will fare against the new STP65s coming soon.

Stephen Ditmore

11-22-2006, 08:54 AM

Vega:
I'm afraid I'm hopeless with languages other than English (the only other I've ever learned at all is Gujarati). Please be so kind as to help me out here.

I take it the key idea on Defline's performance boats is dual canting keels?
Does he have any designs competing in an open or development class?
I take it he worked for Briand and then for Barret before going on his own?

Paul B:
So what do you think Tim is referring to when he says:
The hull is different, and there were people who saw it in the shop and said, 'I don't think it will work'. ........???

Paul B

11-22-2006, 02:42 PM

Paul B:
So what do you think Tim is referring to when he says:
The hull is different, and there were people who saw it in the shop and said, 'I don't think it will work'. ........???

I have an opinion, but it would probably be better if you just e-mailed Tim and asked. He seems like a real straight shooter when it comes to answering questions, moreso than many other design offices.

Vega

11-23-2006, 11:33 AM

Vega:
I'm afraid I'm hopeless with languages other than English (the only other I've ever learned at all is Gujarati). Please be so kind as to help me out here.
[LIST]
I take it the key idea on Defline's performance boats is dual canting keels?
Does he have any designs competing in an open or development class?
I take it he worked for Briand and then for Barret before going on his own

Sorry about the delay.

Defline had worked with Philippe Briand as project manager (the one that is in charge of a project). He had participated in the design of several boats for Jeanneau and Dufour, several racing boats, between them the Suisse Class America. He had participated also in the design of several Mega-Yachts.

Before he established himself, he had worked also with Berret-Racoupeau Yacht Design, as manager of the racing projects. He worked particularly in the development of the 50ft Open “Savings”, a winner of many races.

He has several racing boat projects but I believe that their boats don’t fit in the existing rules.

There are a lot of new ideas, but I think that the two main ones are the System 2qp (double canting keel) and the Der, a system of retractile twin keels, for cruiser boats.

You can have the explanations regarding the 2QP in English:

http://www.defline.com/architecte-naval/R&D/r&d_systeme_2qp-english.htm

The other systems and innovations are only in French. If you are interested in any of them, and if the images are not enough, tell me, I will try to help.

Regards

Stephen Ditmore

11-23-2006, 11:02 PM

DGreenwood

11-24-2006, 01:10 AM

Thank you very much, Vega. My primary interest continues to be in interesting designs and proven winners in open and development classes, and what distinguishes them from their competitors. Are those 40s you mentioned in the Velux 5 Oceans thread in the water racing yet?

About six hours before you posted this the last Class 40 (the 23rd) finished the Route du Rhum in Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadalupe. Proving to be a very successful class with the leader coming in only about 12 hours behind Artforms, the winning Open 50. An impressive show.
The winner, Phil Sharp, has sailed himself into a great position for sponsor attention for further racing endeavors.
Take some time look this site over: http://www.routedurhum-labanquepostale.com/en/s01_home/s01p01_home.php

And this one:
http://www.class40racing.com/index2.html

Vega

11-24-2006, 05:15 AM

About six hours before you posted this the last Class 40 (the 23rd) finished the Route du Rhum in Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadalupe. Proving to be a very successful class with the leader coming in only about 12 hours behind Artforms, the winning Open 50. An impressive show.
The winner, Phil Sharp, has sailed himself into a great position for sponsor attention for further racing endeavors.

You are right.
Perhaps you didn't notice that there is thread in this forum about those boats and their performance in that race?
The thread was posted at the beginning of the race;)

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14468

Vega

11-24-2006, 06:14 AM

My primary interest continues to be in interesting designs and proven winners in open and development classes, and what distinguishes them from their competitors. Are those 40s you mentioned in the Velux 5 Oceans thread in the water racing yet?

It was not on the "Velux 5 Oceans race", but on "The Route du rhum".

The Veloux 5 Oceans race is the ex- Boc Challenge, ex-Around alone and is now called like that.

That race has been losing importance. The 1990 edition had 25 boats, the 2002 edition 13 and this year edition 6. This year edition was open only to 50 and 60 open boats. It is a race around the world alone with scales.

"La route du Rhum", contrary to the Velux, is gaining importance. Each new edition has more racing boats. This year edition had 86 inscriptions, and the race is open to all categories including the 40class (25 boats). It is a solo transatlantic race that beguines in St. Malo and Finishes at Guadalupe.

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14412
http://www.routedurhum-labanquepostale.com/fr/s01_home/s01p01_home.php
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14468

I am interested in racing boats, but even more interested in the influence that those boats have in fast cruising boats and as you, I am mainly interested in hull shapes.

That influence is very different in Europe and in USA, and fast cruiser-racer hulls are very different in the US and the Europe, and I am talking of big production relatively inexpensive boats, the ones that everybody can buy.

Take a look at the Pogo fast cruiser- racer (the cruising brother of the winner of the class 40) and at the J-120. Both are fast boats, but completely different boats. In an open ocean race who would be the fastest? What are the good points and bad points of each kind of hull?
I really would like to have a go at it, and this is not an US versus Europe debate, because there are some (fewer) boats in Europe that follow the American trend and I have to say that I like them a lot.

http://www.pogostructures.com/files/Pogo_15-9-2006_16:43:58.pdf
http://www.finot.com/bateaux/batproduction/structures/pogo12/pogo40_ang.htm
http://www.pogostructures.com/?m=4&s=1&l=en

http://www.jboats.com/j120/
http://www.j120.org/

CT 249

11-24-2006, 07:19 AM

"I am interested in racing boats, but even more interested in the influence that those boats have in fast cruising boats and as you, I am mainly interested in hull shapes.
That influence is very different in Europe and in USA, and fast cruiser-racer hulls are very different in the US and the Europe, and I am talking of big production relatively inexpensive boats, the ones that everybody can buy."

Whenever I've asked designers who have done Open and "conventional" boats which one is better, they've said that the Open style is better for the reaching-oriented long ocean races, and the "conventional" style is better for coastal races and short races.

Seems to me many things about the Open style aren't all that much good for harbour/coastal racing (I don't want water ballast, multiple forestays and multiple rudders in those situations) but they'd be great in an ocean crossing. The only time I sailed an Open 60 inshore it was great fun, but that owner spent a lot of time and money making it into a coastal/inshore boat, and even then it wasn't really at home in that situation.

Crag Cay

11-24-2006, 07:38 AM

DGreenwood

11-24-2006, 10:09 AM

Thanks Vega
I guess I had not seen that thread or I had avoided it for fear it was becoming mired in another battle between the "good old days" guys and the development crowd.
CT 249
The open class boats are not cruising boats except in a most rudimentary way. As a platform to develop hull form, rig efficiency, foil efficiency, leaner structures, and testing the reliability of equipment and electronics, they are fantastic. In a single around the world race they see far more abuse and mileage than most well used cruising boats get in 20 years. Operating these machines at stress levels and duty cycles that are well beyond what is expected of the typical weekender or cruiser has trickled down new technologies to that industry in a big way. Albiet not in an immediately obvious way and not always in a successful way.

CC
The new O 60s are definitely paying a lot more attention to those upwind parts of the trip around the world. Much of the secretive stuff going on inside the new PRB and Delta Dore is to do with water ballasting techniques to (among other things) get them upwind much faster.Ballast tank shape, size, and placement are the development opportunity of this coming BWR and Vendee.
Rigs are still a wild card as well. There are still so many options with no real obvious "winning method" having developed.
Unfortunately we did not get to see DDs or PRBs performance in the R du R. Once these boats are sorted and have some miles it will be interesting to see if the sailors are able to control them effectively.

Stephen Ditmore

11-24-2006, 11:23 AM

The 40ft class is not really 'open'. There were several Open 40's built that shared many of the same characteristics as their bigger (and smaller 6.5m) brothers, including high cost.

But these 40ft class boats are very different and have had a more 'all round mandate' in their design. I think the comparison with the J Class philosophy is valid.

I often hear it quoted that the Open Class yachts are optimised soley for downwind sailing. I think this may have been true in the early days, but the race program for these boats is now so varied, that the VPP is developed for far more upwind sailing than used to be considered. Whilst down wind in the southern ocean can be where these races are lost (eg Adrian Thomson), getting to and from these latitues is often where it is won.

I found this, from one of the sites recommended by Vega, helpful in explaining the difference:

Class 40 should not be confused with Open 40, which is an unrestricted race boat type that allows for instance the use of canting keels and carbon fibre in hull and deck structure. At least initially it might be that Class 40 and Open 40 will co-exist in some events but few Open 40’s will be able to qualify and race in the same class as a Class 40. In time it is felt that Class 40 will become in the same way as the Mini Transat, by far the dominant offshore short-handed racing class in its length.
So I take it we have 3 different development classes at around 40ft: Open 40, Class 40, and Grand Prix 42. Are they competing with each other for competitors and dollars? Can all three thrive, or ought one die so the other two can live?

I see now that the key to getting the information I want at www.routedurhum-labanquepostale.com is to click on the class, then the boat name, then on "Le bateau du skipper". Thus I've discovered that Phil Sharp's boat is a Finot/Conq. Does that mean it's a Pogo?

First and second in the IMOCA class went to Lombard designs. Would anyone want to try compare & contrast the latest thinking of Lombard vs Finot?

DGreenwood

11-24-2006, 11:33 AM

The Class 40 has the attention of the media and the sailors hands down. There were 28 of them slated to run in the R du R. Only 25 made it and 23 finished. Unprecidented for a class that has only been around for a couple years.
Phil Sharp boat is a Pogo.

Stephen Ditmore

11-24-2006, 11:57 AM

Here's the web site of the ORC GP42 class: http://www.orc.org/index.php?id=161

I suppose the main difference is that the Class 40s are raced single or doublehanded, while the GP42s will generally be raced with a full crew. Given that difference, is there any meaningful way to draw a comparison?

Where can you be found, Mr. Greenwood? Perhaps we should do lunch on City Island.

On another subject, imagine the IMOCA boats and related classes didn't require fixed ballast and didn't have the 10 degree rule limiting water ballast. Now imagine they're 1/5 the size, with restricted sail areas. What you'd have is a Moth, the smallest (and most affordable) singlehanded development class. Here in the U.S. we have "Modern" and "Classic" Moths.

Here's a quick report on the Classic Moth class: The Duflos design from 1963, http://perso.orange.fr/louis.pillon/moth/images/duflos.html, has morphed into a version developable from plywood, the Mistral. Recently a wider transom resembling that of a Europe has been integrated with the Mistral hull, giving rise to Mousetrap, current U.S. National Champion (photo).

Moths in the U.S.:
www.mothboat.com

Classic Moths in France & U.K.:
http://perso.orange.fr/louis.pillon/moth/
http://www.britishmoth.co.uk/

International Moth:
http://moth.iointegration.com/LinksSP.htm

Vega

11-24-2006, 04:53 PM

So I take it we have 3 different development classes at around 40ft: Open 40, Class 40, and Grand Prix 42. Are they competing with each other for competitors and dollars? Can all three thrive, or ought one die so the other two can live?

Phil Sharp's boat is a Finot/Conq. Does that mean it's a Pogo?

Stephen, If you take a look at the thread about the 40class, you are going to see that you have a lot of information there. Yes it is a Pogo, as DGreenwood had already said, and as it is said in that thread. There you have links for the Pogo builder and other builders of 40class production boats. You can see the differences between the cruising and racing versions.

The main difference between this 40class and to the others is PRICE. These boats cost probably 3 or 4 times less than the boats from the other classes and have impressive performances.

Besides this is a boat that you can use for racing, but also for cruising. Of course, top racers will not use the boat this way, but this will permit an amateur to cruise and to ocean race competitively in the same boat.

When they say that this boat is going to be the next mini-transat,it is because everybody that really wants to ocean race is going to manage to race one, because it's inexpensive.
These boats are going to be raced in huge numbers, like the minis 6.5 and likewise they are going to discover and give opportunity to a lot of young talents.

What makes them different from the minis is that these ones are so fast that they are going to shame a lot of other racers, with bigger and much more expensive sail boats.

By the way, Phil Sharp, an Englishman in a middle of a lot of French, is young, was not among the favorites and has come from the Minis-6.5.

Take a look at his speed on a 6.5:

http://www.philsharpracing.com/video.php

Vega

11-24-2006, 05:20 PM

The open class boats are not cruising boats except in a most rudimentary way. As a platform to develop hull form, rig efficiency, foil efficiency, leaner structures, and testing the reliability of equipment and electronics, they are fantastic.

No, but there are some cruiser boats that have incorporated a lot of those technologies and hull shapes. Not big production, but beautiful boats and in some cases, not absurdly expensive ;)

http://www.finot.com/general/index_ang.htm

Click on cruising boats and take a look to these Boats:

Cigale (these are the affordable)

Albatros 50

ADP 50-52

DGreenwood

11-24-2006, 06:10 PM

Believe me Vega, I do advacate the developement of more agile cruising boats. (more on that in more appropriate thread.)
The advancements that come from the open classes has and will continue to make great changes in the general idea of what ocean sailing is about. Testament to this the fact that the Class 40 is so fast and is still feasable as a simple cruiser.
It is not uncommon to hear comments to the effect that the Open 60s are flighty unwieldy thouroghbreds that contribute nothing to the REAL world of sailing...of course nothing could be further from the truth.

My point was more that an Open 60 would not be very adaptable to most peoples idea of cruising. I could live on one quite happily but I am a masochist.

Crag Cay

11-24-2006, 06:19 PM

My point was more that an Open 60 would not be very adaptable to most peoples idea of cruising. I could live on one quite happily but I am a masochist.
I think if you look back through the sailing magasines over the years, you will find that someone said exactly the same thing about every cutting edge design at almost every moment in history.

Bermudan, seperate keels and rudder, stainless steel rigging, sloop rig have all be slammed for their irrelevence to the 'real cruising world'. I wonder if I will live long enough to see a canting keel on my cruising boat?

DGreenwood

11-24-2006, 06:50 PM

The canting keel is much closer to being on semiproduction boats than people think. The lifting bulb keel was an unusual device until recently. Now I am seeing them on cruising boats.
The problem with most purely performance oriented developments is that most cruisers don't have a clue what to do with them. As Robert Perry so bluntly put it "cruisers are hacks". Of course there are many exceptions.

If the newly adapted technology buys the owner some bragging rights then it has a chance to see the crossover. Carbon masts which so many were so sure were never ever going to be common---are in fact. One that didn't do so well was the wing keel.
Guessing, I would say the canting keel will show up...and then fade out. The typical weekend dude will not a) know how to use it, b) maintain the damn thing the way it must be. (look how many centerboards jam and fall clear off every year from lack of maintainence.)
They are here to stay in the racing world, that is, until a better way is found.

I know, I know...multihulls are the way of the enlightened...I don't want to hear it!!

Guillermo

11-25-2006, 08:43 AM

Testament to this the fact that the Class 40 is so fast and is still feasable as a simple cruiser.
Off topic here, but may I say I do not agree?
For the time being that's only wishful thinking from some designers. Time will tell when some dozens or hundreds of those have been sailing around for enough time and faced all kind of conditions with cruising crews, not racing ones. And you have to realize the proposed cruising versions feature smaller sail areas.
Anyhow I wouldn't like at at all to be forced to heave to in one of those when in an storm. The only defence these boats have is to speed away (those keels are not very effective at slow speeds). But what will happen if by any reason you cannot do that?

Vega

11-25-2006, 11:16 AM

Off topic here, but may I say I do not agree?
For the time being that's only wishful thinking from some designers. Time will tell when some dozens or hundreds of those have been sailing around for enough time and faced all kind of conditions with cruising crews, not racing ones. And you have to realize the proposed cruising versions feature smaller sail areas.

What racing crews Guillermo? These boats are Solo raced. Even an average cruising crew will be better than a Solo sailor (regarding safety)), no matter how good he is (remember that he sleeps at least 4 hours, and that the boat is on auto-pilot).

What wishful thinking? Some of these boats existed as cruising boats before the 40class was created, and where quite popular (it was because they were popular and fast that the new class was born).

The cruising versions have small sails simply because they have a smaller righting moment. The 3m draft (bulb) is reduced to 2m.

There is at least one model that is the same boat, with the same rig (cruising and racing), it has a lifting keel.

This type of fast cruising boats is so popular in France that the A 35 (the small brother of the A 40, a class40 boat) was chosen as Boat of the Year by Voile-Magazine. The choice was made by the readers (85 of them) that test sailed 26 boats of all types, from the new Oceanis 50, passing by the Nordship 40 till the RM880.

Anyhow I wouldn't like at at all to be forced to heave to in one of those when in an storm. The only defence these boats have is to speed away (those keels are not very effective at slow speeds). But what will happen if by any reason you cannot do that?

Do you know how Phil Sharp has won the race? While all the other skippers where running away from a big storm, he chose to sail towards it. With 70k of wind he sailed the storm (for 3 days) and with those winds he gained an advantage that has permitted him to win the race.
I give you that the guy has big balls, but if he could sail alone a 70ft storm (sometimes sleeping) why should it be a problem for a normal crew? Why do you want to heave in a boat that can sail a storm, even solo?

Regards

Vega

11-25-2006, 11:29 AM

The lifting bulb keel was an unusual device until recently. Now I am seeing them on cruising boats.
.....(look how many centerboards jam and fall clear off every year from lack of maintainence.)

DGreenwood, I need some information regarding lifting bulb keels and maintenance.

I am redesigning a boat (if I am lucky, my next boat) that will have a lifting bulb keel and water ballasts.

I know very little about the annual maintenance needed on a lifting keel.

I have asked for information on another thread, but I got no reply. Can you help?

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=839&page=2&highlight=lifting+keels

DGreenwood

11-25-2006, 11:51 AM

Sometimes Vega I get the distinct impression that you read too fast. I recognise the fault because I am guilty of it.
I was refering to canting keels when I was talking about the probability of poor care by theoretical owners.

However I can head you towards some folks that have been fooling with lifting keels.
I just looked at a Reichel-Pugh built at Lyman Morse in Maine that had a lifting keel. It was an internal ram-very simple. Another one is Icon---designed by Robert Perry. Gun drilled ram into the top of the keel. Has been used pretty extensively now. Bob Perry is a likely candidate for such questions. He seems to keep up with what is going on with his designs and is usually very freindly to questions. I would call or write him about Icon.
I think our often contributor and in house engineer Eric Sponberg has designed at least one lifting keel. He woud be a good one to ask. He seems always willing to share his experience and I think Bagatelle has been sailing around a while now. Try him.
Meanwhile I will dig through the dusty files that is my brain and try to remember more I have seen.

Guillermo

11-25-2006, 02:18 PM

Some of these boats existed as cruising boats before the 40class was created, and where quite popular.
Would you please show me an example of those cruising boats with Class 40's hull forms, keels and rigs?

The cruising versions have small sails simply because they have a smaller righting moment. Would you please post their comparative RM or GZ curves to support your assertion?

Why do you want to heave in a boat that can sail a storm, even solo?
OK, Paulo. You win. Go out there and cruise that way by yourself. ;)

Vega

11-25-2006, 07:26 PM

Would you please show me an example of those cruising boats with Class 40's hull forms, keels and rigs?

What I have said was:

“Some of these boats existed as cruising boats before the 40class was created, and where quite popular…”

The hulls were the same. For the racing version, only the draft was increased thus making possible an increase in the size of the sail area. The mast is the same.
The actual cruising versions are still the same model.

The first one was the A4O, and that boat was elected in France boat of the year 2004.
The Pogo 40 appeared in 2005, after several similar but smaller boats: The Pogo 6.5 (1995), the Pogo 8.5 (1999).

The first 40class race was the 2006 “La route du Rhum”.

Would you please post their comparative RM or GZ curves to support your assertion?

Do I have to? Please Guillermo:

The Pogo cruising version has a displacement of 5300kg, a water ballast of 2x750L, a 2.2 Draft and a bulb with 1.8T
The Racing version has a displacement of 4800kg , a water ballast of 2x750L, a 3.0 Draft and a bulb with 1.8T

Don’t you think that a 1.8T bulb, 0.8M lower will have a big effect on the Max RM of the boat?

OK, Paulo. You win. Go out there and cruise that way by yourself. ;)

I like to win, but only when racing:p . Nobody in his right mind will cruise in a storm, but that is the way that modern boats should endure a storm…sailing. It’s no longer time to be closed inside the boat praying:P

Guillermo

11-25-2006, 08:23 PM

It’s no longer time to be closed inside the boat praying:P
Not praying but having a (relative) rest when you can do nothing else or when you are too tired. A boat able to safely hove to is a more seaworthy and safer boat than one that cannot.

The Pogo cruising version has a displacement of 5300kg, a water ballast of 2x750L, a 2.2 Draft and a bulb with 1.8T
The Racing version has a displacement of 4800kg , a water ballast of 2x750L, a 3.0 Draft and a bulb with 1.8T
So we cannot say Class 40s are cruisers, but the down-canvassed derivations from them. Even though, that's not my idea of a proper cruising sailboat. I'll analize the Pogo and comment at the STIX thread (not to keep on with this discussion here). In the mean time you'll find there a post with the type I like....:)

(By the way: I used to race a lot when younger and won some trophys as skipper. Even a national championship. But I put an end to that when I realized I was trying to be ludicruosly competitive even at weekends :eek: . My God, working days are more that enough to that end! ;) )

Do I have to? Please Guillermo...
It would be nice. Deeper bulb calls for a lower CDG, so increasing RAs certainly, but lower Disp calls for lower RMs on its side. Interesting to see how this two effects superimpose.

The hulls were the same. For the racing version, only the draft was increased thus making possible an increase in the size of the sail area. The mast is the same
I insist in you posting an example (with images) please, for me to precisely realize what are you talking about. Thanks in advance.

Cheers

Vega

11-26-2006, 06:11 PM

The example: the Pogo racing and the cruising version.

Same hull, same mast, different but interchangeable draft. If you want to race the boat, you can even buy the racing lighter version, cruise it like that, or mount the small draft keel, change for a set of small area cruising sails (compensating the smaller RM) and there you go, with your family.

Guillermo as you have said “Off topic here”, so I will not continue this “dialogue”.

Regards

Vega

11-26-2006, 06:24 PM

Back on topic:

Have you heard about the “Oceanic One” monotype for the “Solo Ocean”2009 race?

The race has been presented this year in the French Sailing Federation.

The idea is a monotype around the world race in a kind of super class40 (regarding costs).

The boat will have 52ft and is being designed by Groupe Finot, incorporating all the Open 60 technology.

Why this concept? Costs! With this boat it would be possible to make a race like the “Veloux 5 Oceans” with about 20% of the budget, in a boat that is not much slower.

The full budget will be around 500 000 euros for each racer.

And of course, if everybody races the same boat, chances to win will also be the same.

I bet that we will have in that one most of the Guys that are now running in the 40class. I bet that some of them are already dreaming with that boat:p

“The Solo-Oceans, … is the first single-handed round the world race in which international skippers are guaranteed to compete on an equal footing on the Oceanic One Design monohull, sixteen-metre high-tech one-design monohulls, all strictly identical to one another: hull, equipment and sails.
The Solo-Oceans also guarantees a total control of entry and running costs, enabling small enterprises as well as big companies to get involved in this round the world-race on an equal footing with reasonable budgets.
The Solo-Oceans is dreamed up, organized, broadcasted and developed by the SailingOne company that has therefore created the Oceanic One Design monohull, designed by the Finot-Conq Group in consultation with Michel Desjoyeaux (skipper of Géant). SailingOne will produce, market and control its perfect one-design status and its evolution. This complete cost control is in the favour of firms, especially at a time where inflation is dashing as far as monohull single-handed round the world races are concerned.
The Solo-Oceans is the first oceanic race, that contractually guarantees the same minimum media exposure to each competing team - in addition to the usual editorial media coverage and sports news.
The Solo-Oceans and its Oceanic One Design monohull fits into the category of Oceanic Single-Handed Races. It will cost a sponsor about 500,000 € exclusive of tax per season, including a guaranteed media exposure. … This seducing proposition is meant to render sailing more attractive to firms and regional and local authorities that might have been put off, until now, by the inflation of the one-offs budgets.”

http://www.finot.com/index.htm
http://www.soloceans.com/en/news/1/launch-of-the-solo-oceans.html
http://www.soloceans.com/en/budget/

DGreenwood

11-26-2006, 06:55 PM

Just a fantastic concept. I fear there is much competition right now with new and existing classes and races.
It will be interesting to see if this takes off.

Stephen Ditmore

11-27-2006, 11:57 AM

Guillermo:

I need to study up on STIX and the Class 40 rule before I comment on the technical questions you raise, but I had a personal experience 20 years ago that makes me skeptical of heavy displacement boats' claim to be more comfortable in waves.

The one time I've visited Hawaii I sailed as a guest on board a thirty-something cruiser.... perhaps a Pearson, in a regatta. We were not expecting to be competitive, but in the steep Hawaiian swell not far from prime surfing areas our boat pitched horribly, and couldn't seem to make headway at all. By contrast, the two Wylie Wabbits competing zipped around the course like there was nothing to it, upwind and down, handling the waves with aplomb. We finished the regatta last, nauseous, and impressed with the small ULDBs.
http://www.wyliewabbit.org/specs.htm

I don't have enough experience with the extreme beam light displacement types to know how they handle waves, but I join Steve & Linda Dashew (experienced cruisers) in thinking the narrower ULDBs do very nicely.

Moving on: what I think WOULD be on-topic in this thread is a comparison of Mini 6.5 designs informed by actual race results. The 6.5s have been around long enough that we should be able to get an idea which boats have shown themselves to be better, and why.

Guillermo

11-27-2006, 02:36 PM

Stephen,
Would you please bring your post to the 'Seaworthiness' thread, to discuss it there?

Paulo,
Pogo 40 Cruiser is an evolution from Pogo Class 40, not the contrary (or at leasst born at the same time, if I'm not wrong)
What I would like to know is which ones are.... “Some of these boats existed as cruising boats before the 40class was created, and where quite popular…”
But I agree not to discuss it here (Although it's not a discussion on my side. Just interested in knowing)
You are also kindly invited to discuss seaworthiness of these boats and their STIX at the specific threads.

Cheers.

Doug Lord

11-27-2006, 09:36 PM

Psaros 40: 6 trapezes, canting keel and waterballast:
sebschmidt - portfolio and gallery
Address:http://www.sebschmidt.ch/portfolio/01194/ Changed:9:30 PM on Monday, November 27, 2006

RHough

11-27-2006, 10:52 PM

This thread has great potential, but perhaps I'm missing the point.

To be notable means more to me than just new or different.

For instance, if the definition of development class is extended to boats built to the CCA Rule, I would submit that the Cal 40 was notable because it introduced Ultralight Displacement (for it's time) and the fin keel/spade rudder configuration.

In Open 60's, was movable ballast part of the original specification? If not, the first boat to use it was notable, as was the first boat to use a canting keel.

Lionheart was a notable 12 Meter for it's bendy top mast.

The first boat under IOR that had a successful fractional rig was notable. Anyone know what boat it was? (I'm thinking a Farr design?)

All notable in that other boats in other classes use the features that put these boats on the list.

To me, yet another 30, 40 , 50 ft ocean racing dinghy with a canting keel is not notable. What is different besides the length?

What racing class is the canting bilge keeler designed for?

Mini's are notable not for any feature of the boat, but because for better or worse they have made short-handed sailing accessible to more people. In that role they serve as a showcase for talent much like other open wheel classes showcase potential Formula 1 talent.

Am I completely off base here?

Vega

11-28-2006, 06:03 AM

Psaros 40: 6 trapezes, canting keel and waterballast:
sebschmidt - portfolio and gallery
Address:http://www.sebschmidt.ch/portfolio/01194/ Changed:9:30 PM on Monday, November 27, 2006

Nice boat, but that's not an ocean going one. These boats with trapezes are for lake racing.

Sebschmidt has a large and quality portfolio.

They have also a 40 class boat. It is interesting what they say about the boat and the class (and the comparison with the boat you have posted, regarding RM):

Rarely we saw such a craze for a new class : almost 28 boats already registered for the Route du Rhum 2006, and other projects' still growing up.
Endowed with a power ratio equivalent as on an open 60, the Class 40 can enjoy of about twice the righting moment of a lake racer like the Psaros 40' (8.2 t.m to 4.2 t.m) for the same hull length and mast height!
But this is without any doubts the "accessible to everybody" spirit, inherited from the Mini 6.50m, and a strict control of the costs that are building the success of the project.

http://www.sebschmidt.ch/portfolio/05312/

Vega

11-28-2006, 06:19 AM

Mini's are notable not for any feature of the boat, but because for better or worse they have made short-handed sailing accessible to more people. In that role they serve as a showcase for talent much like other open wheel classes showcase potential Formula 1 talent.

The new class 40 are just doing what you have said the minis have made, but at a much higher level, a level that make them competitive with bigger and more expansive classes (I, II and III) in real time.

By your definition, the 40 class boats are notable boats:p

If the new monotype "Ocean one", permits the same thing ( serve as a showcase for talent much like other open wheel classes showcase potential Formula 1 talent) at a even higher level, they would also be notable boats, by your definition.

RHough

11-29-2006, 01:30 AM

The new class 40 are just doing what you have said the minis have made, but at a much higher level, a level that make them competitive with bigger and more expansive classes (I, II and III) in real time.

By your definition, the 40 class boats are notable boats:p

If the new monotype "Ocean one", permits the same thing ( serve as a showcase for talent much like other open wheel classes showcase potential Formula 1 talent) at a even higher level, they would also be notable boats, by your definition.

I have to say that the 40 Class boats are notable to me personally because they are the first of the modern dinghy type ocean racers that I've considered owning.

For me, the 40 Class boats are a progression from the Mini's and are not so notable by themselves. They do however make a strong case that you don't need a canting keel to have a fast ocean racing mono.

The Ocean One monotype (one-design) seems to me to be just another one-design class. Granted a One-Design aimed at a small corner of the world, but in general just another One-Design.

All the open/development classes that are designed for short handed sailing, might become notable if they produce more seaworthy and seakindly boats for cruising couples. They have already advanced the state of auto-pilot technology.

The things I find elegant about the Mini's are the box rule (I like development classes) and the separation of Proto's and Series designs within the rules. The Series boats started as Protos, the successful ones become Series boats and the Series boats provide a benchmark for the next generation of Protos. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for a boat to become dominate.

I suppose boats can be notable in a negative sense also. The slow for their LWL but fast for their IOR rating boats fall into this category.

The IOR is notable as a rule that fostered less seaworthy and less seakindly boats than the rule it replaced.

Any boat that was seaworthy, seakindly, and fast under IOR would qualify as a Notable boat. I want to say that Farr and S&S probably drew a few that were, I just can't think of one. :(

All the boats that have to sail under modified rules are notable, because they demonstrate how far people will go not to race other types of boats.

I think "Mariner" is a good example of a notable boat. It was so bad, it revolutionized the way tank testing is done. We enjoy better towing tank results today thanks to Brit Chance's failure in the 1974 America's Cup.

Tactic

11-29-2006, 02:11 AM

The first boat under IOR that had a successful fractional rig was notable. Anyone know what boat it was? (I'm thinking a Farr design?)

Titus Canby.Bruce Farr.
Still around,saw her in Wellington a few years back.

Crag Cay

11-29-2006, 03:53 AM

"Any boat that was seaworthy, seakindly, and fast under IOR would qualify as a Notable boat. I want to say that Farr and S&S probably drew a few that were, I just can't think of one."

S&S 30, 34..... Tenacious, etc

In fact there were hundreds of excellent boats designed to the IOR rule. Although it is remembered for some of the dreadful designs it spawned from about '75 to '80, for the first few years, it gave us loads of the boats with skeg hung rudders and 45 percent ballast ratio that we now consider to be 'classic seaworthy designs'.

CT 249

11-29-2006, 06:01 AM

What about.....

Cascade, the Milgram cat-ketch, was a successful IOR boat (although often put up as an example of a boat harmed by the IOR, she was actually favoured by IOR; it's the only reason a boat that was quite slow for her length did well).

Denali, the Ron Holland cat ketch.

Carina, the late '60s Rhodes (?) CCA design that won the Bermuda about '79 under IOR.

Ceramco New Zealand, beautiful and fast, was a successful IOR boat in 1980. Seaworthy? Round the world no problems apart from a stay failure.

Sunstone, S&S modified Finnisterre type, was a successful IOR boat. Fast? Not compared to a later IOR boat. Seaworthy? Yes. Seakindly? Depends on your taste.

Pen Duick III, under a different name and rig, was a fairly successful IOR boat in the second Whitbread.

Ragamuffin #1/Margaret Rintoul II, a beautiful and classic '68 RORC racer, was a successful IOR boat, as were Tenacious, Running Tide, Love and War, Flyer I and II, etc through '75-'80. These boats took Fastnet, SORC, Sydney-Hobart, and Round the World races (among others) in the IOR era, '70-'80.

The Farr 1104, 727, 920 etc were successful IOR boats '75-'77. Damn fast in their day. Fairly high ballast ratio. Small skeg. 1104s have done an enormous amount of miles with an incredible safety record.

Ragtime and Merlin were successful IOR boats in their conditions, '75-'80. Ragtime was seakindly and fast, and seaworthy enough to sail the oceans for years.

The Townson 32 Moonlight from NZ was a fairly successful IOR boat; roomy, seaworthy, safe and fast for her length.

Accanito, one of the lightest boats from the notorious '79 AC/Fastnet, has been a Pacific and world-girdling cruising home for a couple for many years now. She's still almost original; runners, flush deck etc.

For all the talk about how slow IOR boats were, outside of light-wind areas and downhill races they seemed to do pretty well against non-IOR boats. Partly that was because the IOR boats normally attracted the best crews, but the fact that the advantage of non IOR boats was about the same as the advantage of sailing better may indicate that really, the boats may not have been the problem.

The IOR boats may not have been all that fast for their LOA, but they often weren't too slow for their sail area. I can recall a classic moment from the '80s. I got off a Farr 40 Design 136 IOR 1 ton one day and sailed on a 35' Elliott 10.5; a radical non-IOR boat.

"That main is as big as the Farr 40 main" said the skipper proudly. "That masthead spinnaker is 10% bigger than the Farr 40 kite" said the sailmaker. I looked around at the crew and counted the same number as a Farr 40. Looked at the beam; same as a Farr 40. Looked at the LWL; same as a Farr 40.

"So how does she normally go" I asked. "Well, we can often beat the Farr 40s" was the proud reply.

Of course she should have; it was the same size as a Farr 40 with the overhanging counter chopped off and the bow snubbed. Yeah, the IOR boats had their problems, but the good ones weren't too bad - and the racing was great. There's a reason fleets in those days were a lot bigger than the fleets today.

Stephen Ditmore

11-29-2006, 09:30 AM

By your definition, the 40 class boats are notable boats:p

I am interested in it, Vega. Thanks for the info you've posted on Class 40. Beyond the merits of one class vis-a-vis another class, though, what makes open & development classes in general interesting is that the boats racing each other vary, facilitating design progress. Open & development class racing is the best test tank around, but in order to learn from what we see we must understand the differences among the individual boats participating.

I appreciate that recent posts have named individual boats. That's my intent. But the boats mentioned are historical, and slow by today's standard. And most are were not designed to compete in what I would consider an open or development class.

IOR, IMS, and IRC were were initially conceived more as handicapping systems than as development rules. Repeating a comparison of a modern handicap and a development class racer:
DK40 (IRC): 6500 kg on a 10.4m waterline
GP42 Class: 4200 kg on a 12.2m waterline
I'm inclined to think of Merlin, Ragtime, and the ULDB 70s, as well as MaxZ86s, as development class racers. The ULDB 70s followed a pattern of evolution like a development class, though they utilized the IOR rule in things like measuring sail area. At the end of the day they were designed to be first to finish in primarily downwind races, and thus eschewed bumping, internal ballast to improve rating, and other gimmicks.

There's nothing wrong with history. If you have a favorite blast from the past, I'd love to hear about it. Along this line, I googled Alan Gurney the other day, designer of Windward Passage. Turns out he's living in Scotland and recently wrote a book about polar explorers.

Doug Lord

11-29-2006, 06:00 PM

sharpii2

11-29-2006, 07:42 PM

Crag Cay

11-30-2006, 05:08 AM

Is this to keep the bow from diging in?
Perhaps you could take a look at:
www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14842

Afterwards you may not be any the wiser but at least you will see what passions can be triggered by such an innocent sounding question.;)

Kiteship

11-30-2006, 02:46 PM

Forgive me if this has been covered--or if this isn't the place for it--but I was just watching some of the big weather ofshore sailing videos at: http://sailingstuff.wordpress.com/video-collection/ and am reminded anew of a question some have been asking for ages: Why do these men work on deck? Blondie Hasler may have been the first, but Jester crossed the Atlantic in the first OSTAR without the need for a man on deck--ever. Modern ORMA 60 trimarans have fully protected helm stations. Sure, the crew must go on deck at times (though again the ORMA 60 guys are out there, demonstrating how seldom this really needs to be, with multiple roller furling headsails, etc), but surely they don't need to stand watches there, taking every passing wave full in the face?

Watching entire crews standing in the deluge, grinding winches and sitting on the rail--and, literally, being washed overboard to their deaths, I never cease to wonder just how far these guys will take this "making men out of boys" concept? Surely the boats would be faster as well, without all the drag--hydro and aero-dynamic--of a half-dozen men and their gear on deck? No argument in favor I've heard to date ("they need to see; they need to get to their stations quickly, etc, etc." hold any water in a trans-oceanic race. Is this the 21st century or the 19th?

Just wondering...

Dave

DGreenwood

11-30-2006, 04:34 PM

You are joking around...right?

DGreenwood

11-30-2006, 04:55 PM

Actually Dave, they just go up and do that for the video footage to try to get some TV airtime.
Normally they have the high twist spinniker set to the cruise setting and the pilot wandering 10 or 20 degrees, while they are down below having toga parties and smashing beers against their foreheads.

CT 249

11-30-2006, 05:48 PM

1- Last time I looked over the ORMA 60s (at the end of the 2000 Transat) they didn't have "fully protected helm stations" and the pics I can find of the current fleet indicate they still don't. Maybe things have changed, but that means just 6 years ago the skippers said their hand steering was done from positions that were LESS protected that the VO 70's positions.

2 - I think most of the long races in tris is done singlehanded. Therefore the crew weight is such a tiny factor that it is irrelevant. The Volvos race fully crewed and therefore the crew weight on the rail does make a difference.

3- Different style of sailing in many ways. See the Brian Thompson interview from http://www.brianthompsonsailing.com/da/36159 to see how a very successful multi sailor and Open sailor sees the Volvo style;

"With a bigger crew he could focus 100% on his responsibilities - driving, grinding and trimming - and doing these to the best of his ability. On board ABN AMRO One there were five helmsmen of which Thompson was one. With his background in racing big multihulls Thompson found steering the VO70 required a different approach. "I learned a lot from the guys because they do this all the time. I am not used to boats where you are trimming all the time! I am so used to steering to a fixed apparent wind angle and to turn the boat to always be at that wind angle rather than go straight and having people trimming the sails through different waves. So it took a little while to get used to that."

On big multihulls the view is that things happen too quickly for the sails to be constantly trimmed, so it is more a case of the rough trim being set and then the helmsman steering to this. Thompson reckons that on ABN AMRO One they trim less than the crew used to on VO60s which accelerate and decelerate more on waves. "We’re more like a multihull, trying to keep the same speed - say 23/24 knots and just steer the boat around the waves. It is only when you get out of phase or slow down on a wave that you have to ease a bit. This actually makes it a little safer, because with boats you can’t trim you have got to come up more to reattach the apparent wind. Here you can just ease the sails for the next wave and then you are off again and then you retrim." In addition to this because there are crew constantly ready to ease you as a helmsman can get away with pushing the boat harder.

Thompson reckons that on the Open 60s they should more aggressively be trimming the sails - in particular the mainsail, when they are raced with a full crew.

There is also less pontificating about making sail changes on the VO70. "On an Open 60 if you have the Solent on, you’ll keep it until it is too slow, while here they’ll change much earlier. The main is luffing quite a bit and then the wind drops a touch, then you take out a reef and it is luffing almost completely..."

Thompson mentioned that the VOlvo's stack of sails protects the driver "almost like the bulkhead on Team Adventure/Orange II," says Thompson. "So in the cockpit you have that little breakwater. And when you are steering you are pretty high up there."

So according to a top Open and tri sailor - one of the guys used to boats where they don't sit on the rail - the Volvo crews are NOT doing it wrong. They are doing what suits their crew size and their boat. Unless you can work out how to trim effectively - and that means as well as the world-class sailors trying to beat you - from a fully protected position.

I met Mike Richey from Jester; nice guy but even he said Jester was damn slow. She used to get wiped by the Vertues etc, which are slower boats than a normal Folkboat. Jester was a great boat, but not necessarily a role model for a modern crewed yacht.

By the way, you didn't see anyone with their legs over the side in 19th century ocean racing. What you did see was enormous and spectacular boats, and a tiny sport. The sport only really got going when smaller, slower boats as used by Joe Average got into the act. And the sport of offshore racing was at its biggest in the days of those slow old IOR boats.

EDIT - 2006 pics below show that the helm positions on ORMA 60s are still incredibly exposed and the same as those 2000 boats.

http://www.multicup60.eu/diaporamas/71/Grand-Prix-du-port-de-Fecamp-dernier-jour.html?photo=0

http://www.multicup60.eu/diaporamas/71/Grand-Prix-du-port-de-Fecamp-dernier-jour.html?photo=4

Crag Cay

11-30-2006, 06:25 PM

I'm not sure to which of the videos you were referring in particular. The one of really heavy weather I watched was from the BT Challenge in 2000. This was a commercial enterprise selling seats in the 'World's Toughest Yacht Race'. With that sort of tag line, I guess you're going to have to give them hardship.

The boats were built against very stringent financial constraints. They also had very finely balanced stability and sheet loading to make sure they couldn't be powered up too much. The size of the primary winches was the first design parameter that was fixed. Similarly, the hank on cutter rigged headsails was another way of keeping both costs and loads under control. But for all that they weren't bad boats and between them have logged more up wind circumnavigations than everyone else put together.

There were a couple of other film clips I liked. A couple were from the Clyde sailing area. One showed the Race Committee at their top regatta each May based at Tarbet on Lock Fyne. The water is incredibly deep and they employ the services of several local fishing boats to lay the turning marks. There is always one day of each series that is stormy and it's always good listening on the VHF as some slightly anal retentive Race Officer tries to get the fishermen to move the weather mark over by say 50 yards. You don't have to be fluent in the Scottish vernacular to appreciate that they don't share the his concern for perfect windward legs when it's them that has to handle huge inflatable marks in 200ft of water, 6 foot waves and 35 knots winds.

The other clip of the two handed race shows a couple of local lads sailing Britain's equivalent of a J24 type small keelboat. With costs split between four crew these are about the cheapest way to get into 'big boat' racing. For some reason that would be a complete mystery to Guillermo, these tiny, beamy, lightly ballasted boats are given ORC Cat 3 and even allowed to enter overnight passage races. There are lots of these boats owned by young Glaswegian blokes keen to maintain the traditions of that city as a hard working /drinking /sailing /partying place. At the end of the Tarbet Passage race all the crews were met on the dock by some lovely ladies handing out freebies from the race sponsors, which traditionally was a case of Tenants lager per person and a jumbo box of Tunnock's Chocolate bars. For me they were just more stuff that had to carried as I headed for a bath and bed. But to the local lads it was brilliant - 'Hey, they've provided breakfast!' Thirty hours awake racing and then 10 big cans of larger and a dozen chocky bars to recover. Always made me feel really old.

PS Quote: "I met Mike Richey from Jester; nice guy but even he said Jester was damn slow. She used to get wiped by the Vertues etc, which are slower boats than a normal Folkboat. Jester was a great boat, but not necessarily a role model for a modern crewed yacht."

It was also lost at sea.

Stephen Ditmore

11-30-2006, 06:35 PM

Stephen, did you see the Radical 40 I mentioned earlier with the wings on the canting keel? Notable for that since Dovell is the pioneer of that soluton to the reduction of lateral resistance inherent in canting keels-and about as modern as modern gets. And the Psaros? Notable because it uses three forms of movable ballast and one of those includes 6 people on trapezes.....

I've gone back and had a look. Both very exciting boats! Is there a class they can race in? What's 40 foot Class 1?

A lot of interesting sailors out of Switzerland these days. Is Russell Coutts still living there? Bernard Stamm? Then there's Schmidt, the Alinghi America's Cup team, one of the ORMA trimaran sailors...

Was Dovell ahead of Olaf Harken and Britton Chance, designers of Procyon, in doing a canting keel with wings? http://boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=10771

Doug Lord

11-30-2006, 06:45 PM

I think Procyon was first but Dovels wings are much higher aspect and the first (to my knowledge) used on all out race boats.

DGreenwood

11-30-2006, 07:04 PM

Sorry Dave I had to rib you on that one.
CT 249 is on the money there.
Given any modern hull with sails geared toward crewed sailing, and pitting it with the crew on deck and trimming, will absolutely kill one with the crew below with sails set to the broad range of headings that the autopilot can provide. They ( autopilots) are getting very much better, but still not nearly as good as a human pilot.
C'mon, surely you're not asking whether an on deck crewed boat is faster than an autopiloted boat are you?
The Vendee entrees do not spend any time on deck compared to what is about to happen to BWR guys. This is going to be brutal for the double handed guys. Not enough crew to rest but enough to warrant staying at the helm and steering.
Man, this is going to be an interesting study in pain.

Kiteship

12-03-2006, 07:19 PM

I can see that I'm not expressing myself very well--that or you guys really do think I'm an imbecile--which of course is your prerogative. ;-)

No, I wasn't proposing that a 47-year old, 17' LWL toy is a model for modern offshore raceboats. I said it was the first I'd seen specifically designed to keep its crew out of the weather. I might point out that it *did* come second on that first OSTAR, beaten only by Chichester's Gypsy Moth IV, something like 10X the displacement. One might ask oneself if there is any significance in the smallest boat ever to run the transat coming so close to an outright win--as you say, she wasn't nearly the fastest... Could it have had anything to do with the ease with which she was sailed?

Nor do I recommend that modern offshore crews climb into their bunks and set the autopilot--how my statement that they should not be on deck could have been taken as a suggestion to put them all in their racks and start the autopilot is beyond me, and yet obviously I wasn't specific...

And yes, I have noticed that some of the best sailors who have ever lived prefer to steer and handle the boat from above deck, without their autopilots, and demonstrate faster speeds because of these beliefs--yes, crewed records are still faster than single-handed records.

OK, if I wasn't suggesting pure idiocy, what, then, was I talking about? I'll try this again:

The sports of aeronautics, automobiles, landsailing and (water) speedsailing all used to run with their crews exposed. Perhaps surprisingly (and perhaps not, in context), the best operators of each of these sports *insisted* they performed better outside than inside, where they could "feel the wind" and be "closer to the elements." Each strongly resisted the enclosure of their vehicles. It should not be surprising that each of these men was proven to be in error, and that the speeds--top, sustained, whatever the metric--significantly improved when they were enclosed. Duh.

"But sailing's different," I hear you thinking. Is it really? Have we suspended the laws of physics, and specifically, the rules regarding parasitic drag?

A better statement might be, "Can the crew operate the boat as efficiently from within an enclosure as they can now, outside?" This is a good question, and could be profitably argued both ways--always remembering the pilots, drivers and skippers of those earlier vehicles--*all* of whom were proven wrong. (Not what they *believe* they can do, but what they actually *can* do--with specially designed equipment, perhaps, and much practice.)

An even better question might be, "If we put the crew inside and forced them to completely relearn their jobs, and *if* they were found unable to perform to the same extremely high efficiencies they can while on deck, can an argument be made that the reduction in drag on the boat due to putting them inside some enclosure might/can/will overcome the loss of efficiency due to removing them from on deck?"

Bringing it all around to where I started, I believe the answer to this question is yes, it *can* be done. Not by doing something like we've done before (putting a plexiglass dome on a Folkboat, or switching on the autopilot and playing canasta), but by doing something new, perhaps even something untried.

Just how much drag are we talking about here?

Well, let's look at air drag. It's been said that, for each man standing above the deck of a sailboat, beating at 10 kts against a 20 kt true wind, an identical amount of drag can be created by removing the man, standing in air, and substituting a 4" tall model of that man, cemented onto the hull underwater. This was s simple demonstration to bring home just how important air drag is--nobody in their right mind would go around gluing 4" tall toy soldiers to the bottom of their hull, and yet few give a second thought to a crewman on deck--even though they create the same drag on the system. Now, have a look at the entire boat--men, cockpit, mast base, stanchions, winches, blocks, line, etc, etc and let's imagine moving *all* that to an enclosed, streamlined structure. Could this make any sense?

What about crew sitting to windward? Forgetting for a moment what a barbaric custom this is, couldn't it be done by stacking these guys into windward wing bunks? They aren't on duty, put 'em in the bilges. Yes, they create a tiny advantage by getting their c/g's a few more inches outboard on deck, however, see below regarding tradeoffs. (Plus, do we *really* want to encourage a level of sport where off-duty crew must sit in the teeth of potentially fatal wind and wave conditions, just to remain "competitive?" I thought that's what rule-making bodies were for, to make the sport more healthy?)

Let's talk about waves coming across the boat, as this one was what started the thought for me. A published data point says that a V70, doing its "max" speed of 35 kts on a broad reach is generating just about 400 hp from her rig. A bit of arithmetic suggests that this equates to roughly 3700 lbs of thrust (defined as the sails' resultant, parallel to the boat's average motion), or a shade over 1.5 metric tons of thrust. As the boat's at equilibrium, it can be inferred that this number also equals the hull's total drag at that speed. I'm happy to be disputed on this, but it both looks and "feels" right to me. At 25 knots, drag should be roughly half that at 35 kts, so we'll postulate the rig is creating about 3/4 ton of thrust at that speed.

How much drag is there on a man, then, stopping a wave with his body? We can play around with calculations, but as a worst case scenario, let's say that, usually, this force is less than that needed to rip him off the boat to his death (though, literally according to evidence, thus "evidentally," this is not always true--men are dying this way). As a strong man can hold his body weight plus likely 100% of that weight, I think we can set this force as something less than 200 kg, on average. Let's dial it down a bit (OK, a lot) and call it an average force of 50 kg. Further, let's suggest that this wave force might last for 5-6 seconds, perhaps once/minute, in rough seas.

What's this come to? If we've got 6 men on deck and each man suffers 50 kg of drag when each wave hits (as above), we've got something like 300kg of combined wave drag across the cockpit, 6 seconds out of every minute of the time. This is equivalent to losing 40% of the boat's total thrust, just as wave drag on the crew, during fully 10% of the time she's sailing in rough seas. How much added efficiency must the helmsman achieve, in order to overcome this sort of dead drag?

OK I know, you want to tell me I'm full of it, but consider this: I have completely ignored the drag due to waves washing across the cockpit structure, the mast base, the dodger, winches and pedestals, the wheel itself, the sail bags "breaking" the force of waves on the helmsman, etc, etc. D'you really think a well-designed enclosed boat, crewed by men who are determined to do as good a job "under glass" as on deck, couldn't lead to overall increases in average speeds?

Single handers must use shortcuts, because of crew fatigue. Think of this; if a full crew were "under glass" wouldn't the raw physicality of their job be reduced? If so, couldn't their performance level increase? Couldn't, for instance, a helmsman maybe stand longer watches (longer than the 20-40 minutes max they can achieve today, out on deck)? If the men could stand longer watches, could there perhaps be fewer of them? It's a commonly accepted figure that, depending on length of race, one crew = .5 to 1.0 tons of added displacement, given man, gear, food and water (or watermaking capacity). How many men could you leave ashore, and how much faster, on average, might this leave the boat?

I'm not saying this is a "lay-down" position, but wouldn't one agree that this concept--enclosed offshore racing boats--ought to be considered?

Cheers,

Dave

Kiteship

12-03-2006, 07:32 PM

CT 249

12-03-2006, 11:36 PM

I agree that there have been other sports or vehicles were enclosed has proved faster despite the attitude that people were better off "feeling" the wind. Racing cars still have open cockpits; even Le Mans cars (last time I looked) showed close competition between closed-in and open cars.

One could also say that if parastic drag was the vital factor, windsurfers would be slow as the sailor's body is (I understand) an enormous factor in their total drag; a much higher factor than in other craft. Even in longboards, the fully-exposed sailor on a board is faster than the skipper of (say) a seahugger Moth who (according to Bethwaite, at least) is lower and therefore in an area where there is less apparent and therefore less drag.

Re ORMA protection; I looked at the top four just after the finish of the 2000 Transat, and crawled all the way through three with my camera; none had that sort of protection then.

Surely that study that showed a man has the same air drag as a 4' man shape has underwater must be a bit out to lunch? You can easily stand on a deck in 40 knots of wind; how much drag force is on the hand holding you onto (say) a stay; 4kg????

Now hunch to 4' height and try to hang standing upside down in a boat's hull. It's utterly different in terms of force required. I used to have great difficulty hanging onto my hull to clean it when the boat was moored in a fast tide.

Many, many crews know to the 10th of a knot how much they lose when the bowman goes forward; it has been a big consideration in design for a long, long time. Many work hard on fore-and-aft crew weight. Would they be so aware of these factors and yet be too stupid to get around to looking harder at getting rid of crew windage, particularly considering it has been seen as a factor for decades? Ben Lexcen and Scott Jutson, to name two, have been well aware of it for many years - but they ended up (I'm pretty sure) deciding that for some reason in reality it wasn't such a problem. Ben went from flush deck low-windage boats, to boats designed to rely on crew on the gunwale.

If there was so much air drag in the human figure, no one would use traps on cats; it would be faster to just lie on the tramp and depower the rig. The Kiwis used to not use traps on As for that reason - they got wiped when they went to the early worlds and learned the error of their ways. The top A Class guys get out on trap very, very early; if the windage of the body was a problem that would be slow.

And there's very little aero drag force to fight against when going upwind in a Tornado at top speed, but if you touch a wavetop you can get blasted straight over the stern. So, from personal experience, I can't see how the air drag can be anything like as important as hydro drag.

Surely if the drag of the crew was slower than the advantage of having them on deck, someone would have noticed during the time VO 60s, VO 70s and similar boats have been sailing? Surely at one time most of the crew must have been down below but on the windward side; when they're having a meeting about how to handle the boat falling apart again, or when tuning and discussing changes, etc. Wouldn't the driver have noticed the boat suddenly getting quicker as the drag reduced by such a large amount?

After all, the concept of crew keeping out of the wind is a very old one; it was tried on the 14s in Cowes among many other boats. Then someone came along, hung his crew out into the wind, and planed a boat called Avenger into the history books. If windage was such a disaster, Uffa would have lost rather than won, and 14 sailors today would hunch, not trap off wings.

Uffa later had turtleback 30 square metres with "streamlined" decks; they never went particularly well. Decades later, guys in the early IOR days eschewed multiple spreaders and had rounded cabin tops to avoid windage; they got wiped by the lightweights with the crew, flappy wet weather gear and all, hunched on the weather rail.

The 12s of the '70s had many of the crew under the deck, as the old UK Troys still do, I think, and some 6 Metres. Most of the crew hate it.

Offshore mono crews are very familiar with sending the crew down below to improve speed. They send all available crew down below to lie on the floorboards when it's light and weight should be centralised. So it's not as if they are blind to other advantages to being down below.

Some of the heavier boats don't lose too much stability with the crew off the rail. Swan 48s etc are pretty damn heavy and stable and have a fairly low deck profile; but the pros from the Swan worlds runner-up assured me it's very very important to have the crew hiking out. They have looked at the question.

I agree that it's crap that people must sit on the rail. It's a major reason I have given up ocean racing. I wish there was evidence that it was faster to stay warm, refreshed and rested down below. Unfortunately, there just seems to be a lot of evidence on the racecourses of the world that indicates that it's faster to be stuffed, cold and tired and sit on the rail.

Kiteship

12-04-2006, 01:14 AM

Surely that study that showed a man has the same air drag as a 4' man shape has underwater must be a bit out to lunch?

4 inches, Chris, not 4 feet. The system altered the inch symbols to feet when I first posted it. It has let me edit the numbers, though. 4 inches. Sorry.

Dave

Crag Cay

12-04-2006, 04:10 AM

I think, and some 6 Metres. Most of the crew hate it.
All the ideas of having crew below were indeed done to death in the 60's and 70's. Where the 12M's went everyone else followed. Every boat with any off shore ambition had a plexyglass bubble popping up from the deck or hatch.

But CT is right, it all fizzled away because people hated it. I sailed on a 6M where there were 'murals' of pretty sea scapes painted on the inside of the hull so the grinders would think they had a view. But even they weren't thick enough to be happy with that.

Having said that, I do think we have swung the other way. 'Wind drag' is the commonest objection to better cockpit protection, but I would love to see some wind tunnel tests of good looking, streamlined systems as a percentage of the total drag. Where are all those final year students looking for projects when you need them?

Vega

12-04-2006, 08:24 PM

1- Last time I looked over the ORMA 60s (at the end of the 2000 Transat) they didn't have "fully protected helm stations" and the pics I can find of the current fleet indicate they still don't. EDIT - 2006 pics below show that the helm positions on ORMA 60s are still incredibly exposed and the same as those 2000 boats.

http://www.multicup60.eu/diaporamas/71/Grand-Prix-du-port-de-Fecamp-dernier-jour.html?photo=0

http://www.multicup60.eu/diaporamas/71/Grand-Prix-du-port-de-Fecamp-dernier-jour.html?photo=4

CT, the links you have posted (and the photos) refers to Crand- Prix Racing and those are relatively short races.

For big ocean races like the Route du Rhum, those boats have some protection for the lonely skipper (including “Geant”).

One might ask oneself if there is any significance in the smallest boat ever to run the transat coming so close to an outright win--as you say, she wasn't nearly the fastest... Could it have had anything to do with the ease with which she was sailed?
....
I have noticed that some of the best sailors who have ever lived prefer to steer and handle the boat from above deck, without their autopilots, and demonstrate faster speeds because of these beliefs..

....A better statement might be, "Can the crew operate the boat as efficiently from within an enclosure as they can now, outside?"

I'm not saying this is a "lay-down" position, but wouldn't one agree that this concept--enclosed offshore racing boats--ought to be considered?

Dave, Orma 60's are extreme boats and those guys really go to the limit. The boats are many times at the edge and a mistake can easily lead to a capsize. These are not easy boats to sail. I believe that there are not many sailors that can race those boats at that rhythm.

For example, Franck Camas, one of the best skippers, had said that he had never been inside the boat more than 3 minutes (each time) during the entire race. This can give you an idea of the needs and demands of these sailboats.

If they can see the waves and the sea, they can go faster, and they have a much better view outside the boat. Believe it or not, they had said that one of the things that had permitted that incredible average speed of 20 Knots was moonshine; they could also see the “race track” during good part of the night, and for that they would have to be outside.

But regarding the IMOCA open 60, that are much more forgiving boats, what you say does not only makes sense, but it is already a tendency.

For really long races, like the Vendee Globe, the new boats offer a lot more protection.

See, for example, one of the latest designs by Groupe Finot (post 4).

DGreenwood

12-04-2006, 10:23 PM

Kiteship
I get your point now. And there is some merit to the question. But in all ocean racing, fatigue is such an important factor that it is only compromised in exchange for speed if it is believed to be manageable. The mental and physical condition of solo racers as in the Vendee plays a big role in their performance. Management of sleep diet and exposure are big in the Volvo as well. There is a lot of money spent in consideration of this.

The new Vendee boats are actually trending toward giving up some of the comforts of the last generation. The broad houses you are seeing, although they provide some protection for the crew, probably have more to do with meeting the AVS requirements.

Then again, when you consider all the effort that is put into reducing drag on these hulls and decks, you do have to wonder about all those guys out there.

I'm not 100% sure that sitting on the rail is as far as you can get to windward on a lot of heeled hulls. Couldn't you get farther outboard on the inside? Think about it?

CT 249

12-05-2006, 07:24 AM

CT, the links you have posted (and the photos) refers to Crand- Prix Racing and those are relatively short races.

For big ocean races like the Route du Rhum, those boats have some protection for the lonely skipper (including “Geant”).

In 2000, I went over every one of the Transat tris after the finish, apart from Joyon's Eure et Loire. I spent about three hours with my camera. I can recall being amazed at how exposed (considering the nature of the boats and race) the helm positions were, but I can remember that the initial positions on '80s ORMA 60s were even more exposed.

The only pics I can find on the net (my own rolls of pics are in the attic) from 2000 is Eure et Loir, which has NO protection. They may have today, but singlehanded 60 foot tris are very different boats to VOR 70s. Saying that monos should have what multis have seems a bit like saying VOR 70s and 60s would be quicker if they had the massive air drag of a bunch of roller-furling headsails in front of the rig. We know that's a massive amount of drag, but it works. Maybe it's the same with crew weight on the rail in a mono?

Top small cat sailors don't try to hunch in a breeze to reduce windage; they get as much extension as they can, because leverage is more important than windage.

I was amazed at how cramped the ORMA 60s were down below. I'd have thought more comfort would have made them faster, but surely since I don't win and those guys do, I should start from the position that they are right?

CT 249

12-05-2006, 07:39 AM

4 inches, Chris, not 4 feet. The system altered the inch symbols to feet when I first posted it. It has let me edit the numbers, though. 4 inches. Sorry.

Dave

Have you seen the Stonehenge part of "This is Spinal Tap"?:D :D :p

"Those two little squiggles mean inches, not feet.....there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being *crushed* by a *dwarf*. Alright? That tended to understate the hugeness of the object."

gggGuest

12-05-2006, 08:51 AM

Oh no, you've just made me realise I don't know my boat's star sign...

rob denney

12-05-2006, 08:56 AM

Vega

12-05-2006, 05:43 PM

The only pics I can find on the net (my own rolls of pics are in the attic) from 2000 is Eure et Loir, which has NO protection.

CT, I am not saying that they had the protections in 2000. I think those protections are relatively recent and they use them only for Ocean Racing, not for Grand Prix racing.

Stephen Ditmore

12-05-2006, 06:15 PM

Why not multiple helm stations?

CT 249

12-05-2006, 06:57 PM

I was amazed at how cramped the ORMA 60s were down below. I'd have thought more comfort would have made them faster, but surely since I don't win and those guys do, I should start from the position that they are right?

Any pictures of down below on an ORMA tri? Failing that, any chance of a description?

regards,

Rob[/QUOTE]

I'm not sure whether any of the pics down below turned out; it's a dark hole!

Description? Very short available length - maybe 15 feet? Probably no room to stretch the arms sideways. At least one skipper (Frank Cammas, perhaps; nice guy) had his bunk angled up from the waist, so he could see through the porthole without lifting his body. My old Crossfire 20 would have been roomier and more comfortable, from memory, as would an IMS 30 on the way to Hobart.

Keep hassling me if you want me to look for pics, I can't try to find them today.

CT 249

12-05-2006, 07:22 PM

Why not multiple helm stations?

Depends on the boat and race, I suppose. I don't know about the VO guys, but I know I rely enormously on sensory information I can't get from down below when I'm driving. I can't even steer well with a wet-weather hood on, even going across Bass Strait in an IMS 30 lightweight under storm trysail, in conditions where it was snowing on other boats. Other people CAN steer with hoods on, but surely they still rely on the feel of the wind on the exposed part of their face etc? As Elvstrom said, if you only steered with your eyes, anyone could do it.

In my experience (others may well differ, of course) you may gain speed in some situations by being better rested. You may also lose catastrophically by not being able to hear the tumbling crest and perhaps momentary wind change that indicates a massive backless wave is about to hit you, or feel the wind increasing and about to spin you into a broach that will dismast you; or feeling that 1/2 knot zephy that may slide you 200 metres to the wind line.

It's not just being macho; I admit that I'm not macho enough to race offshore these days since I only like small boats, and there aren't enough other small boats to make the discomfort worthwhile. One reason I like small boats is that I think you can legitimately make the argument, on experience, that with 30 footers in 480-630 mile races, it is actually faster to avoid fatigue to prevent mistakes. On the bigger boats with shorter race times and bigger crews, it seems harder to make that argument.

The other factor is the cost and efficiency of modern top-line wet weather gear, and these days if you go offshore without it people don't think you're macho, they think you're a cheapass or a fool. A few years back when I did an article on wet weather gear by actually interviewing a bunch of Hobart winners and Volvo racers about what they wore (rather than just reading press releases) they emphasised the vital importance and efficiency of modern wet-weather gear in keeping racers warm and dry enough for efficiency. These days, everyone seems to put a lot of emphasis on good clothing that keeps you warm and dry, arguably warmer and dryer than the sailors of the '70s were despite the fact that they stayed off the rail most of the time. One of the successful Sydney-Hobart etc skippers has said publically that he demands that his crew carry the good wet weather gear or they are off the boat because he doesn't want anyone in a dangerous, cold, wet tired state. This is not mindlessly being macho.

Surely like most things there's a calculus of risk. The ORMA 60 guys may have more helm protection, but they are singlehanding and they also have boats that are riskier in other ways. The VO guys stack the rail, but they do it in wet weather gear that the sailors of earlier decades would have killed for, and they do it for comparatively short legs.
People talk about how offshore guys overdo the macho, but whenever I've been interviewing Hobart winners etc they have emphasised how important it is to judge when to conserve the boat and the crew (which we should have done last time but the bloody skipper wouldn't listen to his watch captain (me) or sailmaker. Grrrrrrrrrrrr. From would-be heroes to zeroes).

I've planned having a dodger and lines from the helm so I could steer my own boat from the companionway, and I appreciate its high cabin top as a shelter. But when racing, it's get into the wind, feel the boat and go fast.

Vega

12-05-2006, 07:22 PM

I think the more relevant comparison might be an Open 50 with a Transpac 52 (both of which I would count as development classes for the purpose of this thread).
...

... I am mainly interested in hull shapes.

Take a look at the Pogo fast cruiser- racer (the cruising brother of the winner of the class 40) and at the J-120. Both are fast boats, but completely different boats. In an open ocean race who would be the fastest? What are the good points and bad points of each kind of hull?

Whenever I've asked designers who have done Open and "conventional" boats which one is better, they've said that the Open style is better for the reaching-oriented long ocean races, and the "conventional" style is better for coastal races and short races.

But these 40ft class boats are very different and have had a more 'all round mandate' in their design. I think the comparison with the J Class philosophy is valid.

I often hear it quoted that the Open Class yachts are optimised soley for downwind sailing. I think this may have been true in the early days, but the race program for these boats is now so varied, that the VPP is developed for far more upwind sailing than used to be considered.

I apologize to the ones that don’t like this kind of quoting, but I wanted to pull the relevant quotes regarding hull form and speed, I mean, narrower hulls, versus beamier hulls, kind of Open 60. And I wanted to do that because I have some information about it, and it comes from a reliable source: Juan Kouyoumdjian.

I have read a recent interview (in French) where he talked about it and what he said has surprised me. I will make a translation of the relevant part of the interview:

What are the main performance criteria for an Open 60?

The same as for any other racing sailboat: Maximize propulsion force and stability and minimize the drag (resistance to the forward motion).

A lot of sail area on a narrower boat ?

Normally it is assumed that a narrow hull has less drag. I can prove otherwise. With less than 12k of wind, the narrow boat has the advantage, but with more wind that’s not the case and these boats race along with strong winds.

All right, this has nothing to do with the above, but it’s very interesting:

Do you prefer to work with Class boats or Open boats?

Open boats. We are very happy, doing Open Boats (3). That’s much more exiting than Class America, an uninteresting and completely obsolete class. The boats have a monstrous ratio costs/performance.

In what direction would you like to see an evolution of the Class America?

That’s funny because that question was also made to Bruce Farr and our answer is very close: A little bit more of 600m2 of sail area, around 90/100 ft length, canting keels…and more liberty on the class rules (regarding design).

The problem is that Chris Dickson (BMW/Oracle) is very conservative. He likes heavy boats. I don’t expect big changes.

rob denney

12-05-2006, 07:30 PM

No rush. Reason I ask is my boat http://www.harryproa.com/SoloTranspac/SoloTranspac_1.htm for the solo Transpac has an accommodation/storage hull 5m/16' long, with 0.5m at each end solid foam. The bunk is cantilevered between the beams. Plan is that I can cook, eat, navigate, steer, trim and keep a lookout without getting out of bed, in virtually all conditions. Above the waterline, the boat has a little less than half the frontal area of the rigging on a 40 footer, so we may get some feedback on the cost of air drag. As someone who cycles into the teeth of the Fremantle Doctor (25 knot sea breeze) every afternoon, windage is something I take very seriously.

regards,

Rob

Kiteship

12-05-2006, 07:32 PM

I was amazed at how cramped the ORMA 60s were down below. I'd have thought more comfort would have made them faster, but surely since I don't win and those guys do, I should start from the position that they are right?

Any pictures of down below on an ORMA tri? Failing that, any chance of a description?

regards,

Rob

Here are a bunch of Geant, 2004: http://www.sailtriad.com/transat-geant.html

Doesn't look all that small, but these were taken by a pro, member of NEMA. I'm sure he was using a short lens, which makes interior shots look much bigger than they are.

Chris, I don't doubt your recollection of the 2000 boats for a minute. My point was that they've come a long ways in a short time. Given that Geant was the most "advanced" in skipper enclosure in 2004, and that she won, can you imagine how the boats will look in 2008?

Dave

Doug Lord

12-05-2006, 07:42 PM

I apologize to the ones that don’t like this kind of quoting, but I wanted to pull the relevant quotes regarding hull form and speed, I mean, narrower hulls, versus beamier hulls, kind of Open 60. And I wanted to do that because I have some information about it, and it comes from a reliable source: Juan Kouyoumdjian.

In what direction would you like to see an evolution of the Class America?

That’s funny because that question was also made to Bruce Farr and our answer is very close: A little bit more of 600m2 of sail area, around 90/100 ft length, canting keels…and more liberty on the class rules (regarding design).

-----------------
Yes! Wouldn't that be spectacular-and "notable"!

Kiteship

12-06-2006, 06:20 PM

You may not mean it that way, Chris, but much of what you bring in this post is red herrings; I don't disagree with you regarding small boats, where crew mass is 60-80%; even 90%+ in windsurfers. I was speaking of offshore boats like the VO 70's where crew weight is a much smaller proportion of boa weight. The same thing for comparing Swan 48 "streamlining" schemes, Swans are decades-old designs, capable of--maybe--10-12 kts boatspeed. Modern planing hulls are capable of sustained speeds 2, even 3 times that fast. Hay wagons don't need streamlining; Ferraris do (do you actually mean to suggest you believe that modern open wheeled and open cockpit race cars--whose rules require them to be shaped like that--have similar drag coefficients to closed cars??? You were just jesting, eh? That or modern airforces need to take another look at aerodynamics!)

You quite succinctly and excellently demonstrate the "old guard" point of view in much of your post, repeatedly suggesting that "what was good enough then, is good enough now." Thanks for the demonstration. ;-)

Drag is of critical importance these modern days, Chris; Far from "a few ounces on the stay," a man standing on deck in 25 kts of apparent breeze creates on the order of 12-15 lbs of air drag; 35 kts of breeze; double that. 50 kts; redouble it again. A row of 6 such men on the rail will create more drag than the entire mainsail, working at its most efficient. Put another way, the rail meat air drag in effect halves the L/D ratio of the mainsail. Is this healthy?

I'm kind of sorry I brought air drag into the conversation; wave drag is far, far greater in magnitude, IMO. I'm talking about waves which come aboard and strike projections on deck--including crew. You didn't speak to any of my numbers in my previous post regarding wave drag, leading me to believe you agree that these drags can indeed equal up to 40% of the boat's total sail thrust.

To you and to others who have kindly responded regarding the crew's "desires" to remain on deck where they can better hear, see and "sense" their surroundings; I salute you; Mr Rickenbacker no doubt would have agreed with you. Nevertheless we tend to use closed cockpit aircraft these days, and instruments to sense outside conditions. Oracle BMW racing is already using a version of virtual reality glasses to project performance data directly to the sailors' eyes, how long will it be before stereo surround sound, heads-up displays and LIDAR proximity warnings will make the old (some insist current) "head in the air" sailing attitude as quaintly old fashioned as open cockpit airplanes?

Someone else points out that "the grinders" couldn't stand not seeing what's about them. When did grinders dictate the direction of racing design? Do they pay the bills of the boat?

Another offered that AC boats "tried" belowdecks crew, other classes followed, and it all came for naught. I wonder how many here know that these were outlawed for the AC class--all winches must be at deck height or higher. D'you suppose they bothered to ban something which was dying a quiet death, unaided? More to the point, ask yourself just why they were banned? (I might also note that, in modern AC boats, the entire crew crouches down below the rail whenever they can--popping up to tweak winches, then right back down. Often the only head you see above deck is the helmsman's. Is this evidence of a design optimum, or is it accommodating a rule forcing them to do so?)

Sure, single handed multihulls do go faster, and yield more stress on their crews than some other forms of offshore sailing. Some might say that these, then, are the "canaries", the test cases, and that their tried and true solutions will spread across the remainder of the fast offshore fleet in time. Shall we wait until it's fact before we concede it *might* be a good idea?

Chees,

Dave

I agree that there have been other sports or vehicles were enclosed has proved faster despite the attitude that people were better off "feeling" the wind. Racing cars still have open cockpits; even Le Mans cars (last time I looked) showed close competition between closed-in and open cars.

One could also say that if parastic drag was the vital factor, windsurfers would be slow as the sailor's body is (I understand) an enormous factor in their total drag; a much higher factor than in other craft. Even in longboards, the fully-exposed sailor on a board is faster than the skipper of (say) a seahugger Moth who (according to Bethwaite, at least) is lower and therefore in an area where there is less apparent and therefore less drag.

Re ORMA protection; I looked at the top four just after the finish of the 2000 Transat, and crawled all the way through three with my camera; none had that sort of protection then.

Surely that study that showed a man has the same air drag as a 4' man shape has underwater must be a bit out to lunch? You can easily stand on a deck in 40 knots of wind; how much drag force is on the hand holding you onto (say) a stay; 4kg????

Now hunch to 4' height and try to hang standing upside down in a boat's hull. It's utterly different in terms of force required. I used to have great difficulty hanging onto my hull to clean it when the boat was moored in a fast tide.

Many, many crews know to the 10th of a knot how much they lose when the bowman goes forward; it has been a big consideration in design for a long, long time. Many work hard on fore-and-aft crew weight. Would they be so aware of these factors and yet be too stupid to get around to looking harder at getting rid of crew windage, particularly considering it has been seen as a factor for decades? Ben Lexcen and Scott Jutson, to name two, have been well aware of it for many years - but they ended up (I'm pretty sure) deciding that for some reason in reality it wasn't such a problem. Ben went from flush deck low-windage boats, to boats designed to rely on crew on the gunwale.

If there was so much air drag in the human figure, no one would use traps on cats; it would be faster to just lie on the tramp and depower the rig. The Kiwis used to not use traps on As for that reason - they got wiped when they went to the early worlds and learned the error of their ways. The top A Class guys get out on trap very, very early; if the windage of the body was a problem that would be slow.

And there's very little aero drag force to fight against when going upwind in a Tornado at top speed, but if you touch a wavetop you can get blasted straight over the stern. So, from personal experience, I can't see how the air drag can be anything like as important as hydro drag.

Surely if the drag of the crew was slower than the advantage of having them on deck, someone would have noticed during the time VO 60s, VO 70s and similar boats have been sailing? Surely at one time most of the crew must have been down below but on the windward side; when they're having a meeting about how to handle the boat falling apart again, or when tuning and discussing changes, etc. Wouldn't the driver have noticed the boat suddenly getting quicker as the drag reduced by such a large amount?

After all, the concept of crew keeping out of the wind is a very old one; it was tried on the 14s in Cowes among many other boats. Then someone came along, hung his crew out into the wind, and planed a boat called Avenger into the history books. If windage was such a disaster, Uffa would have lost rather than won, and 14 sailors today would hunch, not trap off wings.

Uffa later had turtleback 30 square metres with "streamlined" decks; they never went particularly well. Decades later, guys in the early IOR days eschewed multiple spreaders and had rounded cabin tops to avoid windage; they got wiped by the lightweights with the crew, flappy wet weather gear and all, hunched on the weather rail.

The 12s of the '70s had many of the crew under the deck, as the old UK Troys still do, I think, and some 6 Metres. Most of the crew hate it.

Offshore mono crews are very familiar with sending the crew down below to improve speed. They send all available crew down below to lie on the floorboards when it's light and weight should be centralised. So it's not as if they are blind to other advantages to being down below.

Some of the heavier boats don't lose too much stability with the crew off the rail. Swan 48s etc are pretty damn heavy and stable and have a fairly low deck profile; but the pros from the Swan worlds runner-up assured me it's very very important to have the crew hiking out. They have looked at the question.

I agree that it's crap that people must sit on the rail. It's a major reason I have given up ocean racing. I wish there was evidence that it was faster to stay warm, refreshed and rested down below. Unfortunately, there just seems to be a lot of evidence on the racecourses of the world that indicates that it's faster to be stuffed, cold and tired and sit on the rail.

CT 249

12-07-2006, 05:47 AM

"You quite succinctly and excellently demonstrate the "old guard" point of view in much of your post, repeatedly suggesting that "what was good enough then, is good enough now." Thanks for the demonstration. ;-)"

So far this in a year or so, DC, I've started one new class (now officially National) which goes against all conventional wisdom in that area of the sport; been the first person in my country to sail two new types of kit; assisted with writing the rules for another new class' first Internationals; and won one new state title. And I've been on the first sail on a boat that has had international patents awarded for its major feature; last week we were talking about customer resistance to a novel rig I was advocating.

Not bad for a prisoner of "old guard" thinking, I'd have thought. Exactly how many new classes does one have to create, assist with or sail in one year to prove you're not too conservative? It's just that I actually race against some of the top sailors in some of the most competitive classes, and that teaches me that they are not stupid or closed-minded, and that if they do things they almost always do them because they work.

I'm very aware of windage and drag. No one who sails slalom boards could be otherwise; if you put a high drag/high lift sail on, you just can't get to windward. It's a very graphic example.

As I said, I'm also anti sitting on the rail and on my own boat I want a more protected helm for cruising. Your insistence that I believe in rail sitting because I'm old guard flies in the face of those facts that I have already presented.

The point about the earlier boats where crew were below decks was that they utterly disprove any assertions that monohull crews are too "old guard" and conservative in their belief to ignore windage and wave drag. The point about the Swan is that even in boats were you wouldn't think weight on the rail may count, it does - even when the much-vaunted fatigue problem doesn't arise as the Swan champs are just day races.

It is patently obvious, and proven by many previous instances for 80 years, that "conventional" mono crews are NOT blind to the advantages of reducing windage and wave drag. Even 30 years ago, they had low-windage coachroofs until they found they had no effect. They had single spreaders on 40+ footers to reduce windage. They are NOT blind to the idea of keeping crew weight down below, as demonstrated by examples already given. Every skiff/dinghy designer knows of wave drag. Farr was writing of the problems 30 years ago.

Therefore, very simply, any idea that mono crews sit on the rail because they are "old guard" and can't see other ways of doing it is patently incorrect. There must be other reasons for their behaviour - possibly the fact that it works!

Re "Someone else points out that "the grinders" couldn't stand not seeing what's about them. When did grinders dictate the direction of racing design? Do they pay the bills of the boat?"

No, grinders don't pay. They just complain. The fact that they complained is significant. Why did the grinders get upset? Because working down below is *&^%$#ing horrible. Crag gave his own example of how crappy being down below was. What is the benefit of making the sport less pleasant for a proportion of the competitors? So why inflict it on all the crew? Many, many, many people have noted that seasickness is worse down below than on deck. Sitting up down below is generally considered one of the most uncomfortable possible things to do offshore. Why inflict it on more sailors?

You use the fact that planes have closed cockpits as ammunition. For a start, the wind forces on a plane are magnitudes greater. You reject my analogy to A Class cats because of forces, then introduce a sport where apparent air speeds are about 200+mph. Furthermore, at least as late as the '40s, as I understand it, at the critical times like landing, pilots often DID open their cockpit. The analogy may not hold. Aircrew already fly heavily muffled because of the cold. You could well argue that an open cockpit plane does not equate to a yacht. I've never had 200mph windspeeds at -20 degrees on a yacht. I've also never seen an enclosed hangglider.

Basically, I cannot understand how you can reject an A Class analogy because the ratios are different to yachts, and then propose instead a totally different sport where the windspeeds are orders of magnitude greater. And the numbers of people competing in that sport are much less than in sailing (around me, anyway). If popularity is a guide, sport flying has it wrong, sailing has it right.

I know that open-cockpit cars have higher drag. I don't know how severe the drag is, in the Le Mans articles in Racecar Engineering etc I've seen it seems to be less important than fuel tank volume etc. The point remains - the rules demand open cockpits on many racecars so why be so scathing about open cockpits for sailors?

Your case assumes that the VO sailors - guys who have handles the massive change from IOR ketches to canters in about 16 years, guys who include skiff racers and others - are conservative "old guard" sailors. I ask again, how, in all the lead-up training and the design and the race around the world, could someone not have thought of the wave drag/ windage factor WHEN IT HAS BEEN RECOGNISED FOR LONGER THAN THE ROUND THE WORLD RACE HAS EXISTED.

The designer of the winning VO boat is talking up multis and canting keel AC boats. Is he too "old guard" and stupid to see the advantages of which you write?

Either the designers of modern monos - Farr, Bowler, R/P. Elliott, Juan K etc - are too stupid or blinkered to understand your case, or your calcs are wrong. The mono designers include guys who got into carbon the same year as Formula 1 did. For some time, something like the 12 biggest pre-preg structures in the world
were mono yachts, followed by the space shuttle doors. Sure, size isn't everything, but the idea that "conventional" mono designers and sailors are too stupid and conservative to come up with new ideas is *&^%$#@. Every Aussie "conventional" mono designer I can think of is either an engineer, or has experience with boats that are rather "radical" (ie Opens, skiffs etc) and/or don't use crew weight (ie metre boats) yet all of them know of the importance of crew weight on the rail in "conventional" boats. I assume it's the same other places.

Look at Scott Jutson. He designed a wing-masted 18 which has rolled gunwales and a bow specially designed to reduce windage and wave drag. He was aware of the problems of wind and wave drag. He then designed a record-breaking Open boat. He knew about Opens. He wrote about windage drag from crew ("Offshore" magazine) - and then said that the significant factor was that no one really worried about it because in reality it didn't make a difference. He did so because, as Scott says, when it comes down to it, in fast boats you look at what the top sailors prove to work.

Look at Ben Lexcen. He spoke about windage and wave drag for years, yet his later boats largely ignored such factors. You really think Blinky Ben was too "old school" to see the problem?

Finally, if you hold up the ORMA 60s as an example of reducing windage, I'm fascinated - considering they have stinking big rolled headsails up the bow. Those boring old conservative mono crews have known about rolled headsails for years. They just pull them down when they are not needed, because they can. They are fully aware of the windage problem, they just know what works in their application.

SuperPiper

12-07-2006, 09:42 PM

Here is a photo of Derek Hatfield's Open 60 Spirit of Canada, September 09, 2006 - the day she was launched into Lake Ontario at Cobourg, Ontario. The keel & bulb were not yet installed which explains why she was floating so high. But my question is: what is the prefered profile of the cabin's trailing edge. Derek has chosen a square, vertical trailing edge. But Hugo Boss had some sort of scalloped, parabolic profile. I have been watching mini-vans and hatch-back coupes. They seem to prefer that the trailing edge actually curve in at the corners and the top/centre protrude the furthest aft.

What shape do you suggest to minimize drag?

Vega

12-08-2006, 11:04 AM

Nice looking boat. It is a Owen and Clarke Design.
Another one to the Vendee Globe.

About the boat, look at this detail on the bow. For having more lift for planning easily in weak winds?

That race is going to be great, but they should enlarge the number of entries. The race is going to take place in about two years’ time and I have heard that all entries are already filled in (27 I believe). Crazy!

http://www.spiritofcanada.net/boat_specs.html

Good luck to Canada on that race. The only problem with Open60's and the Vendee Globe was that it was mainly a French thing. I think that the next Vendee is going to be a world's race, and a BIG one.

By the way, I have bought the video about the last Vendee, it is called "Ocean's Twenty" and it is worth every penny. There we can see how the open60's handle bad weather. The steerage of the boat is amazing. Even with big waves, they point it that way, and that way it goes.

Regards

Stephen Ditmore

12-08-2006, 12:06 PM

I think the photo above shows the structural skin on the boat, but not the final shape. It's common these days for boats to have a foam gripe, a foam stem, or both, which are external to all but the outermost finish laminates.

In what direction would you like to see an evolution of the Class America?
[/COLOR]

What's "Class America"? Is that what they're calling the IACC now? How is that relevant to the comments of any of the people you quoted, Vega?

Paul B

12-08-2006, 12:06 PM

About the boat, look at this detail on the bow. For having more lift for planning easily in weak winds?

No, that's the way many boats with very fine bows are built. The flat is a mounting point for a filler piece that will complete the shape into a normal looking bow.

This gives a bow knuckle that does not cause great structural damage if it contacts something at speed. A sort of crash box.

Vega

12-08-2006, 01:27 PM

Thanks! That bow really looked strange:D

Vega

12-08-2006, 02:16 PM

What's "Class America"? Is that what they're calling the IACC now? How is that relevant to the comments of any of the people you quoted, Vega?

Sorry but I don't understand what you mean. I have said that it was not relevant, only interesting, and as I was translating an interview, I thought there would be any members interested in what Juan and Farr think about the actual America’s cup boats, and what they think they should be like, in the future.

They call Class America to the actual boats that race the America's Cup.

And the relevant part to the quotes is the blue part. About the Class America talk (the red part) I have said:

All right, this has nothing to do with the above, but it’s very interesting:

Do you prefer to work with Class boats or Open boats?

Open boats. We are very happy, doing Open Boats (3). That’s much more exiting than Class America, an uninteresting and completely obsolete class. The boats have a monstrous ratio costs/performance.

In what direction would you like to see an evolution of the Class America?

That’s funny because that question was also made to Bruce Farr and our answer is very close: A little bit more of 600m2 of sail area, around 90/100 ft length, canting keels…and more liberty on the class rules (regarding design).

The problem is that Chris Dickson (BMW/Oracle) is very conservative. He likes heavy boats. I don’t expect big changes.

Edited: But as you can see, they are not the only ones that call them the
Class America. From the official America's cup site:

"The class of boat used for the 32nd America’s Cup is the America’s Cup Class "

http://www.americascup.com/en/acclopaedia/understanding/beginners/weapon.php

SuperPiper

12-09-2006, 05:55 AM

Here is a photo of Derek Hatfield's finished bow:

Stephen Ditmore

12-09-2006, 10:34 AM

Sorry if I got on your case, Vega. I was just back from a business trip, without enough sleep & under pressure to produce.

There's a feature of the rules governing some of the open monohull classes that I see as distorting in favor of wide beams. That's the rule limiting heeling moment induced by movable ballast based on righting moment at 10 degrees. If HM(movable) were based on RM(90) instead of RM(10) it would be a more even race between wide and narrow boats.

Vega

12-09-2006, 06:21 PM

That’s alright Stephen, but I still have the impression that you think that I am trying to prove that beamier boats are faster than narrow boats. I am not. I am only interested in the outcome and in learning.

Fact is that if you go to the thread about cruising costs and boats, you are going to see that one of my final choices for a personal cruising boat is a narrow and fast sailing boat.

What I have posted is not my opinion, but Juan’s opinion. In fact I don’t know enough to have a relevant opinion, but I know enough to have an educated look at the subject.

I hope you don’t mind if I go out a little bit of the subject of this thread, to pursue better this discussion, I mean narrow versus beamy boat in what concerns sailing speed.

In this month edition of a well-known French magazine, they have published a sail test between too fast French daysailing boats. Two interesting boats with interesting particularities: One of them is a beamy boat, the “Malango” the other a narrow boat, the Daydream, both designed by well known French NA, both with a curriculum in racing boats.

They have tested the boats on the same day, in conditions that went from 5 to 20k and they were really surprised with the test results. The boats were very close in all sailing positions and wind speed.

As the hulls were completely different, this means the boats didn’t “function” the same way, but somehow the results were the same.

The interesting part for me, will be to understand the way each of them functions to get speed. I believe that a lot of things can be extrapolated from this example to bigger boats with the same kind of hulls. I mean, typically the narrower boat has to have more ballast because it relies less in the hull stability and more in the ballast to have stability to carry its sails. Typically the Max RM is substantially bigger on the beamier boat and that means it can carry more sail, but it seems that the less drag of the narrow boat can compensate its inferior sail area and its slightly superior weight. Amazingly, these two very different boats end up having very similar performances.

Malango: LOA 8.7m; LWL 8.5m; Beam 3.45m; Draft 1.8m” D 2.8T; B 0.85T; SA 48m2
Max RM 3.256T/m

Daydream : LOA 9.5m; LWL 8.6m; Beam 2.7m; Draft 1.8m” D 2.9T; B 1.2T; SA 40m2 Max RM 2.0T/m

Speed test : wind 10k Close to wind: Malango 3.8K; Daydream 3.9K.
wind 10k wind on the back (Spy): Malango 5.3K; Daydream 5.3K.

Speed test : wind 20k Close to wind: Malango 5.7K; Daydream 5.7K.
wind 20k wind on the back (Spy): Malango 8.2K; Daydream 8.2K.
What do you think of it?

http://www.idbmarine.com/gb/malango.php

http://www.daydream300.com/e14cadrepont.htm

Note: the site only have the 300, this test was with the 310, a MKII version.

Regards

edited- data corrected

Kiteship

12-09-2006, 08:10 PM

Edited: But as you can see, they are not the only ones that call them the
Class America. From the official America's cup site:

"The class of boat used for the 32nd America’s Cup is the America’s Cup Class "

http://www.americascup.com/en/acclopaedia/understanding/beginners/weapon.php

Um, fellas? "IACC" stands for "International Americas Cup Class."

You're both right.

Dave

Stephen Ditmore

12-09-2006, 09:15 PM

If I'm reading your numbers correctly, Vega, the Daydream wins walking away in 20 knots wind. I'm a little surprised, actually.... it's greater length should help, but I'm surprised it helps by that much. Where I would expect the narrow beam to help is going to windward in waves.... but the result seems to hold downwind as well. How do you explain it?

I haven't seen anything from Graal in a while. I like what I see of the Daydream.

Dave:
Yes, IACC stands for International America's Cup Class. It may be that they're calling thamselves something else these days, because (I think I read somewhere) they had a dispute with the ISAF that resulted in their pulling out. Apparently there is a question whether they should be using "International" as part of the class name if they are not an ISAF member class.

ISAF member keelboat classes are listed at http://www.sailing.org/default.asp?ID=d,,Fhipq&MenuID=t1q/GWxs/B7wq%60QsLGLVxyzMZXL689hxMSK?m?hgYrlsqZVWYpY3DhnfU8U3z5~7.
I would assume the ORC GP classes are also recognised by the ISAF:
http://www.orc.org/index.php?id=86.
I think Transpac 52, Volvo 70, Class 40, and Mini 6.5 must be either independent or creatures of specific national authorities, and I think this is now the case with the America's Cup Class (by whatever name).

It was the construction "Class America" that threw me. I just wanted to clatify whether Vega, and those he was quoting, were talking about the America's Cup class or something else.

Vega

12-10-2006, 05:25 AM

If I'm reading your numbers correctly, Vega, the Daydream wins walking away in 20 knots wind. I'm a little surprised, actually.... it's greater length should help, but I'm surprised it helps by that much.

The data was not right, and didn't correspond with what I was saying. Sorry about that. Please take a look again.

Regards

Doug Lord

12-10-2006, 04:03 PM

Check this out -very interesting:
Sailormade Yachting from Berlin, Germany, recently launched their latest project
Address:http://www.sailinganarchy.com/innerview/2004/melvolution.htm Changed:7:37 PM on Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Vega

12-10-2006, 07:01 PM

Yes, very interesting. And the system seems to be a smart one. More information on their website:

http://www.sailormade.com/en/Yachten/Melvolution.php

Stephen Ditmore

12-11-2006, 10:34 AM

As the hulls were completely different, this means the boats didn’t “function” the same way, but somehow the results were the same.

That is interesting, Vega. Thanks for posting it. Can I assume neither boat used movable ballast in the test (aside from crew sitting on the rail)? Was the Malango in the test the keel version?

Vega

12-11-2006, 11:51 AM

No movable ballast and yes, the Malango was the keel version.

Stephen Ditmore

12-11-2006, 12:27 PM

So how far are Class 40 and GP 42 boats from competing on an even basis? Has anyone seen VPP results (polars, etc) or any other information that would give a clue? What are the factors that might make one faster than the other?

Vega

12-11-2006, 07:03 PM

It is unfair to compare a 40class boat with a 42GP. The 42GP is an all carbon boat that is bigger and yet lighter. A 42GP would cost several times the price of a 40class boat. Only the GB42 sails would cost a good fraction of the 40class boat. The 40class boat has a limited choice of sails material (inexpensive), and the hull can not be carbon.

To be comparable we would have to compare the 42GP with an Open 42, and that boat doesn't exist.

Even if we persist in the comparison, it would only make sense if we put a 42GP racing with only one crewman. The crew of nine sitting in the rail would make quite a difference.

About the 40class boats, I will probably manage to have a Polar, but the max speed of those boats has to do with their extraordinary seaworthiness in bad weather. They are faster under extreme circumstances.

One of them has reached 32,4k, with over 45K of wind and in the middle of what the skipper has described, “The biggest waves he had ever seen”.

The boat was the one that was caught by a 8m breaking wave in the "Route du Rhum" and had, as a result broken the boom (I would like to have a boat that could get with a 8m breaking wave, and resist capsizing:p ).

The boat, after being repaired, was returning from Azores. They got 80k of wind, and finally, when the wind was blowing steady at 45K, with stronger gusts, they had fun and sailed at more than 30K (GPS).

That speed in an Ocean 40ft boat that cost US $250 000, is really amazing.

The boat is one of the two François Lucas design (the ones made of wood and with chines) and the skipper was Nick Bubb.

Paul B

12-11-2006, 08:13 PM

Juan Kouyoumdjian:

In what direction would you like to see an evolution of the Class America?

That’s funny because that question was also made to Bruce Farr and our answer is very close: A little bit more of 600m2 of sail area, around 90/100 ft length, canting keels…and more liberty on the class rules (regarding design).

The problem is that Chris Dickson (BMW/Oracle) is very conservative. He likes heavy boats. I don’t expect big changes.

I wonder why people continue to use "heavy" to describe the ACC boats. In fact in racing trim (crewed) they have a lower D/L ratio than something like a Melges 24 (crewed). They are lighter for their length than most of the IRC type raceboats currently being built. They are not heavy boats.

I suspect JK's comment about Dickson is relating to the current boats. I'm sure Dickson likes boats at the "heavy" end of the current rule. All the fast boats are at the long/heavy corner of the design envelope. It is a waste of time to work the short/light corner.

RHough

12-12-2006, 02:24 AM

I suspect JK's comment about Dickson is relating to the current boats. I'm sure Dickson likes boats at the "heavy" end of the current rule. All the fast boats are at the long/heavy corner of the design envelope. It is a waste of time to work the short/light corner.

IIRC that was true of the 12' also, the long heavy corner paid, the short/light corner did not.

Didn't the IACC go from wide to skinny too?

Doug Lord

12-12-2006, 07:36 AM

After the trouble they had with VOR boats?
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Untitled Document
Address:http://www.sailinganarchy.com/fringe/2006/farr%20canting%2035.htm Changed:11:17 PM on Monday, December 11, 2006
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canting%20farr%2035%202.jpg
Address:http://www.sailinganarchy.com/fringe/2006/images/canting%20farr%2035%202.jpg Changed:10:48 PM on Monday, December 11, 2006

Vega

12-12-2006, 08:20 AM

I wonder why people continue to use "heavy" to describe the ACC boats.

If a sailing boat is not so narrow, a bigger part of the stability would come from form stability and for the same sail power the boat would need less ballast.

If the boat has a canting keel, for the same sail power, the boat would need less ballast.

I think both things would contribute to a lighter boat. Perhaps it is this is what Juan means, when he says the Class America rule gives comparatively heavy boats.

Stephen Ditmore

12-12-2006, 09:46 AM

Perhaps the better comparison, then, would be a Transpac 52 and an Open 50. In this case it is the Transpac 52 rule that requires a simpler, presumably less expensive boat, with no movable ballast and only one rudder allowed. This would be a comparison of classes that have been around for a couple years now.... so both have had a chance to dial in near optimum boats within the constraints presented.

Forgive me for asking this when I could probably find it in previous postings, but do the Class 40 boats have movable ballast? Or are they wide simply because they are allowed to carry a lot of sail relative to their length & displacement?

Also, what is the difference between Class 40 and 40 foot class 1, the rule that Doug Lord's Schmidt design was apparently designed to race under? http://www.sebschmidt.ch/portfolio/01194/

Milan

12-12-2006, 11:07 AM

...do the Class 40 boats have movable ballast?...http://www.sebschmidt.ch/portfolio/01194/

Water ballast is allowed, max 1500 liters, 750 liters on each side. Here are the rules:

http://www.class40.com/index.php?section=14

Paul B

12-12-2006, 11:54 AM

If a sailing boat is not so narrow, a bigger part of the stability would come from form stability and for the same sail power the boat would need less ballast.

If the boat has a canting keel, for the same sail power, the boat would need less ballast.

I think both things would contribute to a lighter boat. Perhaps it is this is what Juan means, when he says the Class America rule gives comparatively heavy boats.

There is ample proof showing the narrow ACC form is much faster on their W/L courses than a wider form. A wide/light/short corner boat would not be competitive. If there was less weight/length trade off in the rule and there were some reaching legs maybe things could somewhat equalize, but I suspect the long/heavy/narrow boats would still prevail.

Sure the boats could be lighter with canting keels. The canting keel maxis prove that out. But what would be the point in match racing? For me, the closer the boats stay the more fun the race. The ACC boats go upwind and downwind at a close enough speed so the gap doesn't increase too much after rounding the weather mark. This is good for match racing.
With lightweight boats the first boat to the weather mark would plane away as soon as they got their spinnaker up, making a 2 or 3 boatlength lead the the windward mark into 5 or 6 boatlengths before the following boat was around and set. So there would be less ability for the trailing boat to attack, leading to a boring race.

There is a place in sailing for wide, powerful boats with moveable ballast. I don't think match racing is the place for that.

Paul B

12-12-2006, 11:56 AM

After the trouble they had with VOR boats?

You try to get people to buy into your design ideas for foilers, after your "monofoiler" wouldn't fly?

Vega

12-12-2006, 12:41 PM

Sure the boats could be lighter with canting keels. The canting keel maxis prove that out. But what would be the point in match racing? For me, the closer the boats stay the more fun the race. The ACC boats go upwind and downwind at a close enough speed so the gap doesn't increase too much after rounding the weather mark. This is good for match racing.

There is a place in sailing for wide, powerful boats with moveable ballast. I don't think match racing is the place for that.

I was not expressing, my personal opinion, only Juan and Farr opinions, but I think that the America Class should be the F1 of the seas. Sure, they should be competitive in equal terms, but they should be the ultimate in boat speed, performance and technology, and they are not (even if they cost as such).

The thing that pisses me more is the incapacity of those big boats to race with more than 30kt of wind. I find that quite ridiculous. Older ones could cross-oceans. These ones can’t take a blow.

Stephen Ditmore

12-12-2006, 12:41 PM

Water ballast is allowed, max 1500 liters, 750 liters on each side.Thanks, Milan. That will bias parameters toward wide beam less than the 10 degree rule, but it still clearly results in a wide boat having more righting moment from water ballast than a narrow boat.

I think both things would contribute to a lighter boat. Perhaps it is this is what Juan means, when he says the Class America rule gives comparatively heavy boats.Displacement is a parameter measured by the America's Cup Class rule. A lighter boat would have to have either less sail area, less length, or both. ACC boats are upwind oriented, and the rule is intentionally biased toward heavy boats to keep the match racing close and tactical. Movable ballast is not allowed. If it were would boats get lighter? Perhaps, but if that's your intent why not just reward displacement less? Comparing any of the more downwind oriented classes with the AC boats would be comparing apples to lamb chops. But if you feel there's some development in the America's Cup Class that's transferrable, or an interesting reason one boat might be faster than another, feel free to mention it!

You appear to be correct about the relative pricing of a GP42 versus a Class 40. According to the figures at http://www.reichel-pugh.com/Grand_Prix_42_Brochure.pdf, a Chinese built GP42 is a $600,000 boat. But you've made some big performance claims for the Class 40. On any given course under any given set of conditions, with both boats comparably crewed, either one's faster than the other, or they're nearly equal. Why should their having different prices keep us from asking the question? It seems far more reasonable than comparing either with AC boats.

Paul B

12-12-2006, 01:18 PM

IIRC that was true of the 12' also, the long heavy corner paid, the short/light corner did not.

I guess someone should have told that to Blinky Ben so he wouldn't have designed the boat that finally took the cup from the US.

Didn't the IACC go from wide to skinny too?

ACC boats today are all very narrow.

Paul B

12-12-2006, 01:31 PM

I was not expressing, my personal opinion, only Juan and Farr opinions, but I think that the America Class should be the F1 of the seas. Sure, they should be competitive in equal terms, but they should be the ultimate in boat speed, performance and technology, and they are not (even if they cost as such).

F1 cars are not the ultimate in performance either. They have rules, and within the rules are things that make them slower around the track. The intent is to keep the racing interesting. So it seems maybe the ACC boats are more similar to F1 than some think.

Boats sailing in the AC during the 12 Metre era were never the ultimate in speed across all types of racing either. In fact they were terrible, outdated things for a long time.

The thing that pisses me more is the incapacity of those big boats to race with more than 30kt of wind. I find that quite ridiculous. Older ones could cross-oceans. These ones can’t take a blow.

Why would that make you angry? F1 stops races during bad conditions. The idea of match racing on a closed W/L course is close, tactical racing. If the boats were configured for 30 knots they wouldn't be very perky in 10.

You would have to go back a long way in the history of the cup to find boats that were really seaworthy. Even the J Class boats were tempermental things. The "crossing on their own bottom" requirement was really nothing but a ploy by the US to force challengers to have boats built heavier than the defenders (who did not, and could not, cross oceans).

Vega

12-12-2006, 01:45 PM

You appear to be correct about the relative pricing of a GP42 versus a Class 40, Vega. According to the figures in http://www.reichel-pugh.com/Grand_Prix_42_Brochure.pdf, a Chinese built GP42 is still a $600,000 boat. But you've made some big performance claims for the Class 40. On any given course under any given set of conditions, with both boats comparably crewed, either one's faster than the other, or they're nearly equal. Why should their having different prices keep us from asking the question? It seems far more reasonable than comparing either with AC boats.

The difference in price means that in light and medium winds the GP42 has a huge advantage. The price (and the rules) gives him the chance to be an all carbon boat, much lighter and with the best sails available (the sails of the 40class are limited).

I guess that the only set of circumstances that would provide a fair comparison is strong winds. But of course this would be a limited comparison.

About my claims on the 40class boat, they are not my claims, they are facts. If you have doubts, I can give you the sources.

About Class I, Class II and Class III and the performance of the 40class on the only big race they have done, I will quote jehardiman, in another thread:

.

This years (2006) Route de Rhum has some interesting statistics ....

Monohulls
IMOCA (60') 1 retire (dismasted) in 11 (note 1 retired for family reasons, add in if you wish, but not a boat failure)
Class 1 (50-60') no failures in 4
Class 2 (45-50') no failures in 4
Class 3 (40-45') 1 abandoned (structural failure with leak, sunk), 1 retired (dismasted), and 1 retired (?) in 6
Class 40 (40') 1 abandoned (knockdown with structural failure in keel, sunk?), 1 retired (boom broke) in 25.
Vessels lost 2 of 50: 4% (or 2 of 51 = 3.9%)

About the Class 1,2 an 3, they seem to be open boats. About the performance of the first 40class boat : It had beaten all Class I,II and III boats, with the exception of one ( arrived sooner by one day), beaten some Imoca boats and several bigger cats.

I believe that this performance has to do with the seaworthiness and great performance of the 40class boats with heavy weather. This year was the edition with heavier weather, at least for the monohulls. The Big cats were lucky and managed to pass before the storms.

Regards

Vega

12-12-2006, 01:50 PM

F1 cars are not the ultimate in performance either. They have rules, and within the rules are things that make them slower around the track. The intent is to keep the racing interesting. So it seems maybe the ACC boats are more similar to F1 than some think.

F1 are the most technologically advanced race car series.

I don’t think we can say the same of the Class America, in what regards to boats, except in costs.

Paul B

12-12-2006, 02:25 PM

F1 are the most technologically advanced race car series.

I don’t think we can say the same of the Class America, in what regards to boats, except in costs.

F1 may be the most high tech form of racing currently available. That does not make them the ultimate in speed, they could be faster. Their rules prevent that. F1 racing is really rather boring, mostly a parade throughout the grid, despite the technology. The aerodynamics of the cars prevent passing in many instances (example: you cannot follow closely enough to pass in any corners where you need aerodynamic grip).

Horses for courses. An F1 car would not win an NHRA drag race. They would not compete in Paris-Dakar. They may not survive a LeMans 24 Hours.

As much as I dislike NASCAR it is generally accepted to be a more exciting race to watch than an F1 race. Higher technology does not neccessarily make for better racing.

I don't know of any other class that currently has higher technology than the ACC boats, especially given the nature of the racing (inshore, closed course, match racing). Some other classes (V70) have characteristics like canting keels, but that isn't really higher technology. It is considerably less high tech than things not allowed in F1, like fly-by-wire.

If we want closer match racing we would keep the performance down. If we want a more boring, follow the leader match race we would increase the speed potential of the boats. Why not use ORMA 60s?

Crag Cay

12-12-2006, 04:20 PM

I think I've already made some of these comments about the IACC boats in another thread. But some are relevant again here.

The America's Cup is the 'bastard child' of two argumentative parents. One wants innovation and development and the other close match racing and sailing skill. At the moment, all the designs have converged to such a degree that it will be a real sailors' show-down this summer. But will the general public care ? And although the main antagonists are sailing virtual one-designs, there is still an enormous development cost to anyone else who wants to join in the fun. As a result, I think loads of people find it hard to identify with any of the teams.

So whoever wins this time needs to declare the next contest 'one design', and let all the challenges have a copy of their winning design. At least this way, the public's interest would be boosted by having more countries represented in the competition. In addition, all the entries would fund a joint development project that would run separate from the AC competition. This would be an open source collaborative program and when they had managed to make the new design say, two (?) percent 'better', that would then be the design used as the one design for the next defence. This would stop the 'one designs' becoming dated, but would open up the competition to radically more teams.

Then if increased participation didn't grab the general publics attention, the close match racing will have to be subverted in favour of spectacle and radical innovation. The venue and date of the event would be fixed with races on certain days, come what may. I would favour the Isles of Scilly in September, but the Caribbean in full trades, or Freemantle when the Doctor is at home, would also do. The boats would be no holds barred, 120ft monohull's, racing on courses the public understands (round the island, or point to point, etc).

As to some of the other matters, I must say I have noticed a very 'rose tinted' view, both here and in other threads, about sailing in by gone years: Visions of highly skilled sailors romping in perfect safety across the seas in wholesome and seaworthy craft. I'm not sure everything was so perfect. My Grandfather told me plenty of horror stories about getting America's Cup challengers over the Atlantic before the First World War. The rules said all boats had to arrive on their 'own bottom', which was easy if you were starting from City Island, NY. But everyone else had to 'nurse' these behemoths over the ocean closely escorted by a ship which would rotate the crews on and off as just being on these boats was so unpleasant. One challenger lost contact with its escort, and the men of Tollesbury became local heroes as they actually managed to get this 'thing' across the Atlantic to New York without disaster. Those AC boats were designed and built at the 'cutting edge' with no more (or less) regard to 'seaworthiness' than designs of today.

I think the whole 'traditional sail' nostalgia industry has rather coloured our perspective. I have no interest in returning to the ocean sailing and racing days of the sixties and seventies. In the mid sixties, I remember a good third of our fleet in a Mediterranean race were dismasted and with no engines or radios, crews were adrift for days as the RAF scoured thousands of square miles looking for survivors. When I look back, I only see no life lines, leaks, crappy bilge pumps, sails ripping, constantly cold, dripping decks, wet bedding, no electrics and more often than not, being lost (to some degree at least). Perhaps because of these 'delights', there were in fact very few boats around in comparison to today. But I would have to be convinced that the accidents per mile sailed were any less.

Paul B

12-12-2006, 05:28 PM

As to some of the other matters, I must say I have noticed a very 'rose tinted' view, both here and in other threads, about sailing in by gone years: Visions of highly skilled sailors romping in perfect safety across the seas in wholesome and seaworthy craft.

I couldn't agree more.

The truth is EVERY American boat built as a J Class was scrapped in short order. They were not built for the long haul. In fact one of them (Yankee?) was initially so light in the frames that a team with sledgehammers would be pounding away after each tack to prevent buckling in some areas.

Boat Year Built Scrapped
Enterprise '30 '35
Whirlwind '30 '35
Yankee '30 '41
Weetamoe '30 '37
Rainbow '34 '40
Ranger '37 '41

Average 6 years build to scrap, and it was actually worse than that. Ranger sailed in '37, was hauled by the end of the year, and never launched again. Only Yankee ever crossed the Atlantic.

Don't get me wrong. I like fast boats. I've loved the Centomiglia Race and the Classe Libera boats sailing there since I was a kid. My own boat is a smaller version of one of those monsters. I loved the old F40 tris. The old unlimited 18 footers were pure excitement. I think the Volvo Extreme 40s are incredible. C Class cats are very cool. The wingmasted ACup Cat was perhaps the greatest boat I've ever seen. The Volvo 70s are exciting to see in 30 knots on a broad reach. I could go on.

But none of these would be the right boat for the type of match racing we have in the AC.

Doug Lord

12-12-2006, 05:53 PM

You try to get people to buy into your design ideas for foilers, after your "monofoiler" wouldn't fly?

Wrong-it DID fly.....

Doug Lord

12-12-2006, 06:06 PM

Paul B

12-12-2006, 06:35 PM

Wrong-it DID fly.....

Sure it did. Dreams don't count. Somehow this "fact" seems to change, depending on when you post about it.

You are so embarassed by your failure you can't seem to simply answer: When, Where, Amplitude, Duration.

Paul B

12-12-2006, 06:43 PM

I agree with you 100% ,Vega. It is too bad that the AC boats no longer represent the pinnacle of technology; they should and that means movable ballast and some other technologies should be allowed giving a much wider range to design posibilities.There might actually be something to see behind a skirt then.....

OK, let's also have giant versions of C Class cats allowed as well. That would be much higher tech than any canter, far faster too.

Might not make for great match racing though.

Doug Lord

12-12-2006, 06:43 PM

Sure it did. Dreams don't count. Somehow this "fact" seems to change, depending on when you post about it.

You are so embarassed by your failure you can't seem to simply answer: When, Where, Amplitude, Duration.

"Amplitude"??? Gee, Paul B,in addition to missing what I've written about this you've even invented a new "Hydrofoil Technology " word. Since I always want to learn could you define the word as it applies to hydrofoils, please?

CT 249

12-12-2006, 06:49 PM

F1 are the most technologically advanced race car series.

I don’t think we can say the same of the Class America, in what regards to boats, except in costs.

I no longer buy "Racecar Engineering" magazine, but when I did a few years ago, the F1 cars were notable for a LACK of technology in many areas; no turbos, no driver aids, limits on ground effect, no traction control, limits on wing area. And of course the engines are tiny.

I'm not sure whether the AC boats ever represented the leading edge of technology in a wide variety of areas. Enterprise was called "the mechanical ship", but even at the time Uffa Fox was pointing out that smaller boats actually lead most developments; "the larger classes take years to adopt the more highly developed rigs of the smaller classes...the keenest and most popular small class will always be the leaders in thought, with the larger classes following in its footsteps according to size".

Uffa said the same thing about sailing techniques and he noted how the waterline of the smaller Metre boats increased to the maximum well before that trend spread to the Js where it proved to succeed once again.

As said before, many of the big cutters and the J Class could sail the Atlantic, but under different rigs. There was a great deal of criticism about the fragility of the J Class rigs in the '30s; "Weak maidenly rigs" was the term Uffa Fox used. "The weakness of their rigs is a source of great worry and concern to their owners throughout the season's racing" he noted. Uffa and Sherman Hoyt wrote about the time Ranger lost her new mast before it even had sails hoisted on it!

It was also pointed out that the earlier gaff boats of the Big Class broke many topmasts. Even back then people were saying "it was better in the old days!"

Having said that, the 12 Metres were pretty good as far as allowing a swift conversion to a cruiser or offshore racer that was some use. It does seem a pity the IACC hulls are not more suitable for some other use.

Paul B

12-12-2006, 06:51 PM

"Amplitude"??? Gee, Paul B,in addition to missing what I've written about this you've even invented a new "Hydrofoil Technology " word. Since I always want to learn could you define the word as it applies to hydrofoils, please?

Nice to see you are still too shamed to answer the simple questions.

Perhaps some study of your native language is in order if you don't understand the meaning of amplitude from the context.

Vega

12-12-2006, 07:38 PM

You are so embarassed by your failure you can't seem to simply answer: When, Where, Amplitude, Duration.

Sorry but I have to say that I find your attitude towards Doug quite disagreeable and uncompressible.

To achieve something one needs to try and it is normal to fail not one, but several times to achieve something. The only ones that never achieve anything are the ones that never fail, because they never tried.

There is no need to be desagreable:cool:

Vega

12-12-2006, 07:57 PM

As to some of the other matters, I must say I have noticed a very 'rose tinted' view, both here and in other threads, about sailing in by gone years: Visions of highly skilled sailors romping in perfect safety across the seas in wholesome and seaworthy craft. I'm not sure everything was so perfect.

I hope you are not talking about me. The only thing I want is spectacular and fast boats. Boats that can blast at more than 30k in the weather conditions that prevent the class America boats to race, and boats that in more clement conditions would be a lot faster then the actual boats. Of course I want close competition, but this event should be spectacular and speed is the essence of racing.
For many years, the fastest boats raced this event. It is not so today, and I think it should be again.

Paul B

12-12-2006, 08:02 PM

I no longer buy "Racecar Engineering" magazine, but when I did a few years ago, the F1 cars were notable for a LACK of technology in many areas; no turbos, no driver aids, limits on ground effect, no traction control, limits on wing area. And of course the engines are tiny..

RCE was a great publication. I subscribed from the beginning for about 7 years. Sadly I began to miss as many issues as I received at the same time the cost was increasing by half again, so I decided so much cost for so few actual delivered issues wasn't worth it anymore.

I'm not sure whether the AC boats ever represented the leading edge of technology in a wide variety of areas. .

There has been a good deal of tech that has been brought along into big boats by the AC, if not actually first used there. It has given the funding for some design tools that would not otherwise have been funded. For that we owe the AC.

As said before, many of the big cutters and the J Class could sail the Atlantic, but under different rigs. .

Maybe the US Js could sail the Atlantic, but they didn't, the exception being Yankee. Of course there were other "Js", mostly re-worked 23 metre designs, but they were often more fragile than the boats built as Js. I doubt many of them crossed either.

Having said that, the 12 Metres were pretty good as far as allowing a swift conversion to a cruiser or offshore racer that was some use. It does seem a pity the IACC hulls are not more suitable for some other use.

Other than American Eagle I'm not sure there were too many other modern 12s converted to cruising or offshore racing. Newsboy used to race out here, with no engine, mostly in local races. The Ensenada race was probably the most Offshore she went. I doubt any 12 since '67 has been converted.

Paul B

12-12-2006, 08:08 PM

Sorry but I have to say that I find your attitude towards Doug quite disagreeable and uncompressible.

To achieve something one needs to try and it is normal to fail not one, but several times to achieve something. The only ones that never achieve anything are the ones that never fail, because they never tried.

There is no need to be desagreable:cool:

Generally people learn more from failure than they do from success.

Doug refuses to answer the most basic questions about his failed experiment. His ego can't let him admit the failure. If he would be forthright maybe someone would learn something from his effort.

Doug Lord

12-12-2006, 08:57 PM

While AC development in the past has produced notable boats like Australia II and others I think the rule has simply gotten too close to a one design -and for the America's Cup that probably isn't going to work.
No one can deny the profound on-going effect movable ballast is having on big monohull speed. Not just big boats -as a matter of fact-little boats like the Backman 21,29 and Bethwaites 26 footer and ,of course, mini's-all benefitting from the same technology. That this technology is banned from the AC is a damn shame-it relegates the AC boats to another era.
The use of movable ballast and other technologies such as foil assist(already used on big multies) could reinvigorate the Cup. And the funding these technologies would get thru the AC could hasten the availability of the technology everywhere else-which, I'd bet, would be good for sailing.

CT 249

12-12-2006, 10:06 PM

RCE was a great publication. I subscribed from the beginning for about 7 years. Sadly I began to miss as many issues as I received at the same time the cost was increasing by half again, so I decided so much cost for so few actual delivered issues wasn't worth it anymore.

There has been a good deal of tech that has been brought along into big boats by the AC, if not actually first used there. It has given the funding for some design tools that would not otherwise have been funded. For that we owe the AC.

Maybe the US Js could sail the Atlantic, but they didn't, the exception being Yankee. Of course there were other "Js", mostly re-worked 23 metre designs, but they were often more fragile than the boats built as Js. I doubt many of them crossed either.

Other than American Eagle I'm not sure there were too many other modern 12s converted to cruising or offshore racing. Newsboy used to race out here, with no engine, mostly in local races. The Ensenada race was probably the most Offshore she went. I doubt any 12 since '67 has been converted.

Re AC tech;
Sure, there has been quite a bit of tech ('specially in sails and electronics, mebbe winches) developed from the AC, but looking at the totality of sailing tech (from planing hulls to assymetric spinnakers and squaretop sails and bulb keels and spinnakers and carbon construction etc etc etc, I'm not sure that it has been the MAIN driving force as has sometimes been said.

Re J Class/23m; 23s were built to Lloyds like the Js. Nyria was built to Lloyds as early as 1906 and Shamrock IV was the last non-Lloyds Big Class boat. Cambria and Candida were turned into cruisers and one or both survive.

Re 12 Metres offshore;

There's been a fair few that have sailed offshore. Off the top of my head.......

Endless Summer (Dame Pattie) was converted and raced on the Great Lakes under cat 2, I'm99% sure. Gretel 1 was converted to Cat 1 1974 or 75 and did several Hobarts and many other races (2nd in '80 Hobart). Nefertiti was converted and cruised and raced around the world, including getting 5th in that 1980 Hobart. Evaine (I think) cruised across the Atlantic and around the Med in the '70s. Sceptre raced Cat 2 or 3 around Scotland through the '80s/90s. Chancegger (French trialhorse '70s) cruised through Australia some time ago. I think France II was converted. Richard Matthews (Oyster Yachts) converted an '80s 12 for UK offshore racing and did the Fastnet, I think. Sverige ('77) was converted to Cat 2.

Re "
For many years, the fastest boats raced this event. It is not so today".

Equally, there were years when the AC was NOT raced in the boats that were significantly quicker, or even in boats that were significantly slower. America herself was slower than Maria in pre-AC testing. During the cutter era (before J Class) the AC boats were not significantly faster than the Big Class (witness the Brittania/Valkyrie/Satanita duels before Valkyrie went to the AC) and the big schooners were often quicker (check Westward's performance in some conditions in later years when the death of the schooner class put her against the Big Class). As late as the J era, there wasn't a huge difference between the AC challengers and the rest of the Big Class (I have a copy of the ratings of the day).

Through most of the 12 Metre era, of course, the AC boats were smaller and slower than a maxi or even a boat like Sirius, the M Class. Even by the '70s, a boat like Kialoa III was quicker than a 12 Metre. Gretel II used to join in some maxi races in the '70s and '80s in full 12 Metre racing trim and got beaten easily, even on harbour courses.

Paul B

12-12-2006, 11:19 PM

Re AC tech;
Sure, there has been quite a bit of tech ('specially in sails and electronics, mebbe winches) developed from the AC..I'm not sure that it has been the MAIN driving force as has sometimes been said..

I'm not one who normally states specific tech comes from a specific person/place. It is really all a continuum. I do think that having the budgets the AC teams have has helped move a lot of things forward in the realm of big boats. Design tools for sail development, hull VPPs, CFD, structural design tools, deck hardware, sail material and construction techniques, etc. The same people would have arrived there eventually, but I am sure the AC funding has helped a lot.

Re J Class/23m; 23s were built to Lloyds like the Js. Nyria was built to Lloyds as early as 1906 and Shamrock IV was the last non-Lloyds Big Class boat. Cambria and Candida were turned into cruisers and one or both survive..

That is probable, but the boats converted to Js were generally below the scantlings required for AC status.

Re 12 Metres offshore;

There's been a fair few that have sailed offshore. Off the top of my head.......

Endless Summer (Dame Pattie) was converted and raced on the Great Lakes under cat 2, I'm99% sure. Gretel 1 was converted to Cat 1 1974 or 75 and did several Hobarts and many other races (2nd in '80 Hobart). Nefertiti was converted and cruised and raced around the world, including getting 5th in that 1980 Hobart. Evaine (I think) cruised across the Atlantic and around the Med in the '70s. Sceptre raced Cat 2 or 3 around Scotland through the '80s/90s. Chancegger (French trialhorse '70s) cruised through Australia some time ago. I think France II was converted. Richard Matthews (Oyster Yachts) converted an '80s 12 for UK offshore racing and did the Fastnet, I think. Sverige ('77) was converted to Cat 2..

Only a couple of the boats mentioned are from after '67. I should have said very few instead of not any.

Re "
For many years, the fastest boats raced this event. It is not so today".

Equally, there were years when the AC was NOT raced in the boats that were significantly quicker, or even in boats that were significantly slower.
Through most of the 12 Metre era, of course, the AC boats were smaller and slower than a maxi or even a boat like Sirius, the M Class. Even by the '70s, a boat like Kialoa III was quicker than a 12 Metre. Gretel II used to join in some maxi races in the '70s and '80s in full 12 Metre racing trim and got beaten easily, even on harbour courses.

By 1968 Windward Passage was available to easily beat any 12 on any course. Even in 1962 Ragtime (then Infidel) was probably more than a match in some conditions, and pretty much all the time off the wind.

At least since 1958 the AC has not been about the fastest, most high tech boats. It is about match racing. This brings the skill of the design team within the confines of the rule, coupled with the tactical ability and sailing skill of the crew.

No J Boat or 12 metre race would have been started in 30 knots of wind. Why would we expect the ACC rule boats to do this? Good, tactical racing is not what's happening in 30 knots of breeze. That is nearly 40 knots of apparent wind upwind in these boats. I have sailed upwind in that much breeze in a race only a few times and it is not fun or tactical.

If all out speed is the goal there are many other venues. The goal for the ACC design brief should be to provide great tactical racing boats. It someone wants to change it to an outright "high tech speed contest" then you need to invite multis, who will clean the clock of any canter.

RHough

12-13-2006, 12:44 AM

If all out speed is the goal there are many other venues. The goal for the ACC design brief should be to provide great tactical racing boats. It someone wants to change it to an outright "high tech speed contest" then you need to invite multis, who will clean the clock of any canter.

You are 100% correct.

The boats are fast enough to make it difficult or impossible for spectator boats to see every rounding. To a non sailor, that is pretty fast.

Only people that have never match raced or don't understand the concept want to see fast boats in the AC. The general public would not view a tacking duel between two canters in a cloud of diesel fumes as sailing at all ...

"Martha, I didn't think that they were allowed to use engines in a sailboat race."
"By golly Cletus, you're right. Those boys must be cheating."

For those that think that the AC has no appeal ... try to book a room in Valencia between June 23 and June 30 2007. Bring 300 Euro a night ... if you can find one.

I'm staying at the Las Arenas Balneario if you want to stop by for a drink.

RHough

12-13-2006, 02:26 AM

Wrong-it DID fly.....

And this isn't a trimaran ... :D

Doug Lord

12-13-2006, 07:12 AM

Trimaran? With a canting keel? No, it's Sean Langmans Maxi Skiff canting keelboat with buoyancy pods that aren't sailed "on" like a trimaran's ama. From an innovator who thinks foils on a large mono are worth looking into....
Sailing Anarchy InnerViews Sean Langman 2005
Address:http://www.sailinganarchy.com/innerview/2005/langman.htm Changed:10:02 PM on Sunday, October 23, 2005

CT 249

12-13-2006, 07:41 AM

Stephen Ditmore

12-13-2006, 09:26 AM

I agree, CT. What's good about Vega's enthusiasm for Class40 is that he's taking financial reality into account, yet emerging with something worth being excited about. And while I could quibble with Doug Lord over things, and have, he does eventually come 'round to trying to make them work, and I respect him for that.

Back to Class 40: I took the time to read through the rules last night (without the benefit of having the ISO standards, etc handy for reference). While BMAX should probably be high to get the water ballast outboard, it seems to me there's room for someone to try a narrower waterline boat. The Class40 rule appears to have things in common with those governing the Classic Moth class (I have a Classic Moth of my design under construction).

Why is this interesting? It doesn't make sense economically to build a bunch of models and buy time at a test tank as part of designing a relatively inexpensive boat such as a Class40. But it might make sense to build an 11 foot Classic Moth and race it against others who are doing likewise to refine one's ideas before building a 40 footer. Or it might make sense to try running numbers on (40 foot) hull shapes derived from (11 foot) boats currently winning in Classic Moth racing.

Do others see competing in Classic Moths as good preparation for designing a Class40?

Let's save the America's up chatter for another thread. This is the place to discuss the development classes where real, cost effective progress is taking place (Moth thru Volvo 70, and perhaps even MaxZ86 and IRC 30 meter maxi, definitely including the open classes, Class 40 and other offshoots, Transpac 52, ORC GP classes). But America's Cup? That's a separate discussion.

DGreenwood

12-13-2006, 10:50 AM

I could not see how a Moth would be all that effective in developing a Class 40.But I may be missing something.

As to tank testing and narrower hulls.
Merf Owen and Allen Clarke have devoloped a hull form that is considerably narrower than the other class 40s out there. I asked about this. Merfs response was that the sail area limitations (rules) do not warrant a broader hull.Although the 40s are still very powerfull boats they do not have the power to push that much surface area based on averaged wind speeds encountered over what they deemed a typical race course.
His statement was that to prove/disprove and improve his ideas on this, would require tank testing. He gave an approximate price but I will only say it was not cheap.

Stephen Ditmore

12-13-2006, 11:34 AM

Thanks for the response, D. Since you're in my area, I'd be interested to know what you're up to / in to. Mini 6.5? Do you know Rich du Moulin? Ted Fontaine?

I could not see how a Moth would be all that effective in developing a Class 40.The latest in Classic Moths has a wider transom (like that of a Europe) integrated with a V section hull like http://perso.orange.fr/louis.pillon/moth/images/duflos.html. The resulting boat is pretty low drag at both displacement and semi-displacement speeds. A wider, flat bottom boat would beat it at true planing speeds, but a 40 footer is not at true planing speed until it's at 18-19 knots.

V shaped sections might be too extreme a departure from what current Class40s are doing, but a compromise might be narrower on the waterline with lots of topside flare.

I'll bet it wouldn't be that expensive to take Owen/Clarke's first crack hull shape, build it as a Classic Moth, and take it to a few regattas. The Displ/L ratios (accounting for crew weight/water ballast) are very similar (about 85). What would you learn? Hard to say in advance of actually doing it, but I think some of the questions that a model could answer could also be answered using the Moth, and you'd have the added benefit of racing it against other development class boats and checking out other people's ideas!

CT 249

12-13-2006, 05:19 PM

Yeah, Sean's cool.

1) He does it, he doesn't just talk about it. He doesn't worry about not having enough cash by conventional standards, he makes do with a low budget and things cobbled together, and still kicks arse.

2) He's proven that he can sail in boats from Flying Fifteens to 18 Foot Skiffs to Stars, so he can walk the walk not just talk the talk; you have to respect someone who has cold hard results on the board.

3) He is as keen on spreading the love and promotion about old boats like small gaff rigged cruiser/racers as about fast boats, so he's not one eyed. He doesn't pretend the newest and fastest is anything amazingly better than the "normal" stuff, he thinks it's fun but nothing to lose perspective about.

I really wish more people would follow his line.

Yep, the low-budget O40 and Vega's interest in them is great. But I just think Sean's way of doing things is refreshingly different, compared to what happens most of the time these days. It reminds me of what (to me) were the great days of offshore design in the '70s, when you'd get people building a cheap cruiser/racer at home and then having a huge impact with it (Tituscanby). Or building a cheap quarter tonner with a Soling rig and doing well at the worlds in it, and then cutting it in half, sticking three feet into the middle of the hull, an extension to the mast and extra panels in the sail, and doing well at the half ton worlds a year later (Tuscany B). Or a teenager building a Farr-style 36 footer in concrete (because his dad was a concrete boat builder) and winning the Singlehanded Trans-Tasman in it.

It's a bit like the way people used to build their own Moths here, whereas nowadays they just tend to order the latest carbon boat. An entire scene, a very interesting and productive hotbed of ideas, has been lost. Those pushing for the latest supposed advance have too often failed to look at the consequences, because they are so concerned with getting an extra burst of speed that they ignore the other things that matter in the sport.

Doug Lord

12-13-2006, 06:27 PM

Another canting keel sportboat-imp: uses a wing a la Dovell and Procyon rather than a forward foil/daggerboard(s):
Sports 8 canting keel sail sports boat from down under
Address:http://sports8.com.au/specifications.html Changed:11:58 PM on Wednesday, September 6, 2006

Paul B

12-13-2006, 06:51 PM

It reminds me of what (to me) were the great days of offshore design in the '70s, when you'd get people building a cheap cruiser/racer at home and then having a huge impact with it (Tituscanby).

It is a real shame that the entry way for young design talent has been lost. In those old days you reference there was the small IOR arena, Quarter and Mini Tonners, where a young designer could cheaply show his stuff. Holland started with his own Quarter, Farr's was designed for a friend and Farr raced with them, Schumacher did his own Quarter, Nelson's first was a Quarter, Peterson managed to scrape together finds and did a One Tonner himself, etc.

Most of those guys would not have made it today. Some wouldn't have fit well in a "corporate" office while they learned the trade and made contacts.

Outside of IOR we had MORC, a nice rule for boats under 30 feet. Lots of home designs and home builds did very well under that rule in the 1970s and early 80s. The mid 80s brought an arms race with custom carbon builds and kevlar sails and the class died.

Now we have most owners who would have been playing in the rating rule boats sailing in their Farr 40s or J105s or Melges 24s. The OD sailing is good, but it doesn't give any opportunity for someone with a new design idea to give it a go.

I would love to see a worldwide class grow where a young guy could draw something up and slap it together with wood and epoxy, then go and test his idea against the best in the world. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Vega

12-13-2006, 06:55 PM

« Or building a cheap quarter tonner with a Soling rig and doing well at the worlds in it, and then cutting it in half, sticking three feet into the middle of the hull, an extension to the mast and extra panels in the sail, and doing well at the half ton worlds a year later (Tuscany B). Or a teenager building a Farr-style 36 footer in concrete (because his dad was a concrete boat builder) and winning the Singlehanded Trans-Tasman in it.

... because they are maddened by the desire for an extra burst of speed and lack the imagination to look at the other things that matter in the sport.

Because they wanted to win, like everybody and they can no longer win with a garage boat. Good old days are gone, the days you could win with a home made machine and not only in the sailing world.

In the 80's I was doing desert racing (motorsports) and I have seen those good old days passing away, the day I was overtaken by Vataneen and his Peugeot Dackar machine at the middle of a 500km race. I was racing a motorcycle and I was a middle of the pack runner (started to run at 35) but normally I was as fast as the fastest car. That day Vatanenn waited more than an hour to see the second car arriving.
From that day on, for winning, a garage car was not enough; you would have to have a true factory racing car and big, big money, and of course, be a good driver.

Doug Lord

12-13-2006, 09:00 PM

But I just think Sean's way of doing things is refreshingly different, compared to what happens most of the time these days.
Those pushing for the latest supposed advance have too often failed to look at the consequences, because they are maddened by the desire for an extra burst of speed and lack the imagination to look at other things that matter in the sport.

"....compared to what happens most of the time today"?? "Maddened by the desire for an extra burst of speed"
CT, can you be more specific as to who these unimaginative,crazy speed freaks are?

CT 249

12-14-2006, 01:02 AM

Look at Paul B's example. MORC racing was strong until the arms race of the mid '80s killed the class. Surely the people behind the arms race could have gone "hey, wait a minute.....if we push this too far, we'll kill the class. Let's stop and think about this".

Look at Vega's example, from another sport. In the pursuit of speed without a care for where it would lead, you got to the stage where you need "a true factory racing car and big, big money".

Look at windsurfing - typical 1985 board's average top speed (under a champion sailor) maybe 27 knots, and they sold 1 million boards.

Typical 2006 board's average top speed (under a champion sailor) maybe 37 knots, and they sell 80,000 boards. Why? Because so many other values were thrown away in pursuit of top-end speed. The industry didn't look around and realise that not everyone is a hotshot sailor with plenty of time and expertise. It just didn't enter the consciousness of most in the industry. They said "hey it works for me and my mates, so it will be good". They didn't think "ahhhh, but will it work for Joe and Joanna Average as well" and put themselves in J and J Average's place. So J & J stopped windsurfing. And them, instead of having the imagination to think "gee, maybe we went too far", the industry blamed the weather, or the world, or the kids of today, or computers - because to actually wonder whether they had gone the right way would have been too great a leap. Luckily that is finally changing.

The ORMA 60s may possibly be a similar example. When guys like Nigel Irens says things have gone too far, when reliability founders and costs increase and yet the class doesn't change direction, what could be more surprising than the 60 footer circuit drying up? There are other current classes with the same problem, where top designers and sailors tried to warn about the perils of development but were ignored.

You could say that people like the movers and shakers of the UK dinghy scene have a lot more imagination. They tried the skiff-type boats in the '90s, following the mantra that faster=better and more popular. Almost all of the first wave of UK skiff type classes (with the exception of one of the slower and more conservative ones) has fallen or is sick. So the Brits had the imagination and versatility to say "hmmmmm, looks like we got it wrong. Maybe we should think again. Maybe things apart from speed are more important" and they have gone on to make some very popular, important, significant boats that are actually getting lots and lots of people on the water.

If you think the post I wrote (as I amended it very quickly) is over the top, it's certainly nothing worse than those fighting for "progress" (which can sometimes mean going faster but almost destroying a class) call those who ask them to stop and consider the side effects. Look

Crag Cay

12-14-2006, 04:52 AM

PI Design

12-14-2006, 05:19 AM

I'm totally with Chris on this. Whilst we all like to sail our boat as fast as possible, we don't necessarily want to sail the fastest boat. There are two factors that conspire against designs that feature pleasantness as well as speed. The first is that development classes only reward speed - its all about being first over the line. The other other factor is that most developments are carried out by experts, who sail all the time and constantly improve their skills. For them, ease of use is not an issue, because they have the time and ability to develop any new skills required. On an individual basis, they are becoming better and better sailors every day. The standard of the average sailor, however, remains constant (give or take improved teaching techniques and facilities). The difference in ability between the top and the average is therefore ever increasing, putting new developments beyond the reach of Mr and Mrs Average. 18' Skiffs and Moths are two classic examples. Sure, they are showcase classes and lead the way in many developments, but there numbers have dwindled. The 18's got so bad, they had to call an end to the arms war, whilst the Moths are now unique enough to have a dedicated niche following. Although they receive a lot of media attention, they are not practicle for most people to own. The time needed to learn new skills and the hassle of launch/recovery, put the vast, vast majority of sailors off. Speed is not the be-all and end-all of desirable charecteristics in a boat. If it were, we'd all be sailing cats. Where Phil Morrison, in particular, has been clever, is designing boats that are still pretty quick, but a lot more manageable and easy to own than some other designs.

Stephen Ditmore

12-14-2006, 09:21 AM

The difference in ability between the top and the average is therefore ever increasing, putting new developments beyond the reach of Mr and Mrs Average. 18' Skiffs and Moths are two classic examples. Sure, they are showcase classes and lead the way in many developments, but there numbers have dwindled. The 18's got so bad, they had to call an end to the arms war, whilst the Moths are now unique enough to have a dedicated niche following. Although they receive a lot of media attention, they are not practical for most people to own.

Actually, for people who really want a custom raceboat (not a one design) development class dinghies are practical. Campaigning one is generally far cheaper than campaigning at the top end on an Olympic one-design class, and they are cheaper and more portable than keelboats for those who wish to transport their boats to various venues.

I understand that in England, the Classic Moth class is now basically a one-design (the Europe dinghy is another one-design that spun off from the Classic Moth class). But on the U.S. East Coast (and in one location in France) Classic Moths remain an active development class where most people build their own boats which combine innovation with practicality and ease of construction. This allows them to identify and adapt improvements quickly. It's evolution accelerated. For more on Classic Moths see post #29 in this thread. For more on the Classic/Modern Moth distinction here in the U.S. see www.mothboat.com.

One can sit at a computer refining CFD codes & VPP programs to do their development, or one can build a small boat and go sailing, competing against others who are doing the same. Which is more "practical"?

Crag Cay

12-14-2006, 09:45 AM

One can sit at a computer refining CFD codes & VPP programs to do their development, or one can build a small boat and go sailing
Have you looked outside the window here today? I'm afraid the computer is far more alluring! But I agree with your sentiments in principal.

PI Design

12-14-2006, 09:45 AM

In the UK there are 3 Moth derivatives - the Europe (not really considered a Moth, but is one), the British Moth (a 1930's? style boat, only really sailed on tiny rivers) and the International Moth (which is the one that got narrower and narrower and is now on foils). The Int Moth used to be very poular in the UK, but the move to very narrow hulls and finally foils has seen numbers drop significantly. Don't get me wrong, they look great but they are not practical for most folk. Attendance at National championships was far higher in the 1970's when the boats, whilst still a leading edge develoment class, maintained some sense of reality. I really think we have missed a trick by making the class too advanced. I'd still keep the current Int Moth, but the void it left behind as it progressed needs to be filled. I think that is what the US Classic Moth has done and it would be good to have them over here, they seem to be in the spirit of how the Int Moth used to be.
I totally agree with you about trial and error being better than computers for dinghy design.

Paul B

12-14-2006, 06:17 PM

But these things are cyclic. When something moves on up and out of sight, there will be something (eventually) started to fill the gap. Loads of young people at the moment are building Open 6.5's (see Dix website for examples) and even the Quarter Ton class is back with new boats in build again.

The down cycle has been about 20 years here in the US, with no upturn in sight. There is no rule under consideration that I know of that will give the same opportunities that IOR and MORC did.

IMS in the USA sure didn't, there was no IMS racing for boats under about 40 feet, and no real significant IMS turnout at all. IRC is not really a rule in the same sense, and not catching on in the US anywhere except where it is mandated, mostly for good reason.

Minis are not good for the type of racing most people do and will never be big in the USA. The cost of a competitive mini pretty much precludes the cheap entry level home design and build.

The Open 40 would be at least $200K US for a frontrunner custom build, so not really an entry level project.

I know some old Quarters are being revived, especially in Britian and some in Europe. It was attempted in San Francisco about ten years ago, about a dozen old quarter pounders were refurbished and raced, but people lost interest. I can't believe anyone is building new, just refurbishing old, right? If new ones are in build can you tell us about them?

I know of a yard where an old Peterson pin tail QT and an old production Holland daggerboarder are sitting on trailers. They could prbably be had for next to nothing, but the cost of bringing them back to race form would be many times more than they would ever be worth. I once thought about buying and refurbishing an old Peterson fractional daggerboard QT. I came to my senses in time. It would have cost more than the original build by at least double to put it in shape. At the same time a friend had an old Whiting QT, Magic Bus type, and it never raced once since it was an ongoing refurb project for more than 10 years.

Doug Lord

12-14-2006, 07:11 PM

Geez, in 2006 under a thread on "Notable open and development class racers" some posters can't help but focus on THE WAY IT WAS-very few contributions about new designs,new technology(like hydrofoils), square top rigs,etc..
One guy bemoans those pioneering designers that are pushing the envelope of sailboat design as "maddened" by speed. Others agree that there is no hope for individual pioneering effort anymore( absolutely untrue). What gives?
The revolution in monohull design pioneered by the Moth foiler developers and by David Lugg's I14(the first 2 person bi-foil monofoiler), ,Thomas Jundt with the Aussie 18 on foils( the first three person bi-foil monofoiler), Simon Maguire's M4 -a candidate for a Peoples Foiler- is growing into other areas like the project by the Out 95 guys to develop a 100' bi-foil monofoiler, the work being done by the CBTF guys in using a foil to generate righting moment on a monohull and more. Like the top west coast "speed freak" (and all round great guy) who told me that foils on monohulls were "inevitable". And the top sportboat racer from Australia who recently contacted me about his idea for a foiling sportboat(also inevitable).
I think that these pioneers and evangelists of speed are great for the sport! And the use of this technology and even less "radical" versions of it such as foil assist will change the way monohulls are designed for the better. It's already being pioneered in large multihulls like Ormas and the use of foils in some beachcats is improving pitch stability- like it already has in small boats like the pre-foiler Moth and the I14.
There is exciting stuff being done in lifting foil development and application particularly the full flying monofoilers--steadily increasing in length ; the technology is bound to find a place in sportboats and larger. In fact, the technology already exists to build selfrighting sportboat monofoilers.....
So I'd think it would be appropriate, in a thread like this, to discuss this kind of technology(and other cutting edge technology) and how it will affect the design of monohull sailboats in development and open classes. And to celebrate the pioneering "speed freaks" who have for a long time and continue now to contribute so much to sailing. And no, it's not just speed....

Paul B

12-14-2006, 08:45 PM

Geez, in 2006 under a thread on "Notable open and development class racers" some posters can't help but focus on THE WAY IT WAS-very few contributions about new designs,new technology(like hydrofoils), square top rigs,etc..
One guy bemoans those pioneering designers that are pushing the envelope of sailboat design as "maddened" by speed. Others agree that there is no hope for individual pioneering effort anymore( absolutely untrue). What gives?

So tell us where young talent might find a way to prove thier worth against the best in the business today, at an entry level price point.

David Lugg's I14(the first 2 person bi-foil monofoiler)....

Does this boat sail today? Who does this boat race against? If I had a foiling I14, what would I do with it? Reach back and forth in Long Beach Harbour by myself?

Thomas Jundt with the Aussie 18 on foils( the first three person bi-foil monofoiler),....

IF this boat proves to be significantly faster than the existing Euro fleet what will happen? Either the rules will be amended to keep him out, or there will be less boats on the line.

Simon Maguire's M4 -a candidate for a Peoples Foiler-....

No news about this project for ages. It doesn't seem to be going toward production at all, let alone becoming a "Peoples" anything.

the Out 95 guys to develop a 100' bi-foil monofoiler,....

There is no chance you'll see any 100 foot version of that boat on foils. This was probably just something said in passing, yet you take it to mean there is significant research and a real possibility. There is probably little chance you'll ever see a 100 foot version at all. I doubt we'll see a second boat of the 32 foot version.

You also keep posting about a couple of other 100 foot sketches that will not see the light of day. A couple of years down the road from their first showing we see and hear nothing about them, yet you continue to talk about them like they are real.

the work being done by the CBTF guys in using a foil to generate righting moment on a monohull and more.....

What work are the CBTF guys doing, other than trying to collect checks? How many CBTF boats were in build this year? How many are on the build schedules for next year?

How many Backman 21s have been built? How's the 30 foot backman coming along? How fast was the Melges 24 mod with a canter versus the M24 fleet? How much faster is the canting Sport 8 versus Vivace without the canter?

Like the top west coast "speed freak" (and all round great guy) who told me that foils on monohulls were "inevitable". And the top sportboat racer from Australia who recently contacted me about his idea for a foiling sportboat(also inevitable).....

Name names. Who is the West Coast guy, and what does inevitable mean? Is it like Flying Cars inevitable?

Who is the sportboat sailor and what is his build schedule?

In fact, the technology already exists to build selfrighting sportboat monofoilers.........

What would you do with it? I know of no class that would allow such a boat to participate in a race, inshore or offshore.

Stephen Ditmore

12-14-2006, 10:57 PM

It's true that one design remains king in the U.S. But, in addition to Classic Moths, there's been recent activity in I-14s, International Canoes, and A-Class Catamarans. And if people want to build their own fast keelboats they can generally find places to race them: PHRF, IRC, or Portsmouth. The upcoming thirtieth anniversary of the singlehanded Transpac is noted at http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14598. There's the Bermuda 1-2. There are two divisions of Mini 6.5s, depending on whether you want to spend $40,000 or $100,000. Or one can build a GP28 and be the first on the block to have one!

There's a small effort going to continue the Mount Gay 30 movement in a new form: Level Design 30. See http://sailingsource.com/w30/.

One-design sport boats have drawn far more participants than development classes here in the U.S. The business model depends on their being popular, after all. But development classes exist, as does handicap racing, if you look for it.

I encourage you (Paul) and Doug to propose a new class, complete with rules. Here's an example: http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14598. Are you on board with Rob, or would you propose something else? Should C&C build a production Level Design 30 or Class40?

Sometimes proposing a solution is easier than proposing the right problem. But as you point out, Paul, without the latter, the former occurs in a vacuum.

CT 249

12-15-2006, 02:07 AM

Stephen, you're right (like PI Design and Paul B are right, IMHO), there are still some places to sail development class boats. But wouldn't you also agree that it's harder to make a real splash in the current scene? The older classes gave new designers a place to show their skills against the established top designers, in a way that Portsmouth or PHRF or open sportsboat racing arguably doesn't. If you went out and won the Half Tons or One Tons, you did it against the giants of the time, from all around the world, in roughly the same type of boats that almost all offshore sailors sailed.

If you go out and design an outstanding 25 or 30 footer today, what comparable boats from the top designers will you be racing against? You can't show that you are better than Farr or Finot, because you don't get a chance to take them on, head to head in similar boats that raced level and could be raced competitively at most places, in the same way that they got to take on the top designers when they were young. If you win the Minis or Sportsboats, it doesn't necessarily show that you can design a PHRF or IRC winner.

Someone like Steve Thompson has been very succesful in Sportsboats, but he hasn't cracked the wider market in anything like the manner Farr, Faroux, R/P or other designers of an earlier age did. It's no wonder; a T7 may be faster than a Melges 24, but everyone knows that R/P and Thompson are designing for different markets. The mere fact that a T7 can beat a Melges doesn't prove that Thommo is a better designer than R/P, so he can't get the same sort of instant reputation that an earlier generation of designers got from their victories. I thought Sportsboats were really cool when they arrived here in Oz. I did some of the first articles on them. Then I realised that many of the "advances" in design consisted of taking the same shape and spending more money on construction so you could have a lighter boat with more rig and more lead, and more expense. In the end it seems a bit barren, and I think the market has largely agreed. Without class rules, you're not proving anything. Even such a deeply wonderful boat as the Stealth 8 hasn't got a market, and it can beat the flat-out Bethwaite 780 AND has accomodation.

You could also say that the Opens, Level Design 30s etc are pretty specialised. Why would a guy from Newport RI or Newport Beach or Newport Australia or Niewpoort Belgium get a Mini, LD30 or Open 40? Okay, two of them may find a Transat is within their reach, but when the racing is largely about Transat racing the boats end up in a form that's not ideal for other racing. The LD 30 would probably suffer from the same problem as the Whitbread 30, Whitbread 25, ILC 30., ILC 40, ILC 25, IRM Half Ton, IRM 36, TP 42, MORC 22, JOG 6.7, Level 30, Super 30, 780 TY, Level 8000 etc etc etc suffered - you can't get critical mass to achieve decent class racing in a boat that isn't well suited to local racing*.

The list above isn't complete. The idea of a fast little flat-out racer has been tried time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time again, and it has never caught on apart from one or two exceptions limited in time or place. So with respect, why would we bother trying another one, unless there is a fundamental rethink?

I find it bizarre that in the past, those of us raising queries about such boats have been accused of being conservative, but surely the real conservatism lies in failing to realise when yet another updated attempt at the same sort of concept won't work? Jeezers, the British and French generals of WW1 were more awake to new ideas than the guys who propose yet another class of small yacht that can't race competitively in general fleets, or another boat that will just go faster**.

The solution could be simple; 1 - recognise that the massive list of failed classes is proof that the idea of creating a small GP racer class from scratch is doomed. Recognise also that just going faster is not enough to attract sailors.

2- try to work out why 1 happens, instead of just repeating the same mistake. In the past this step seems to have been limited to saying "the boats were too slow" - but the fastest classes have had no more success.

3 - create new class that actually learns from old lessons, rather than following the failed old "faster= popularity" mantra.

I think you could design the right class***, but arguably it's not possible while people cling to the idea that going fast, even on leadmines which are always slow per foot and dollar, is the key. Interestingly, there is one fairly conservative (in dimensions) Development class with a lid, and it's got about 450 boats currently racing - the Micro. Why it doesn't get more publicity is beyond me (the language barrier) but the fact that its top designers are little known proves that even an enormously popular class may not be a springboard for young designers, if that class is out of the general racing stream.

Doug, the reason we were looking at what has happened in the past is to find lessons for the future. But there is a lesson that was taught repeatedly in the 19th century, through the 20th century, into the 21st, that people still refuse to learn. This lesson is that going faster and making boats expensive, hard to sail and obsolete overnight does NOT help a class. Any discussion on "new" ideas like squaretop mains and foils (a mere 50 or 60 years old) should surely accept that, because only if that is taken into account can the development classes become strong again.

We are NOT against development - we are trying to highlight the problems so that they can be cured. There were over 200 Moths in NSW when I was a kid, now there are about 30. The downturn is not due to a wider problem - Lasers get over 120 boats to the MASTERS states alone. If the lesson that speed does not equal popularity had been learned earlier, we could have reworked the Moth class with stronger separate divisions for Scows, and something like the Classics as well. We'd probably have MORE Moth foilers these days because kids could have got into the Moth class more easily. But when boats like skiffs and narrow skiffs came along, anyone who had the imagination to work out what could happen and say "hey, this could be a problem" was ignored, if I recall rightly.

I was one of those who said "oh, these skiffs are hard to sail but people should just train harder". I didn't have the imagination to put myself in the position of someone who did'nt have enough time to train harder. I failed the class by not agitating for a Scow class back then.

This isn't about me, but some insist on saying that anyone who has reservations about heedless development is a conservative. To those who insist on playing the man, I may say that I've already had one class I created designated as a National class this year, although it's early days yet****. But it's interesting that for all the BS that people are unwilling to accept change, bringing the new class out proved that they are in fact very willing to apply new thinking - as long as that new thinking respects the idea that you don't make something that is expensive and hard to use, and that makes sailing look less accessible. Nor am I against speed - I raced what are probably the fastest things around a course a fortnight ago (did okay, considering it was my second attempt since the World Championships in that class many years ago). That class (slalom windsurfers) died for many years - classic proof that speed does not mean popularity, and it can in fact mean death.

And yes, Doug, I altered my post very quickly. I did so because I thought I was over the top. I said nothing as harsh as those pushing for change have not said many times, but I retracted what I said.

* unless you want to have a pro world-girdling programme like TP52s.

** yep, you can design a class like Class 40 or Mini, which are cool. But it's not very practical for a kid in Auckland to get to a limited-entry event on the other side of the world to prove his skill. Why not a class that would kick butt (for the buck) in Newport Harbour or Auckland?

*** Think moderately small rig (lower costs) like most succesful development dinghies, rules designed to allow boats with a light cruising interior like the cruising version of the Open 40 to be competitive, the ability for lift or fixed keels to compete, low costs, and the ability to be a good all-round performer under the rules used at most clubs. Just an idea......

**** And no, I'm NOT saying it shows any amazing thinking - I thought of it and spec'd it but didn't design it, it may not really catch on, while novel in that area of the sport it was pretty much a development of another class in another area of the sport, etc.

Stephen Ditmore

12-15-2006, 12:18 PM

If you went out and won the Half Tons or One Tons, you did it against the giants of the time, from all around the world, in roughly the same type of boats that almost all offshore sailors sailed.

There's truth to that, CT. Part of the problem is that reporting on the designers has declined in English language magazine coverage. Mini 6.5 designs by Magnen? Who's Magnen? There are designers winning out there, but are they getting enough follow-up coverage?

That was one motivation for starting this thread. You'll notice I started right off pointing out where a young U.S. designer who recently opened his own firm (Tim Kernan, formerly with Morrelli/Melvin) is doing some interesting & competitive boats.

But there are designers who have come to prominance in the last decade. Botin+Carkeek, Mark Mills, etc. Many, but not all, are European. New Zealander Greg Elliott designed the maxi Maximus, which has brought him attention. Bakewell-White has been noticed. I like Steve Thompson's work, too, but it would be wrong to claim that lesser known New Zealand designers haven't had any breaks. Too bad the America's Cup home team relies on outside designers like Clay Oliver and Botin instead of mining the local talent pool.

There is the example of I-14 designer Paul Bieker coming to prominance. He's now chief engineer for the BMW/Oracle America's Cup effort. His rise wasn't meteoric, but from winning in a development class he's gone on to being respected by enthusiasts as one of the best designers (and composite engineers) in the business. If I were sitting on a lot of money looking for something to do with it, I might just ask Bieker and Juan K to sit down and draw me an Open 60 as soon as their BMW/Oracle responsibilities are over and they've caught up on their sleep!

Paul B

12-15-2006, 03:03 PM

That was one motivation for starting this thread. You'll notice I started right off pointing out where a young U.S. designer who recently opened his own firm (Tim Kernan, formerly with Morrelli/Melvin) is doing some interesting & competitive boats.

Yes, Tim has an office. He was involved with the Columbia 30. There seems to be some issues with that project between the builders and designers. Aside from that, the boat doesn't seem very fast for the size and light weight compared to others. The deck layout and sailplan look horrible to me. I'm sure there was compromise called for, but the result is less than I would expect.

His one other race boat, the 68 foot Peligroso, looks very nice. I race against it from time to time. But we don't know if it is fast compared to what another design office would do. Too bad the STP 65 rule (a bigger, more powerful TP52) wasn't around for that boat to be built to at the time. If it had been maybe Peli would have been racing head to head with a Barking Mad (recent R/P 66 canter) and Blue Yankee (recent R/P non-canter) if all those boats had a rule they could have designed to. Add in the new Farr STP 65 beigh built across the street from where I work, plus a new Andrews STP 65 in the works and we might have been able to compare the work of four designers on equal footing. Instead we have a mish mash of a 68 foot contemporary sled, a canting 66, a non-canting 66, and two box rule 65s, if they were all to meet up somewhere.

I don't know if Tim is doing any racing boats at this time. The success of Peli in local PHRF racing doesn't seem to have brought any big name programs to his door.

But there are designers who have come to prominance in the last decade. Botin+Carkeek, Mark Mills, etc. Many, but not all, are European. New Zealander Greg Elliott designed the maxi Maximus, which has brought him attention. Bakewell-White has been noticed. I like Steve Thompson's work, too, but it would be wrong to claim that lesser known New Zealand designers haven't had any breaks. Too bad the America's Cup home team relies on outside designers like Clay Oliver and Botin instead of mining the local talent pool.

B&C came along as the right guys in the right place at the right time, finding a patron in the IMS ranks and proving themselves. If they had not joined together and found their first patron how would they have been able to show their abilities? Marcellino Botin seems like a very talented guy who got a chance. What about all the other talented guys who don't find the chance? There is no entry level venue for guys like them.

Mark Mills has been around a long time as well. He's been getting some IRC play now, but that isn't really like going tete-a-tete in the old IOR or IMS. We raced against one of his 46s a couple of weeks ago and sailed away in an old R/P 48 footer. If there was some sort of measurement rule that both boats were designed to we might see who actually did a better job. Sadly we have apples and oranges racing under handicaps with subjective input.

Greg Elliott has been around for 30 years. Maximus is his biggest, but he's got 50s out there twenty years ago. He never seemed to do battle in the rating rules, so we have no idea how he would stack up on equal footing.

BW has also been getting work, but how would he stack up against the best on equal terms? We don't know, except his TP52 was left for dead by the rest of the fleet. His 100 footer was built to an upper limit, then the limit was lifted so we don't know how his boat would be on equal footing with the R/P 100s, or the Don Jones, or a Farr, B&C, etc.

There is the example of I-14 designer Paul Bieker coming to prominance. He's now chief engineer for the BMW/Oracle America's Cup effort. His rise wasn't meteoric, but from winning in a development class he's gone on to being respected by enthusiasts as one of the best designers (and composite engineers) in the business. If I were sitting on a lot of money looking for something to do with it, I might just ask Bieker and Juan K to sit down and draw me an Open 60 as soon as their BMW/Oracle responsibilities are over and they've caught up on their sleep!

Bieker is a great I14 designer. I think he got the Oracle job because of his composite expertise, not because he designs skiffs. He hasn't really done any big race boats, just a couple of fast cruiser 35s and a couple in the 50 foot size.

Could he do a fast TP52 and compete with Farr, J/V, R/P, and B&C? Maybe, maybe not. But if there was a smaller intro class where he could compete on an equal footing and beat those guys he might get someone to take a chance on him doing a 52 or STP 65. At the moment it would be difficult to convince a top end team to spend the money and potentially waste a year on that sort of gamble.

Without a worldwide rating scheme there is no way to measure the talents that are out there. We've gone too long without one, and the great races of the past (SORC, Admiral's Cup, Clipper Cup, Southern Cross, etc) no longer exist where the best in the world would line up and see who has the goods. The same lack of a rule has made it nearly improssible for new talent to rise. It is a shame.

Stephen Ditmore

12-15-2006, 03:44 PM

Great, informative post. I'll quibble with this one point, though:

At the moment it would be difficult to convince a top end team to spend the money and potentially waste a year on that sort of gamble.

Larry Ellison and BMW/Oracle are certainly a top end team, and my understanding is that Bieker's role in that organization, though it may not be hull shape, is very significant. Also, I suspect Jonathan McKee may advocate for Bieker on raceboat programs he's involved with. You may or may not see a lot of "Paul Bieker designs" out there (apart from I-14s and a few others), but you don't see a lot of Clay Oliver or Dirk Kramers designs, either. They're still major players.

STP 65? I'd love to hear more! What do you see out there?

Vega

12-15-2006, 05:23 PM

Without a worldwide rating scheme there is no way to measure the talents that are out there. We've gone too long without one, and the great races of the past (SORC, Admiral's Cup, Clipper Cup, Southern Cross, etc) no longer exist where the best in the world would line up and see who has the goods. The same lack of a rule has made it nearly improssible for new talent to rise. It is a shame.

You guys certainly now a lot more than me about boat racing and I am enjoying your knowledge, but it seems to me that we are talking about two different things on this thread.

One is about the best sailors and the best boats (“worldwide rating”) for them to fight with equal arms to see “who has the goods”.

Other about racing boats and the development that racing has provided (and is providing) regarding speed, seaworthiness and absolute performance. Of course this has to do with sailors too, but the focus is different. A rule that gives very close boats it will be more interesting in what regards equal opportunities to win, but a rule with relatively open boats will give an incomparable bigger development in boat’s technology with big implications in absolute performance and seaworthiness. Those improvements will quickly reach production boats, contributing effectively to better, faster and more seaworthy boats for all of us.

These are two different things and I am interested in both, but regarding boats, it’s in the last one that I am interested in.

CT 249

12-15-2006, 05:41 PM

Stephen, I think Paul's covered most of the points I was going to make. As he says, Greg Elliott has been around since IOR days; I think his Outsider was a minor sensation in 1981-ish. It took him almost 25 years from his first yacht to his first maxi; it took Farr, Holland and Peterson about eight. It took Greg 25 years to get attention around the world; Farr was getting worldwide press within 3 or 4.

I think Greg did two boats to a limit; the 11m (Easy Touch etc) which wasn't a bad boat but didn't beat the Mumm 36, and Maximus.

Plenty of people with good incomes have spoken about Bieker as the next Farr. But even a client as good as Jonothan McKee with a boat as good as Dark Star hasn't make an enormous impact. Imagine if instead, McKee and Bieker had been able to put together a boat that would take on other innovative (or less innovative) racer-cruisers in a true World Championship and beat the best from Farr, Beneteau, X Yachts, Juan K, etc. Imagine if instead of waiting until he could get a 35 together, he'd been able to start with a 25 footer (small enough to be easily bankrolled by one of his Int 14 supporters) with a decent fleet at home and across the world?

It's a good point about the lack of coverage of Minis in the English-speaking world, but then again whose fault is that? It's great if the class concentrates on Trans-Atlantic racing, but then it doesn't relate much to a sailor from Newport Harbour or Auckland or Sydney or even Cowes, where such a specialised boat isn't great value. Unlike the situation when Farr etc arrived on the scene, the boats aren't very relevant to the average sailor.

Doug Lord

12-15-2006, 07:02 PM

Julian Bethwaite is the designer with the best known name that has suggested using on-deck movable ballast on his Pterodactyl-a 60+foot preliminary design-now being done in a smaller version as best I can tell. That kind of ballast system is a subject with enormous potential for dinghies/sportboats on up
as an adjunct to or instead of a canting keel. Bethwaite/Billoch's design(Pterodactyl) used a fixed keel with the on-deck movable ballast and was designed to be self righting.
****Sean Langman in the previously presented article says: "From that experience I believe that even our 98 footer some day will be able to sail on foils". He is working on a project with Rohan Veal to develop a 50 knot foiler as well...
--------------
****If the above technologies all come together in a single boat a truly revolutioary new type of selfrighting monohull could be the result. Here are some parameters for a boat or boats that could fit Stephens proposed rule(from the Sportboat-Design for Flight" thread)-Either or both could be adapted to the use of on-deck movable ballast as well:

==============================================
Two Person
---LOA 24'
---LWL 24'
---Beam 18.6' (overall, incl. racks)
**********2.4' at waterline
---Draft 6.5' keel,foils retractable
---Sail Area 586sq.ft. upwind and downwind ---Boat weight,incl. rig and ballast-1100lb. ---Ballast 490lb. (100° canting keel)
---Displacement (incl crew)-1420lb.
****crew-320lb.
=================================
Three Person:
---LOA 24'
---LWL 24'
---Beam 10.73' (overall incl. racks)
********2.4' at waterline
---Draft 6.5' keel and foils retractable
---Sail Area-600 sq.ft. upwind and downwind
--- Boat weight- including rig and ballast-1100lb --- Ballast 490lb.(
100° canting keel)
---Displacement, incl. crew 1580
****crew-480lb.
==========================================
Other comparisons:
---Sail Loading(weight divided by SA)- Two
***Person=2.42 lb. sq. ft. ; Three Person= 2.69 * lb. sq.ft.
---Mainfoil Area- Two Person=7.1 sq.ft. ; Three
***Person= 7.48 sq.ft.
---Mainfoil Loading- Two Person=158lb. per sq.ft. * Three Person=169 lb. per sq.ft.
---Sail area per sq.ft. mainfoil area- Two Person * * =82.5 ; Three
Person=80.2
Note: Two person foil stats are approximately equal to a Moth with Rohan
Veal aboard; Three Person stats approx. equal to a Moth with a 160lb. person aboard.
---D/L Two=45.6 Three= 51
---SA/D Two= 74.3 Three=70.9
---SCP/total weight Two=42% * Three=38.4%
===============================
Both boats would be designed to be rightable by moving the keel; The keel would probably use a system similar to the one described here in the first post:
-----------------
90°-110° Canting Keel - Boat Design Forums Address:http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?p=112898
------------------
Weights for the hull and rig were derived from EXISTING boats that have hulls ,for the most part, twice as wide with over double the area anticipated with these boats. The hull would be very narrow -not much over three feet wide(at the deck) with possible flare out forward for a minimal cuddy cabin. The hull would be double-ended. In comparisons with the other boats in the table below the Sail area to wetted surface ratio of both versions above is probably greater than any other boat even INCLUDING the wetted area of the hydrofoils.(8.27/1 vs. 4.7/1 for the Martin 243).
===========================================

=================================
And here's Sailing Worlds Boat of the Year for 2007-the Esse 850:
www.felciyachts.com
Address:http://www.felciyachts.com/p_scheda.asp?id=146

CT 249

12-15-2006, 08:31 PM

You guys certainly now a lot more than me about boat racing and I am enjoying your knowledge, but it seems to me that we are talking about two different things on this thread.

One is about the best sailors and the best boats (“worldwide rating”) for them to fight with equal arms to see “who has the goods”.

Other about racing boats and the development that racing has provided (and is providing) regarding speed, seaworthiness and absolute performance. Of course this has to do with sailors too, but the focus is different. A rule that gives very close boats it will be more interesting in what regards equal opportunities to win, but a rule with relatively open boats will give an incomparable bigger development in boat’s technology with big implications in absolute performance and seaworthiness. Those improvements will quickly reach production boats, contributing effectively to better, faster and more seaworthy boats for all of us.

These are two different things and I am interested in both, but regarding boats, it’s in the last one that I am interested in.

But Vega, doesn't the relatively open rule means that you tend to end up with a boat with a massive rig and wide beam for its overall length? What about the people who don't want such a boat? Why do we use speed compared to overall length as our measure of "absolute" speed, rather than speed for sail area, or speed for cost?

All the information I have been able to find (which includes talking to designers of successful Open boats, talking to Mini designers and owners and crews, etc) indicates that they are NOT outstanding performers in many terms in many conditions. As far as I can find out, something like a Mini is very expensive compared to its short-course speed. And the Sportsboats here seem to have lost popularity because without restrictions, it was fairly easy to make a faster boat - take an existing hull shape, spend more money making a lighter hull, put a deeper bulb with more lead on it and then throw on a bigger rig. This wasn't rocket science, and while it has created some very fast boats there are very few of them because the cost is so high and the new boats easily beat the old boats.

Secondly, if we look at dinghies we see that the classes where most of the development comes from, arguably, is in the classes with a limited sail area. They are cheaper to build, so a failure is less of a disaster. They attract larger fleets because the average good sailor can sail them, so experimenters can build new boats safe in the knowledge that they have a strong second-hand market and therefore can turn old boats over quickly and get new ones to develop the breed. They can often be sailed in more areas.

Boats with unlimited rigs often teach lessons that are only applicable to boats with unlimited rigs, and vice versa. A 12 Foot Skiff is faster for its length than a National 12 (but slower compared to other measures ie sail area, expense, difficulty of handling etc) and many of the lessons we learn from it are applicable basically only to other boats of similar LOA and style. Lessons from 12s often don't apply to 14s or to National 12s. Maybe the same applies to Open boats?

Finally, the Open classes seem to be just as likely to be typeformed as other classes. The Open 60s look very similar, so do 12 Foot Skiffs. There's not that much difference between one modern Moth and another (although to the person who really knows the class, the small differences can seem big). The Open idea may offer very little to the person who has an existing boat, or comes from Scandanavia and has an inherited love for the beautiful long narrow boats with small SA, or (like Mike Johns) wants to prove that a different style of boat can perform well. My ideal boat could be as fast as an Open for the same cost, the same rig size, the same hull size - but it wouldn't be allowed because it is longer and skinnier. That's typeforming for you. Why not allow for a class that isn't as typeforming?

Surely we could create a rule that allows a choice? What about something like IRM, but more open; like a "sliding box" rule similar to the 5.5s, where you can trade off length or weight for sail or vice versa? You could also demand either an interior (IRC does well there) or take a penalty in weights in the ends or less SA. Mandate a minimum coachroof length or pay for it in SA or LOA etc. Obviously design may prove that one end of the scales or the other does best, but perhaps a predetermined policy could let people now the basis for potential alterations to the rule?

Doug Lord

12-15-2006, 10:27 PM

Stephen, going along with Rob's concept how about a rule like this:
----------
-----------------
Boat shall be a selfrighting* monohull with maximum Sail Area of 600 sq.ft.(55.76sq.m) upwind and 1200 sq.ft.(111.52sq.m)off the wind. Max mast height 38'.(Changed to mast height instead of mast length)
* Keel movement allowed for this purpose?
-----------------
----------
Technology and boat parameters from previous post:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Julian Bethwaite is the designer with the best known name that has suggested using on-deck movable ballast on his Pterodactyl-a 60+foot preliminary design-now being done in a smaller version as best I can tell. That kind of ballast system is a subject with enormous potential for dinghies/sportboats on up
as an adjunct to or instead of a canting keel. Bethwaite/Billoch's design(Pterodactyl) used a fixed keel with the on-deck movable ballast and was designed to be self righting.
Sean Langman in the previously presented article says: "From that experience I believe that even our 98 footer some day will be able to sail on foils". He is working on a project with Rohan Veal to develop a 50 knot foiler as well...
--------------
If the above technologies all come together in a single boat a truly revolutioary new type of selfrighting monohull could be the result. Here are some parameters for a boat or boats that could fit Stephens proposed rule(from the Sportboat-Design for Flight" thread)-Either or both could be adapted to the use of on-deck movable ballast as well:

==============================================
Two Person
---LOA 24'
---LWL 24'
---Beam 18.6' (overall, incl. racks)
2.4' at waterline
---Draft 6.5' keel,foils retractable
---Sail Area 586sq.ft. upwind and downwind ---Boat weight,incl. rig and ballast-1100lb. ---Ballast 490lb. (100° canting keel)
---Displacement (incl crew)-1420lb.
crew-320lb.
=================================
Three Person:
---LOA 24'
---LWL 24'
---Beam 10.73' (overall incl. racks)
2.4' at waterline
---Draft 6.5' keel and foils retractable
---Sail Area-600 sq.ft. upwind and downwind
--- Boat weight- including rig and ballast-1100lb --- Ballast 490lb.(
100° canting keel)
---Displacement, incl. crew 1580
---crew-480lb.
==========================================
Other comparisons:
---Sail Loading(weight divided by SA)- Two
---Person=2.42 lb. sq. ft. ; Three Person= 2.69 * lb. sq.ft.
---Mainfoil Area- Two Person=7.1 sq.ft. ; Three
---Person= 7.48 sq.ft.
---Mainfoil Loading- Two Person=158lb. per sq.ft. Three Person=169 lb. per sq.ft.
---Sail area per sq.ft. mainfoil area- Two Person =82.5 ; Three
Person=80.2
Note: Two person foil stats are approximately equal to a Moth with Rohan
Veal aboard; Three Person stats approx. equal to a Moth with a 160lb. person aboard.
---D/L Two=45.6 Three= 51
---SA/D Two= 74.3 Three=70.9
---SCP/total weight Two=42% * Three=38.4%
===============================
Both boats would be designed to be rightable by moving the keel; The keel would probably use a system similar to the one described here in the first post:
-----------------
90°-110° Canting Keel - Boat Design Forums Address:http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?p=112898
------------------
Weights for the hull and rig were derived from EXISTING boats that have hulls ,for the most part, twice as wide with over double the area anticipated with these boats. The hull would be very narrow -not much over three feet wide(at the deck) with possible flare out forward for a minimal cuddy cabin. The hull would be double-ended. In comparisons with the other boats in the table below the Sail area to wetted surface ratio of both versions above is probably greater than any other boat even INCLUDING the wetted area of the hydrofoils.(8.27/1 vs. 4.7/1 for the Martin 243).
===========================================

=================================

gggGuest

12-16-2006, 05:51 AM

Surely we could create a rule that allows a choice? What about something like IRM, but more open; like a "sliding box" rule similar to the 5.5s, where you can trade off length or weight for sail or vice versa?

It would be extraordinarily difficult to do though wouldn't it Chris? In theory that's what level rating bands in IMS ought to do, but in practice it was an abject failure. with the rule framers apparently unwilling to accept that the rule had turned into a disaster in practice...

And then, supposing all the trade offs are calculated correctly, what do you end up with? Presumably a fleet that optimised bang on the best compromise trade-offs for the formulae you've picked. So its ended up type formed anyway... Either that or the rule is continually being tweaked and the trade offs change, in which case there's a constant battle for the owners to keep up. Acceptable in an empirical handicap rule like IRC, where it doesn't matter that much if your rating is different each year, but a royal pain in a level rating rule where you'd ave to tweak your setup to stay on the magic number...

I've come to believe that no matter what you do any rule is going to end up type forming. So you may as well pick a reasonable type for what you what the boat to do and run with it from the start. Its good that there are small rig type forms, good that there are unrestricted rig type forms, good that there are some inbetween...

Guillermo

12-16-2006, 06:17 AM

If this info has not been posted before, I think it's interesting to go to the new and most interesting on-line magazine Brian Eiland brought to our attention, Ocean Racing Magazine (www.ocean-racing.net), and have a look at pages 76 & 77 on elongating keels.
Cheers.

CT 249

12-16-2006, 08:40 AM

It would be extraordinarily difficult to do though wouldn't it Chris? In theory that's what level rating bands in IMS ought to do, but in practice it was an abject failure. with the rule framers apparently unwilling to accept that the rule had turned into a disaster in practice...

And then, supposing all the trade offs are calculated correctly, what do you end up with? Presumably a fleet that optimised bang on the best compromise trade-offs for the formulae you've picked. So its ended up type formed anyway... Either that or the rule is continually being tweaked and the trade offs change, in which case there's a constant battle for the owners to keep up. Acceptable in an empirical handicap rule like IRC, where it doesn't matter that much if your rating is different each year, but a royal pain in a level rating rule where you'd ave to tweak your setup to stay on the magic number...

I've come to believe that no matter what you do any rule is going to end up type forming. So you may as well pick a reasonable type for what you what the boat to do and run with it from the start. Its good that there are small rig type forms, good that there are unrestricted rig type forms, good that there are some inbetween...

Sure, it is a difficult target. If you adopt the rule the RORC used when they did IRM - that is, don't measure anything you don't have to - it may be more practical. Many of the problems with IMS were to do with things like the way it treated an aft LCB. Many problems with IOR were the treatement of AGS etc. As Hugh Welbourne said some time ago, just don't measure it and it won't get distorted! So of course, like IRM and IRC do, you have to look at the main dimensions, but avoiding the point measurements that cause distortions.

I'm not quite sure than any rule is as typeforming as they often seem to be, because as far as I know, it can be sort of a spiral. If a rule allows a wide variety of boats to be fairly competitive, then some big wins go to the boat that gets its conditions rather than the boat that fits the rule, to some extent. That was what happened in ways at times under IOR, when you got old boats like Tenacious doing well against fractional lightweights. When I started ocean racing as a kid there was that wide variety of boats doing well. The original Ragamuffin (then Margaret Rintoul II) and Ceramco NZ were not as good at short-course IOR racing as the latest Dubois boats, but because Margaret Rintoul was so different to the IOR norm she kicked butt regularly when the wind favoured her, and the same with the Ceramco NZ style. It was when races got more similar to each other and design started to crystallise that getting close to the norm started to become important.....or so it seems to me. I may be utterly wrong, but it's an attitude shared to some extent by some very smart guys who (unlike me) know what they are talking about.

Here in Oz, in the Brisbane Gladstone which tends to be a downwind blast, a converted Jack Holt Diamond wins regularly under IOR, IMS or IRC, just like the very different Sunstone keeps getting trophies, but neither of them are all that competitive around a medium-breeze short course. So (as Tom from Sunstone says to some extent) you could just make the courses more varied and every (well bred) dog will have its day. Neils Jeppersen said many years ago that you actually want boats to be favoured in some conditions, because that lets the slower guys get an encouraging sniff of the silverware every now and then. If the rule allows the best boats to win all the time, the slower sailors give up. So the loose rule would have to be aimed at a variety of courses or else, as you say, it would end up typeformed totally.

I think the ratings would have to change, but boats could race in bands, perhaps with diminishing returns from TCC changes at each end of the band so that you avoid the situation where falling .001 off the edge is a disaster. Maybe if you fell .001 over the band you'd get .002 added to your rating; a nudge back to the band rather than a kneecapping. And you could have a very clearly outlined procedure for evaluating and changing the rule; that alone would be nice. As you say, and I think many people agree, if those behind IMS had accepted that there were problems then many of them could have probably been avoided.

IRM accepted that boats would become typeformed and therefore selected a type, but IMHO that means that the class will start to appear outmoded within a couple of years. Imagine if back in 1970, when many people were actually quite satisfied with what they had (as they were when IRM was designed) and they'd created a typecasting rule around S&S and Carter designs. Those upstart dinghy designers like Farr and Faroux wouldn't have had anywhere to play. If the IRM box had been looser, as far as I know it could have been the answer, possibly with sub-classes for different styles. The IRM box banned assys and canting keels, so it wouldn't be looking very edge just 6 years later.

Maybe a loose rule like IRC is the way to go, but with more attention to rating bands that would attract smaller boats. My ideal is probably merely a soap bubble.....but like others here, I'm searching for a way to bring back the days when people would build "nice little cruising boats" at home in wood, and create a boat called Tituscanby that could change everything. We just don't seem to get it these days. I remain convinced that the concentration on getting .025 knots more out of basically slow (but wonderful) boats is at the root of the problem.

This is a pipedream, but it's a pipedreamy sort of thread.

Doug Lord

12-16-2006, 02:33 PM

Doug Lord

12-16-2006, 04:10 PM

It's been repeatedly said that high tech is so sophisticated now that the backyard homebuilder is just flat out of luck. Very wrong!
Thanks in particular to Phil Stevenson, John Ilett and some others that is just plain not true.
Phil has recently designed and built a "new rules" IC(International Canoe) that has done quite well in it's first few outings and he has published a lot of info on the technique he used to build it. He says that using his technique you can build very close to the weight achieved by carbon /epoxy /foam. Here is a link to his IC project:
Building a stressed ply Development Rule International Canoe Hull
Address:http://www.internationalcanoe.yachting.org.au/default.asp?Page=24752&MenuID=How%255Fto%252F13919%252F0%252CHow%255Fto%255FBuild%255Fan%255FIC%252F13920%252F0
He says the complete boat including dolly cost about $6,000 AUD.
Anyone could adapt one of Phil's stressed ply designs-or design their own in the Moth class and use pro foils from Fastacraft and a pro sail/mast combo from KA and have a world class foiler Moth for around $7-8,000.
For detailed building info see post 90 here:
FOILER 1 Grand Prix - Page 6 - Boat Design Forums
Address:http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?p=78533&highlight=cost+building+Moth+Foiler
Fastacraft also carries foil sections suitable for larger boats that the backyard experimenter can purchase to experiment with foiling or foil assist.
If you look at the dimensions of the proposed sportboat foilers in an earlier post you'll realize that such a boat uses a much simpler hull to build than a conventional sportboat with much less material and could easily be adapted to building techniques pioneered by Phil and others.
And there may already exist(or soon will) foil sections suitable for such a boat- off the shelf.
Thanks to guys like Phil and John there is help available to build the ultimate in high tech -at least up to 30'-no excuses, if you're willing to spend a modest amount of time and money-but probably MUCH less cash than a production sportboat using much higher technology than is currently available.

gggGuest

12-16-2006, 05:58 PM

It's been repeatedly said that high tech is so sophisticated now that the backyard homebuilder is just flat out of luck. Very wrong!

I don't know that many people who actually have a bit to do with the materials and so on say that. In fact the skill level required to build a decent boat is probably the lowest its ever been. The problem is the old hours in the day bit. The average age of people who home build boats in my last class has come down five to ten tears in the time was involved with them, simply because so many fewer people can manage the time. Then add to that the fact that there is so much more money about so people can afford mas produced new boats.

More money, less time: that's what's killed home boatbuilding, nothing to do with echnology at all.

CT 249

12-16-2006, 06:43 PM

John Claridge and others also say that the standards expected of home builders rose, particularly as some of them became very experienced, and therefore newcomers to the home building game got scared away. We average guys probably just aren't very good at boatbuilding, which is why traditional homebuild classes had such huge tolerances (which are no longer available in many classes due to tighter rules, which again must make it harder for people to start boatbuilding).

Then there's another other factor, as you and Phil S experienced - the fact that epoxy etc isn't necessarily as nice to have around the house as wood; too many nasty smells. I see a lot of "Home Woodworker" type mags on the shelves, no "home carbon laminator" mags. Perhaps it just isn't as much fun to do? I find varnishing/laminating timber etc a lot nicer than putting on another layer of carbon.

And isn't pre-preg ultimately faster? Doesn't that mean the pro builder have more of an advantage than in earlier times, when pro and amateur could easily use the same material. The advantage may be minute in some classes, but we know people aren't logical about such things, look at all the Laser sailors who are convinced that it's their one-regatta old sails that are slowing them down.

With pre-cut kits etc maybe home building could have a resurgence, but maybe the class has to have aspects that help the home builder? None of the Moth or Sportsboat guys say a timber boat can be as light as a pre-preg pro boat, so if you have no minimum weight maybe you're hurting the amateur?

It's an interesting subject.

Doug Lord

12-16-2006, 07:04 PM

None of the Moth or Sportsboat guys say a timber boat can be as light as a pre-preg pro boat, so if you have no minimum weight maybe you're hurting the amateur?

It's an interesting subject.

Phil S doesn't specifically mention prepreg but he says:" This method of hull construction allows very cheap construction of hulls at near comparable weight to modern carbon/foam hulls."
When looking at introducing foiler technology to a sportboat,say around 24'(7.3m), the fact is that the hull starts off having far less area than a current sportboat- say as much as 50% less area. So the adoption of this technique by an (energitic) homebuilder(s) would allow a hull significantly lighter than current sportboat hulls. And therein lies the opportunity for a visionary individual or individuals to change the definition of "sportboat" for good-on a budget.

Vega

12-16-2006, 07:57 PM

The "nice little cruising boat" rule is fine just so long as there is a hot and nasty,ultimate tech, all out raceboat rule too.......I'm convinced that a development and/or Open class boat rule should allow technology that could potentially result in 20% speed increases along with better handling and increased "seaworthiness"-at least that should be the target.

More money, less time: that's what's killed home boatbuilding, nothing to do with technology at all.

We are talking of a top class, the one where the best sailors and the best boats can exchange arguments. The existence of such a class doesn’t exclude all the others.

I believe that this class is going to be defined by the Public, I mean the guys who like sailing and watch the races.

If there is enough Public, you don’t have to be excessively worried with costs, because you have Sponsors that are earning money and having a profit with the publicity.

I can be wrong, but it seems to me that American high- tech top class boats are more a product of millionaires who love sailing than of a credible Sponsorship aiming for profit derived from the publicity.

Not so with the French, and that is a BIG difference. Racing sailing is much more popular in France than in the States (I really don’t know about NZ and Aus) and that means, more sponsorship, more money, more development, more designers and the possibility of high-tech boats in big numbers, boats that are not owned by millionaires but that are Sponsored for a profit.

So, I believe that in the end we will have the question: What races do Public want?

The answer seems clear to me: Open ocean races, the ones where the first to arrive takes the prize.

Take a look at the number of entries on the last “Route du Rhum” and take a look at the number of people that watched the beginning of the race.

http://sport.france2.fr/voile/route-du-rhum/video.php?id_article=98

Take a look at the number of entries to the “Vendee Globe 2008”. I believe that they have already all inscriptions booked, and they race with expensive high-tech Open60’s. They have all entries booked already, because Sponsors know about the huge interest Public has on the race and have paid for the boats.

For me the answer is not low-tech, for having a lot of boats, but money to have high-tech development boats and also lots of boats, and that means a lot of Public. Lots of Public means a lot of Sponsorship, and that means big money.

And Doug, I am not satisfied with only 20%, I want more:D

Regards

CT 249

12-16-2006, 08:21 PM

"If there is enough Public, you don’t have to be excessively worried with costs, because you have Sponsors that are earning money and having a profit with the publicity."

Sorry, Vega, but this concept is a very, very old one that has failed many times before.

This is the same public who gave up watching the ORMA 60s in sufficient numbers to keep the inshore circuit alive. The same public that gave up watching Formula 40, Ultimate 30s, Ultra 30s, 18 Foot Skiffs, F28, and the many other earlier pro circuits. The same public who gaped in awe at the 85 foot multis and 236 foot monos in the unrestricted days of the Transat, but didn't cough up enough support to keep such expensive boats going.

The Sydney-Hobart gets 200,000 live spectators (IIRC), live telecast, live TV crosses and special reports each day, and the fleet is not as big as its companion races, the Bermuda and Fastnet. The most successful skipper in publicity terms has gone public and said that it is too expensive these days (and he runs a 90 AND a 98 footer.....). That same man looked at doing a pro circuit in small boats but seems to have dropped the idea. He is a successful car racer and businessman, he knows sport and sponsorship and he has said that the costs are out of hand and he is dropping out of the big-boat race.

More publicity and technology does not equal more competitors. Look at F1 - fabulous publicity, but it has restricted technology in many aspects and has less than half the entrants of earlier time. Much of F1 is underpinned by the enormous car industry - the sailing industry is too small to support a no-expense pro circus in the same way. And a study on the reasons for Britian's leading role in F1 technology pointed to the fact that the British car racing scene encouraged small, cheap amateur builds that encouraged new thinking.

A national sporting publicity survey down here has pointed out that there is basically no correlation between increased publicity and increased participation.

The Windsurfing World Cup used to get 250,000 live spectators and it has dropped right off. The sport started to drop catastrophically in numbers of participants and sponsorship one year after it attracted its biggest-ever audience. The VOR got a very strong audience the last couple of events and the numbers are the smallest ever.

Among those who say the "more tech/more publicity/more money" will not work are Nigel Irens (designer of some of the most spectacular ORMA 60s etc), Rob Brown (designer/skipper of arguably the most spectacular skiff ever, champion of the professional 18 Foot Skiff class when it was at its richest), the PRofessional Windsurfing Association (who introduced restrictions on technology), Formula 1 ditto), Class 40 (ditto), and many others. The person who can get the best sponsorship deals can drive the price of being competitive out of reach of the rest of the fleet. The old 18 Foot Skiff series had enormous public support, it out-rated our national sport on TV, and yet it failed because it was not financially viable.

An address to the IOC (no bad judge of sporting success, I'd assume) showed that people are turning off watching pro sport. That means the public is not going to be there very often.

Vendee Globe is held every few years. IF you only want to race every few years it may be a viable model. But if you want to race more often, your model will fail for reasons that have been showed time and time again.

Surely, if this 30+ year old idea was going to work, there would have been more proven success with it, instead of a string of failures. Could you give us a clear idea of why your concept will work this time around, and where it differs from the previous failures?

Some of us get accussed of being conservative. That's not true; we just want to look at lessons of the sport's past, and use them to learn instead of making the same mistakes that have been made many times before.

Apologies for saying the same thing yet again, but these are the facts.

Doug Lord

12-16-2006, 08:28 PM

And Doug, I am not satisfied with only 20%, I want more:D

Regards

Sounds good to me......

Doug Lord

12-16-2006, 08:37 PM

As a suggestion, maybe we should agree on a rule first then see what ideas we can come up with to make it work? I'm thinking of something like I proposed earlier-simple but with some limits.
Seems like once there is an agreed on rule then a plan to present it "publically" could be devised....
Again,as a suggestion, maybe the boat defined by the rule could be somewhere between 20 and 30' LOA-not too big so as to be within the scope of a backyard experimenter(with determination) or a small syndicate and big enough to make a real splash with new technology.

RHough

12-17-2006, 03:25 AM

Maybe a loose rule like IRC is the way to go, but with more attention to rating bands that would attract smaller boats. My ideal is probably merely a soap bubble.....but like others here, I'm searching for a way to bring back the days when people would build "nice little cruising boats" at home in wood, and create a boat called Tituscanby that could change everything. We just don't seem to get it these days. I remain convinced that the concentration on getting .025 knots more out of basically slow (but wonderful) boats is at the root of the problem.

This is a pipedream, but it's a pipedreamy sort of thread.

It's a tough problem. Nice little cruises are mostly reaches in moderate air. Reaching in moderate air makes for pretty boring racing. Windward/Leeward courses are tactical for racers, but boats that are optimized for W/L courses don't necessarily make good little cruising boats.

I'd like to see a class were good cruising boats were also good race boats, I have no idea what set of rules would do it. My gut reaction is that some formula that limits crew weight to an absurdly low number by current racing standards would be a good start, good cruising boats shouldn't need 100's of pounds of flesh on the rail to make them go. They also shouldn't need complex rigs and systems to sail nicely. They should have limited draft, 6 feet is limiting in some cruising areas. Upper limit of rig height 60 feet perhaps? (Whatever the ICW fixed bridge clearance is). Some set of rules that would type boats that everyday sailors could identify with. Kind of like CCA and the early days of IOR. At least the boats at the boat shows and the boats on the race course looked similar. Joe Average didnt feel left out because his rig didn't have 4 sets of spreaders, runners, checkstays, a noodle for a mast, and the other extremes allowed/encouraged by the boats I see now.

Guillermo

12-17-2006, 04:09 AM

...I'd like to see a class were good cruising boats were also good race boats...
I strongly support this idea, too! :)
Cheers.

CT 249

12-17-2006, 06:07 AM

Sorry, I have created some confusion by the term "nice little cruising boat". I was thinking about Farr's first keelboat, Tituscanby. Farr's champion skiff crew decided to build a "nice little cruising boat" and Farr designed Tituscanby for him. She promptly cleaned up the South Pacific Half Ton championships, then at the age of about four (an eternity in early IOR days) she was about 5th in the worlds despite being only about 27 feet long.

She was a "nice little cruising boat" because she was a cheap boat with good accomodation, but because she was a breakthrough in concept, design and sailing she kicked butt among the serious racers and was perhaps the fastest boat out of the many hundreds of half tonners built in her day.

She's a classic example of the sort of boat that a closely typeforming rule won't allow, because she was out-of-the-box thinking, much shorter and lighter and smaller in rig than the state of the art boats of her time. Farr's first One Tonner, Prospect, was also a "nice little cruising boat" that kicked the World Champ of the time, Pied Piper and Ted Turner, all over the ocean despite being fully fitted out down below and having a cheap simple rig.

There were other examples of similar thinking; ragged-arse young guys who were building new-style boats, often cheap and sometimes dual-purpose, that could fit into the existing fleets and race in the same class everywhere, whether you were Swedish (Norlin) or Kiwi or British.

I agree it's nice to see good cruisers on the line; it works in IRC in distance races. Okay they are slow, but so is a Finn and they attract some good racing.

Vega

12-17-2006, 11:49 AM

I agree it's nice to see good cruisers on the line; it works in IRC in distance races. Okay they are slow, but so is a Finn and they attract some good racing.

Yes, but we are talking about boats. I believe we all want to sail fast boats.

I have read an interview (to a typical amateur sailracer) where a guy was saying he was going to sell his beautiful and fast boat to have a less fast boat, because he wanted to win races. It turns out that his boat had a bad rating and the slower boat had a much better rating and it would allow him very good results, and probably to win, on compensated time.

A racing sport where you have to change your racing machine for a slower one, in order to win races is quite obtuse to me.

But Vega, doesn't the relatively open rule means that you tend to end up with a boat with a massive rig and wide beam for its overall length? What about the people who don't want such a boat?
…..
All the information I have been able to find (which includes talking to designers of successful Open boats, … indicates that they are NOT outstanding performers in many terms in many conditions.
….
Finally, the Open classes seem to be just as likely to be typeformed as other classes.
… Why not allow for a class that isn't as typeforming?

Perhaps we have some contradictions here. First you say that with an open rule we “end up with a boat with a massive rig and wide beam for its overall length” and then you say that “they are NOT outstanding performers in many terms in many conditions”. It seems to me that you think that other kind of boats, not wide beamed boats, could be competitive under the Open rule. So where is the problem? People that don’t like this kind of boats just have to design other type of boat. The rules will allow it, provided it is a 60ft boat.

And I don’t know if you are right, I don’t know if a VOR60 with a canting keel would not be competitive with the Open60’s. Probably there would be some circumstances where they would be faster. I am not defending the shape of the Open 60’s, I even find narrow boats more beautiful, but I am primarily interested in efficiency. I want to know what shape gives the better performance (form follows function), not only regarding speed, but also seaworthiness.

I believe that in a near future we will have a big around the world race against the prevailing winds (there are a lot of them that follow the trade winds, it’s a question of time till someone picks the idea of a different one). I believe that in such a race a narrower boat will stand a good chance against Open60’s. I am all for it.

Why do we use speed compared to overall length as our measure of "absolute" speed, rather than speed for sail area, or speed for cost?

Because we are talking of racing, and racing is related with speed.

I don’t agree with what you have said about F1. Sure, the cars suffered limitations to prevent excessive power and to maximize safety, and yet you can see that modern F1 keep beating the lap times of the older and more powerful cars. This means that the increased superior technology is able to make cars that can turn faster, break harder and are better performers. You say F1 are boring races, and I mostly agree. But in Europe I guess we are as much fascinated with superior technology as with the racing in itself and with good reason: Nothing in Motorsports has contributed as much as F1 developed technology to the modern car performance and safety.

I believe a top International professional Oceanracer class should be based on superior technology, research, innovation and development aiming at boats with a superior speed and seaworthiness. It should be a relatively Open class that allows different types of boats to compete, providing they can be competitive and have the same length. Like in F1, the only objective should not be having an interesting and fair race (if this was the objective, all F1 cars would be equal), but also to develop better and faster cars.

About speed for cost, I believe that would apply only to initiation classes, much like in car racing, with the series of inexpensive and relatively fast “fornula” classes where you can learn and enjoy before reach the F1. Of course only the best continue as professional drivers and only the very best reach F1, and it should be the same regarding a top international ocean racing class, a class for professional racers, in true racing machines.

About sail area versus length, I believe that length is more appropriate, because it will be much more useful in what regards the contribution to the development of new, faster and more seaworthy cruiser boats.

If sail area was the common factor, we would have very narrow boats, with a small interior, boats not very practical for cruising. For having the same interior space of a 40ft, you would have to have a 50ft and you would pay a lot more for a marina place. I believe that the 50ft would also be more expensive to build and it would be a boat that would sail with a lot of list. One of the good things with the Open60’s is that they are optimized to sail with 10 to 15º list.

…The Open idea may offer very little to the person who has an existing boat, or comes from Scandanavia and has an inherited love for the beautiful long narrow boats with small SA, or (like Mike Johns) wants to prove that a different style of boat can perform well.

I am in favor of all class of races, from club races to cup races, but let’s not confuse amateur racing with professional racing.

I am talking of the top class, a class for professional oceanracers raced in the most advanced boats, boats that should be as limited as possible (safety safeguards, a limit on draft and length and not much else).

The existence of this class doesn’t disqualify or diminish all the other sailing classes, but as in F1, all the best pilots would fight to reach there.

regards

Milan

12-17-2006, 01:07 PM

...I believe that in a near future we will have a big around the world race against the prevailing winds (there are a lot of them that follow the trade winds, it’s a question of time till someone picks the idea of a different one). I believe that in such a race a narrower boat will stand a good chance against Open60’s. I am all for it...regards

Global Challenge is such a race. The most successful boat is indeed narrow. (Van Den Heede's aluminum Adrien).

http://www.vdh.fr/gb/global_challenge/parcours.htm
http://www.challengebusiness.com/global/index.asp

Vega

12-17-2006, 02:18 PM

Hello Milan,

That’s not really what I am talking about.

One it is not really a race, but an attempt to beat a record:

“The Global Challenge consists of beating the record for sailing around the world single-handed and without stopover from East to West.
It is a circumnavigation of the world "the wrong way round", i.e. against the prevailing winds for the majority of the voyage (the descent of the Atlantic, rounding Cape Horn, Australia, the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, and returning up the Atlantic).”

http://www.vdh.fr/gb/global_challenge/presentation.htm

The other is an amateur race that is raced on 12 identical steel boats (you can race that one, you have just to show up with the cash).
This one is a very good way to get a practical and intensive course on seamanship:p .

"In Autumn 2008, 12 identical 72ft ocean racing yachts will sail from the UK, ready not just to survive those conditions, but to race through them. Each yacht will be crewed by 17 ordinary men and women led by a professional skipper."

http://www.challengebusiness.com/global/index.asp

No Milan, I was talking about a real Pro race with Open60’s and by open 60’s. I don’t mean that they would all be large transom similar boats, but that they would have a max of 60ft lenght. Fact is that I would like very much to compare, in one race against the prevailing winds, the performance of a Vor60 with a canting keel, with the performance of a typical Open 60.

What I am talking about is a kind of Vendee Globe the other way around.

About the Adrien, the boat that holds the record (2004), it is a 84ft, and a beautiful boat, and as you say it is a narrow boat, but I believe that its performance can be easily matched by a canting keel boat, if he manages to stay in one piece. Such a course would also be a fire test on canting keels, and for it, it would be necessary to make them stronger.

Milan

12-17-2006, 04:27 PM

Hi Paulo,

Yes, it would be very interesting race, but I don't think that open 60's are the optimum type for the racing in the wrong direction. In such race, flatish bottom with a very wide stern for planing wouldn't be as advantageous. I expect that a scaled down "Adrian" would be a better choice. Narrower hull with much finer bow and a rounded bottom would slice easier through the waves, with a less bouncy ride, giving a bit more "comfort" to the crew and less stress to the boat. Canting keels could give sail caring power which narrow boat lacks.

Scantlings all around would have to go way up producing heavier boat (compared to the normal open's standards). Structural strength would be a major issue. And yes, it would be an ultimate testing ground for canting keels technology development. If they can survive that, they'll survive anything.

Doug Lord

12-17-2006, 05:44 PM

"Homebuilt" sportboat:
Tokyo TRash Baby
Address:http://tokyotrashbaby86.tripod.com/

Paul B

12-17-2006, 05:45 PM

Doug Lord

12-17-2006, 06:22 PM

"B", it's unfortunate that your project(s) failed but that doesn't mean that CT's "nice little cruiser" rule, Vega's Hot Shot Pro 60 Rule,or my "Super Sport" sportboat Rule would also have to fail-given the hindsight so widely available now. New technologies now make it possible to develop truly revolutionary boats
substantially faster and more seaworthy than any previous era's "trully revolutionary boats....
And a sport boat rule could allow a wide range of people and organizations to participate.
--------
Given your experience how could a sportboat rule similar to the one I proposed be made to work?

RHough

12-17-2006, 06:43 PM

Yes, but we are talking about boats. I believe we all want to sail fast boats.

I have read an interview (to a typical amateur sailracer) where a guy was saying he was going to sell his beautiful and fast boat to have a less fast boat, because he wanted to win races. It turns out that his boat had a bad rating and the slower boat had a much better rating and it would allow him very good results, and probably to win, on compensated time.

A racing sport where you have to change your racing machine for a slower one, in order to win races is quite obtuse to me.

Yes, to a point. I don't want to sail a boat with a stripped out interior, pipe berths, a camp stove, and a cedar bucket and call it cruising.

I would certainly choose a 10 knot boat over a 15 knot boat if the 15 knot boat is going to jar my fillings loose and the 10 knot boat has a seakindly ride.

People that blame rating systems and would give up a boat they like just to win races, will have excuses to loose no matter what. If the boat does not rate well, and it can be proved that no one has been able to sail it to the rating, there should be an appeal process. If the the boat is raced under a measurement rule, you have to optimize it for that rule. If the boat still cannot sail to it's rating, you have spent a bucket of money to find out that you have a poor design for the rule you race under. Or you might not be such a great sailor?

Guys like that should try One-Design. It removes the option of blaming the rating for poor performance. :P

In a OD fleet the difference between first and last is equal to a rating error of many seconds a mile. Most whingers don't claim their rating is wrong by 20-30 seconds a mile, yet that is the spread in OD results.

CT 249

12-17-2006, 06:48 PM

Interesting discussion. Vega.

Re "Yes, but we are talking about boats. I believe we all want to sail fast boats."

There is overwhelming evidence that most people do not want to sail fast boats. Look at what Beneteau sell; not really fast. Look at what people race in the world's strongest dinghy country, the UK - mostly slow boats. The most popular skiff types (heavily promoted, very fast) are about 30th most popular classes and are selling much slower than slower craft. Even in Sydney, where the Skiffs come from and where they are heavily subsidised by gambling and liquour laws, far more people sail slow boats like Lasers.

"I have read an interview (to a typical amateur sailracer) where a guy was saying he was going to sell his beautiful and fast boat to have a less fast boat, because he wanted to win races. It turns out that his boat had a bad rating and the slower boat had a much better rating and it would allow him very good results, and probably to win, on compensated time.

It depends on why the slow boat had a good rating. Did it have a slow rating because it was much cheaper? Did it had a slow rating because it was safer? Did it have a slow rating because it was less complicated? Maybe it's good for the sport if a cheaper, simpler boat with accomodation is encouraged. My kid's bike, my mate's fishing dinghy, and my windsurfers will go faster than almost any keelboat. Keelboats are never very fast for their length and speed so why get so worried about another knot?

A racing sport where you have to change your racing machine for a slower one, in order to win races is quite obtuse to me.

But just about every "equipment" sport puts restrictions on gear. F1 cars are highly restricted in many ways, and they have repeatedly changed the rules to slow the cars down. Rally Cars are highly restricted in many ways. Two Litre tourers, NASCAR, Aussie V8s are all highly restricted in many ways. The golf balls Tiger Woods uses are restricted in their length of flight. Golf clubs are restricted. Tour de France bicycles are restricted; if you turn up with a triathlon or recumbent bike you'll have to change it, yet (according to one calculator) the tri bike is 2ks faster (at 33kmh) and the recumbent 7km faster! Skiff racing has restrictions. Windsurfer racing has restrictions. Cat racing has restrictions (and the boom class of the moment is F18, a very heavy boat by some standards). Open Classes have restrictions. Since just about every racing sports restricts the speed of the gear, why worry about restrictions?

Perhaps we have some contradictions here. First you say that with an open rule we “end up with a boat with a massive rig and wide beam for its overall length” and then you say that “they are NOT outstanding performers in many terms in many conditions”. It seems to me that you think that other kind of boats, not wide beamed boats, could be competitive under the Open rule. So where is the problem? People that don’t like this kind of boats just have to design other type of boat. The rules will allow it, provided it is a 60ft boat.

Sure, you can design a boat that is narrower and has a smaller rig, and uses live crew instead of water ballast. My information is that such a boat would be faster around most courses. But that underlines that the Open style is not always faster and more efficient, as you seem to be assuming. It's just faster in some conditions, yet it's often held up as being the ultimate.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CT 249 View Post
Why do we use speed compared to overall length as our measure of "absolute" speed, rather than speed for sail area, or speed for cost?

Because we are talking of racing, and racing is related with speed."

Yes, but (as you have partly discussed, thanks) why do we relate speed to overall length and not to sail area, cost, waterline length or other variables?

If we relate speed only to length, then we are looking at only two dimensions of a multi-dimensional object. Consider a theoretical 65 footer that has 75% of the sail, 75% of the cost, and 20% more seaworthiness and speed than a 60. Also consider a theoretical 60 footer that has 60% of the sail area, 50% of the cost, 120% more seaworthiness and 95% more speed than a 60.

If we relate speed to sail area, both these are faster boats. If we relating speed to cost, both are faster boats. If we relate speed to seaworthiness, both are faster boats. So why fixate on using just one measurement, length overall, to relate speed against? Why not consider classes that also measure speed related to sail area??
We are both interested in efficiency - why measure efficiency only against speed v length and not speed v sail area, or LOA x beam, or speed v the capacity to be sold cheaply and have cruising accomodation, or other variables?

If sail area was the common factor, we would have very narrow boats, with a small interior, boats not very practical for cruising. For having the same interior space of a 40ft, you would have to have a 50ft and you would pay a lot more for a marina place. I believe that the 50ft would also be more expensive to build and it would be a boat that would sail with a lot of list. One of the good things with the Open60’s is that they are optimized to sail with 10 to 15º list.

But if the rule is intended to teach us how to make better boats that are useful for cruising, why not do it more directly? It can be a long and involved path to take lessons from an Open racer and then apply them to a cruising boat that will have a smaller rig (because the crew is less powerful and doesn't want to sail always at 110%), higher displacement (because the cruiser will have an interior), perhaps some bow overhang (for anchor handling) and possibly less expensive for its LOA.

Why not include a minimum displacement that would be similar to that of a lightly-fitted cruiser/racer and learn lessons that we could directly apply to a racer/cruiser? Why not include a rig restriction that would teach us how to design a boat that could be driven by the sort of rig cruisers want? If we want to learn how to design a better boat with an interior big enough for cruising, why not ensure that the hull of our racers has a big interior? If we are worried about the cost of a marina berth, why aren't we worried about the cost of the massive rig and multiple roller furlers of an Open 60?

You are interested in singlehanded 60 footers despite the fact that they are much slower than 90 footers. You are be interested in monos despite the fact that they are much slower than multis, so why is it illogical to be interested in cheaper dual-purpose boats? The LOA and the number of hulls and crew are all factors that slow a boat without making it less interesting, why then are other factors that slow a boat seen as being so bad?

"I don’t agree with what you have said about F1. Sure, the cars suffered limitations to prevent excessive power and to maximize safety, and yet you can see that modern F1 keep beating the lap times of the older and more powerful cars. This means that the increased superior technology is able to make cars that can turn faster, break harder and are better performers. You say F1 are boring races, and I mostly agree. But in Europe I guess we are as much fascinated with superior technology as with the racing in itself and with good reason: Nothing in Motorsports has contributed as much as F1 developed technology to the modern car performance and safety.

Sure, F1 cars do allow high tech, but not for everything. The point is that design and technology is very heavily restricted. Wings are highly restricted. Weight is restricted. Power is restricted; small engines, no turbos. Replacement of engines is restricted. Tyres are restricted in size, tread and replacement. Ground effect is restricted. Clearance is restricted. Six wheelers are banned. Cockpit size is restricted. Active/reactive suspensions are banned. Launch control is banned. Traction control is banned. ABS is banned. Sliding skirts are banned. The fan car was banned. The number of valves per cylinder is restricted. The number of cylinders is restricted; their angle is restricted. Engine weight is restricted; pre-coolers are banned; rpm can be restricted; variable valve timing, inlet geometry and exhaust geometry are banned. Injectors, plugs and ignition are controlled. Composite engine blocks are banned. Engine materials are restricted. X-wings are banned. Airboxes are restricted. Front wing height is controlled. 4wd is banned. Two-way telemetry has been banned. Engine cover bodywork is controlled. Fuel is restricted in type and amount. Even practising and engine maintenance is restricted!

The current model of my mid-market Japanese station wagon has many features that are banned from F1. It's as if the Open 60s banned things the typical Beneteau cruiser has.

Why does F1 have such restrictions? Partly for safety, partly for cost reasons. Despite what you said about cost being no problem if the public will watch, even F1 - one of the most watched sports in the world - has cost problems that have seen entries drop by over 50% and several teams struggling. Max Mosely and the other heads of F1 realise that this is a problem and have said so publically, so how can it be ignored for sailing?

There used to be a racing car class with almost no rules - Can Am. It was great fun while it lasted but it died out, just like pretty much every unrestricted sailing class has died out.

F1 cars still break lap records, but (1) that proves that even with tight restrictions you don't stop development; ( 2 ) don't forget courses have changed - the Monza "Streamliner" (1976 I think) is still the fastest F1 race ever. It's as if the 1976 Transatlantic record still stood - and yet despite not having a faster race in the last 4 decades, F1 has a good image as a high tech sport.

"Of course only the best continue as professional drivers and only the very best reach F1, and it should be the same regarding a top international ocean racing class, a class for professional racers, in true racing machines."

Only the best reach F1? No way, rich F1 drivers who pay to race are a recognised problem and sometimes a major laughing stock. In the same way, world champs often struggle to break through; even Nicky Lauda's career was almost stopped because there was opposition (from his grandfather) to his borrowing large amounts of money. Read a few F1 biographies and the same story of struggles for cash to buy into a team at FF, F2/3000 and F1 level are repeated time and time again. It seems to be a terrible way to select the best. How many drivers of Lauda's talent failed because they didn't have his rich family and connections? How many drivers of the talent of Mansell failed because their wives wouldn't work hard so their husbands could buy their way into racing?

And why put the emphasis on a fully-professional scene doing long races, with a barrier between it and "normal" racing like Fastnet, Bermuda, Hobart or club racing? Why not look at a rule that will allow local hot spots to develop, with people learning their way and becoming noticed by performing well in their local club fleet and then doing well in say Block Island or Spi Ouest or Fastnet, rather than having to move outside into a more isolated class like Mini is on most places?

Finally, if we follow the pro/motor racing path, we may be going the wrong way. Here is Australia we have a strong motor racing scene and 99% of adults can drive, yet motor sport has fewer participants than sailing. Sailing (here) therefore is proven to be BETTER at attracting people who can do the activity into competition - why follow the path of a sport that is LESS succesful?

Wishes of the season and apologies for another long post.

Vega

12-17-2006, 07:55 PM

Ct240, I will reply to you later, because I want to make a break. Let’s talk about real boats. Do you know this one:

http://www.open570.org/open/home.htm

It's a Finot design and it seems to be the French small performance boat of the moment.

http://www.finot.com/general/index_ang.htm

I have seen it at the Paris boatshow and I had an irresistible wish to sail one, so I am in the process of convincing a friend to buy one:p

The boat looks great and it is not very expensive. It cost, with performance sails (the complete set) and with a trailer around 20 000 euros.

The smaller 5.00 costs only 13 500 euros.

What do you think?

CT 249

12-17-2006, 08:46 PM

It looks like a nice boat. Fun, with good racing. The Handicap National shows it's not amazingly quick; rated a fraction faster than the old J/22, slower than a J/24 or Beneteau Fun. Currency and national differences and language problems make it hard to work out how it compares to other types in terms of cost etc. Looks a bit expensive for the size and speed judging from US $.

It's really great to see emphasis on a small boat. That's really healthy.

The Handicap National figures

http://www.ffvoile.net/ffv/public/habitable1/hn/tables/home2.asp?CL=TOUT&BATEAU=&GR=&Submit=Valider

are interesting. A quick look seems to me to show that the Open style is quick for its LOA, but perhaps not in other ways. That's great, it's good that people who like tthat type of boat can have one, it's just that maybe not everyone should be pushed towards such a class.

gggGuest

12-17-2006, 10:41 PM

Yep, the Formula One regulations are just amazingly complex. There are 41 pages on "sporting regulations" , race conduct etc, and 58 pages of technical regulations - car design". They go as far as controlling the colour of the carpet on the podium. Its an unbelievably restricted sport!

http://www.fia.com/sport/Regulations/f1regs.html

As I get older, and hopefully learn more, I'm coming to believe that all class restrictions are finger in the air stuff, and there's really no way to define what is "better" design other than the ability to win races withing a given formula. All boats seem to be type formed, and you can see in each generation how the current type forms of the various racing rules affect the dominant types of more recreational craft, just because that's what's familiar and is currently regarded as good looking. I'm not sure I see any way round this. There also seems to be a human tendency towards type forming when there's no actual pressure to do so: I guess you could call it fashion! Look at the way you can date a motor car design by looking at it, 70s car designs are different from 80s cars etc.

Stephen Ditmore

12-18-2006, 09:16 AM

I mostly agree with the posts #161, #163, & 164 of Paul B, Vega, and CT 249. I think there's an emerging opportunity for designers in these new box rule classes, though, and they're better boats than IOR ever produced. So lets look to both Class40 and the Transpac 52 derivatives for new ideas and emerging design talent.

Perhaps we should also talk specific races.... after all, the genesis of the Transpac 52 and STP 65, which have in turn inspired the GP28, GP33, and GP42, was a specific race: the Transpac. Opportunities to race Class40 boats are initially rather specific as well. Should there be Class40s in the Transpac, or is there something about Class40 that makes it specific to Atlantic racing? What are the best opportunities for Class 40 racing on the U.S. East Coast? Bermuda 1-2? Marblehead to Halifax?

Vega: any unknown designers doing Class40s? Are there any interesting innovations on one or two boats that distinguish them from the rest of the fleet?

What's become of Laurie Davidson? Is he still living in Seattle? I get the feeling that controversies surrounding the design of the One World AC boats have really thrown him off his stride. Has he gone into retirement or something? Seems to me the team of Davidson/Bieker would really make sense (once the upcoming America's Cup is done).

Stephen Ditmore

12-18-2006, 09:50 AM

Stephen Ditmore

12-18-2006, 10:00 AM

Ct240, I will reply to you later, because I want to make a break. Let’s talk about real boats. Do you know this one:

http://www.open570.org/open/home.htm

It's a Finot design and it seems to be the French small performance boat of the moment.

I'm confused, Vega. Is this a development class or a one-design? In what sense is it "open"?

Vega

12-18-2006, 12:07 PM

Not properly unknown:p , but I have not talked about "Akilaria", a design by Marc Lombard, the boat that many consider the fastest of the 40Class.

I have been inside one and I have talked with the guys. What an enthusiasm. Inside the boat there was besides me and my wife, a kid with is parents. He has talking with another kid:D. That one was the factory "man". Both kids knew very well what they talked about, and the kid’s father was also an experienced sailor and the mother obviously new also about racing. They have made a command for one, and the kid is going to race with the big boys, and it looks that Mammy and Dad are also going to have fun sailing the boat ( I am not making up:D ).

The kids have said that this boat is much easier to helm and more balanced than the Pogo.

For producing this boat and the cruising version this small company has made a new factory in Tunisie. They have lots of commands, for the racing, but even more for the cruising version, that is going to be available in 2007.

http://www.marclombard.com/
http://www.kervilor-vanek.com/
http://nunavuk.com/atao/index.php?2006/07/26/24-l-akilaria-dernier-ne-de-la-class-40-

In what concerns me, I wanted to look around, but also to know if they have plans for a bigger cruising boat, and yes, they will make a 42 or 44ft boat (it is planned for 2008 or 2009).
We talked about the price and it looks that it is going to be inside my budget.Nice:)

If you look at the hull you are going to see that it is not completely round. It has a kind of chine. There is another 40class boat with chines. They say it helps the transition for planning. What do you think of it?

Take a look at the photos I have taken – nice boat isn’t it?

Regards

Stephen Ditmore

12-18-2006, 12:18 PM

Thanks, Vega.... that's the kind of thing I can get excited about....great specifics! I'd love to know what people are saying after the Lombard faces the Finot on the racecourse. How about Roland and other likely designers....do they have Class40 boats in the water yet?

So Paul, do you think a boat like this would generate interest on the U.S. West Coast? Would it help if a U.S. designer did one? I could imagine Columbia doing a boat like this to compliment the Columbia 30, couldn't you?

Vega

12-18-2006, 01:01 PM

Sthephen...It’s Paulo, Portuguese name for Paul;) .

Stephen, I have to work....I’ll try to reply to the other questions later, after do some working.

Yes, Rolland designed a class40, it is called “Jumbo”, take a look here:

http://forums.boatdesign.net/showthread.php?t=14468&page=2

About “Akilaria”, do you know that boats was the first leader of the race.? After that during the first week, Dominic (the skipper) and Gildas Morvan (the big favorite and 2º at the finish) exchanged several times the leadership, till Dominic blow the spinnaker away. The boat was doing at that time 23k. He went to Azores to pick a new one, but after that he had a disagreeable encounter with the Azores anti-cyclone: No wind.

http://nunavuk.com/atao/index.php?2006/11/21/56-recit-de-mon-rhum

I know that you have a slight problem with the French:P , but take a look at the Photos.

Stephen Ditmore

12-18-2006, 02:16 PM

So Paul, do you think a boat like this would generate interest on the U.S. West Coast? Would it help if a U.S. designer did one? I could imagine Columbia doing a boat like this to compliment the Columbia 30, couldn't you?Actually, the question above was a U.S. domestic coast-to-coast communication intended for Paul B, who seems to know about racing on our left coast. If Class40 is so practical relative to the alternatives, could it take in California?

Paul B

12-18-2006, 02:39 PM

The Handicap National shows it's not amazingly quick; rated a fraction faster than the old J/22, slower than a J/24 or Beneteau Fun.

Our local PHRF board has a history of trying to keep fast boats out, so it is no surprise they have rated the 5.7 at 36 seconds per mile faster than a J24. Of course it is not sailing to that rating at all.

It looks like it would cost around $30,000.00 US (from the US West Coast Dealer) for a fully fit out boat, on the starting line. I would look at used boats myself. I could buy a couple of race-ready Moore 24s for the same price if I lived in SF/Santa Cruz and race OD. I live in Socal, so I could buy an Olson 30 for about half that and race OD in a faster boat. A pretty nice Melges 24 could be had for just about that amount as well.

On the other hand people have been spending that much on new I14s, and they don't give you the versatility of the 5.7 for daysailing with the family. They do have decent class racing, for the moment. The 5.7s do not, not yet anyway.

Vega

12-18-2006, 02:41 PM

Actually, the question above was a U.S. domestic coast-to-coast communication intended for Paul B...
:p :p :p A Paul/Paulo confusion:P

Paul B

12-18-2006, 02:49 PM

Actually, the question above was a U.S. domestic coast-to-coast communication intended for Paul B, who seems to know about racing on our left coast. If Class40 is so practical relative to the alternatives, could it take in California?

I doubt it. Anything could happen, but this type of boat has never caught on here.

What would you race, PHRF? Is it good for bouy racing? If not, do you only do Mexican races and Transpac? For the same price you could buy a used OD48. For far less you could buy a used Schock 40. It seems the market is full of bargains on used performance boats out here. Without a class to race in it doesn't make much sense to most people to invest in something like a Class 40.

It is sad that the J105 has been the biggest OD class out here for quite a while. A lot of good sailors have bought Cal 20s and race class (non spinnaker) as probably the most tactical racing in the area. Many of these people own bigger race boats as well, but spend as much time or more time racing the Cal 20.

We have a pocket or two where the Beneteau 40.7s have caught on in the 40 foot size. The old J120s are still strong here and there. Unless you had 10 people ready to ante up for a Class 40 I don't see why anyone would make the move. You have to have someone to race against.

CT 249

12-18-2006, 05:41 PM

Vega, very nice boats in those pics! I must also say that the only time I sailed an Open 60 I found it a real blast, although the boat has problems in other conditions.

Some interesting Handicap National figures.

37 - Pogo Classe 40

35- Sydney 40

33- Farr 40 OD

32.5- Pogo 40 Cruiser

32 - First 44.7 Racing
31 - IMX 40
30 - Mumm 30 and 36,

29.5 - Open 750

28.7 Beneteau 40.7 (average of various versions)

27.5- 11m One Design, Bavaria 35 Match,

27 - Open 650

26- Hobie 33, Melges 24,

25- Beneteau , Shamrock (skinny modern Etchells type)

22/23 - Etchells (based on the X3/4 and Dehler Db2 yardsticks which are almost the same as the Etchell in most other places).

21- First 31.7

20- First Class 8, X 79, Mini Transat 650 (I think)

19.5 - Pogo 650 (production Mini?)

16.5- J/24, Laser SB3, Speed Feet 18 (Open 18 style?), Holland masthead IOR half ton (Shamrock)

15.5- Dragon (?),

15- Open 570. The International Flying Fifteen rates about the same as a Dragon under other systems so would probably go here or a bit slower.

13.5- Arpege ('60s 1/2 tonner)

11.5- Micro Prototype

It's an interesting list, to my eyes. The Pogo 40 racer seems damn fast. The Pogo 40 Cruiser would be an interesting comparison, in $ and accomodation, to the IMX 40 which is quite an old design now. The comparison between the Sydney 40 and Farr 40 doesn't look right to me; depending which one is correct, the Pogo cruiser looks either fast, or damn fast.

The Open 750, about $80k US, is rated slower than the Mumm 30 which here in Oz seems to be slower than the top Sportsboats (including the Stealth 780 which is carbon, has a full cruising interior, and can beat the Bethwaite 8 but costs about $100k Aus). However, the performance of our modern radical sportsboats down here may vary too much according to conditions to make comparisons easy or valid.

The NZ Elliott 780, a cheap and conservative one design sportsboat, would be around 21, I think, but our trailable/sportsboats are only rated against other trailables and sportsboats.

The Flying 15 isn't rated under HN but it's reliably rated in other places so it probably is slightly slower than the Open 570, but on the other hand it's a tiny little '40s design and probably much cheaper and easier to run and tow. ALso has a growing French fleet.

It seems that you can choose the style you like and looking at these numbers, they'll all be reasonable performers; some of the Opens are damn fast, some just okay.

Vega

12-18-2006, 06:51 PM

Ct, interesting post. It looks like the Pogo is a real winner, if we consider $ for performance in the 40ft class.

The Akilaria is not much more expensive and it is said that it has a superior construction. It costs 219 851 Euros (racing version).

I'm confused, Vega. Is this a development class or a one-design? In what sense is it "open"?

I don’t think that the Open 5.7 was designed as a race boat. The 5.7 appears 6 or seven years after the Open 7.5. This one is a monotype race boat. They say about it:

“The 7.50 Open is a high performance one-design boat. It is currently the faster monohull for its size. The Groupe Finot applied all its experience from the very successfull Open 50' and 60' to develop this great raceboat.”

http://www.finot.com/general/index_ang.htm
http://www.premiumwanadoo.com/veloximages/thumbnails.php?album=3&page=1

They have called it open, not because it is an Open boat, but because it inherits most of the knowledge Jean Marie has learned with the 50 and 60 open.

The boat is an all carbon boat and an expensive boat and its diffusion was not wide.

http://www.openproductions.com/classe/open-class.htm

The 5.7 (and the 5.0) are recent boats that come in the line of the 7.5 Open, but are simpler and less expensive boats designed more to be used in sailing schools and as a fun boat and a fast day boat.

They say about it:

“The Open 5,70 is designed for sailing schools, renting, clubs and to be used by young people with a reduced surveillance and, in regatta, by anybody who have passed the age for dinghy acrobatics.”

http://www.finot.com/general/index_ang.htm

What has happened is that the boat is not only relatively inexpensive but also fast and it turned out to be the popular racing monotype that the 7.5 never was (too expensive).

The boat is also very forgiven and very stable. It is a polyvalent boat that can be used for learning or daysailing with the family and for racing. It is also a safe boat, it is unsinkable and uncapsizable, (or at least it is what they say).

There is already a European cup and I bet, soon they will have a world championship.

It is said that it is easy to go downwind at 14K. The boat can be sailed at 18k and the speed record is at the moment 21.4K.

I believe that the success of this boat has not to do with being fast, but with being fast, easy, polyvalent and inexpensive.

Paul B

12-18-2006, 07:20 PM

Anyone could adapt one of Phil's stressed ply designs-or design their own in the Moth class and use pro foils from Fastacraft and a pro sail/mast combo from KA and have a world class foiler Moth for around $7-8,000.

Since you already have you foil set why haven't you built your foiling boat? So much loud talking for two years about the simple mods needed to make you last non-foiler work, until you pitched it aside without making those "simple" mods. Time to move on to a far more complex problem when you can't master the simpler one.

More loud talking. You keep telling everyone how cheap and simple it is to build, you keep posting the same posts of numbers and loadings and areas and weights, but never a drawing you have done of these designs. You can't build without plans, can you? If you have plans, show them. Better yet, build your foiler for the cheap money you claim and show us how well it goes. Join the Revolution!

I'm sure there will be no good explanation for your inaction.

Paul B

12-18-2006, 08:12 PM

37 - Pogo Classe 40

33- Farr 40 OD

32.5- Pogo 40 Cruiser

It's an interesting list, to my eyes. The Pogo 40 racer seems damn fast. The Pogo 40 Cruiser would be an interesting comparison, in $ and accomodation, to the IMX 40 which is quite an old design now. The comparison between the Sydney 40 and Farr 40 doesn't look right to me; depending which one is correct, the Pogo cruiser looks either fast, or damn fast.

How are these numbers arrived at, and how do we interpret them? I assume this is for the F40 with the fractional kite. What about with their masthead kite? Is the Pogo rated faster than a F40 masthead? Would that mean they are faster on a W/L course in a medium breeze, or does that mean they are rated faster because they have the potential to sail away in 30 knots power reaching in the Sourthern Ocean?

Some of those numbers look a bit off, but overall it seems the numbers are pretty much spaced on known designs as I have seen in other places.

If the Class 40 isn't any faster than a F40 masthead kite rig around the bouys then it isn't really blinding fast, is it?

Doug Lord

12-18-2006, 08:19 PM

Paul B

12-18-2006, 08:49 PM

"b", I think it's unfortunate that you -apparently- don't understand enough about the most leading edge technologies of sailing to respond in a somewhat civil manner to my previous proposal for a sportboat rule. Instead of doing that you seem to make a rather silly effort to attack me personally while at the same time showing that you have -apparently again-failed to read what I've written. Perhaps you behaved in similar manner when working on the "Rule" projects in which you failed so miserably.
Too bad-it would be good to try to come up with a modern sportboat rule....

You are a joke. Nothing but misdirection and hyperbole. You never answer any hard questions put to you. You have never posted any drawings you have done for any of the dozen or so "great" ideas you've been so vocal about.

I did read one of your latest explanations about your latest "project". You couldn't post drawings because someone else hadn't time to draw them for you. That is the funniest thing a "designer" could say. Maybe not funny, just sad.

Here's one idea for the Modern Sportboat Rule: Limited to one moving appendage. Most of us would choose a centerline rudder, pivoting about a vertical axis. Works pretty well in the TP52 class. You might choose something else, produce no drawings for how it would work, produce no working model, and declare it the greatest thing since sliced toast in hundreds of internet posts.

RHough

12-18-2006, 10:47 PM

You are a joke. Nothing but misdirection and hyperbole. You never answer any hard questions put to you. You have never posted any drawings you have done for any of the dozen or so "great" ideas you've been so vocal about.

I did read one of your latest explanations about your latest "project". You couldn't post drawings because someone else hadn't time to draw them for you. That is the funniest thing a "designer" could say. Maybe not funny, just sad.

Here's one idea for the Modern Sportboat Rule: Limited to one moving appendage. Most of us would choose a centerline rudder, pivoting about a vertical axis. Works pretty well in the TP52 class. You might choose something else, produce no drawings for how it would work, produce no working model, and declare it the greatest thing since sliced toast in hundreds of internet posts.

The world is a Tuxedo and Doug is a pair of brown shoes. As soon as someone starts thinking about the foiling sportboat project, he'll patent one of the ideas and hope to make money selling licenses (without ever having to do any work or build any boats). Like the "K-Keel (http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14355)" or whatever and like the canting rigs that no one has seen yet are patented by the CBTF folk.

Doug has an international reputation, it's probably best to ignore him and let him reply to his own threads.

You make some very good points about having other boats to race against and that people are choosing Cal 20's to race. I can see owning a Cruising Class 40 in SF. Do the YRA ocean series and the SSS series. There are enough races to have a decent calendar and single or double-handed classes in all of them.

I don't know if there is enough shorthanded racing in So. Cal to justify the boat. I know the single/double handed scene is next to non-existent here in Vancouver. A Class 40 Cruiser might not be such a hot choice for Swiftsure, Southern Straits, SOAR, or the VARC series.

CT 249

12-19-2006, 02:08 AM

How are these numbers arrived at, and how do we interpret them? I assume this is for the F40 with the fractional kite. What about with their masthead kite? Is the Pogo rated faster than a F40 masthead? Would that mean they are faster on a W/L course in a medium breeze, or does that mean they are rated faster because they have the potential to sail away in 30 knots power reaching in the Sourthern Ocean?

Some of those numbers look a bit off, but overall it seems the numbers are pretty much spaced on known designs as I have seen in other places.

If the Class 40 isn't any faster than a F40 masthead kite rig around the bouys then it isn't really blinding fast, is it?

I think the HN numbers are pretty much all round, simply because as I understand it they are used widely around France for local racing, not just Southern Ocean blasting. The Pogo still looks quick to me, for a boat that can cross oceans singlehanded.

I'm not sure about the price. Owen Clarke's Open 40s seem to range from about 240 Euros up to 340. I'm not sure of the price of say a Beneteau 40.7 or a Farr 40; the numbers I can find seem way too low - can you give us an idea Vega?

I'm liking the look of the Class 40s more and more, but they're not ideal for my personal taste or for the races I do as far as I can see. It would be interesting to see a 28-32 foot version.

Stephen Ditmore

12-19-2006, 12:43 PM

Note the formation of a Short-handed Sailing Association in the Northeast United States: http://www.stormtrysail.org/Pages/01%20Breaking%20News/Frame%20Pages/2007-BIRW-SAS-1.html

I'm liking the look of the Class 40s more and more, but they're not ideal for my personal taste or for the races I do as far as I can see. It would be interesting to see a 28-32 foot version.

The trajectory of my own ambition is to complete the Classic Moth and sail it over summer 2007, then, in about a year, to begin design work on a 8.0 x 2.5 meter maxi trailer-sailer.

I'd be interested in your thinking, CT.... perhaps we can start spec'ing something together. We could look at the ORC GP28 rule for guidance (even if you don't want to do a carbon boat in the end) or we could a start with Mini650 parameters and simply increase the station spacing. Perhaps we could come at it from both those directions...

BTW I concur with Paul B about Steve Thompson's work. The T830 & T850 are a nice boats. The Esse 850, an Umberto Felci design out of Switzerland, is cool, too.

Doug has an international reputation, it's probably best to ignore him and let him reply to his own threads. A lot of us spend too much time in these forums, so don't be too harsh. The Doug Lord I respect is the one who was the first I know of to build an RC sailboat that could launch, retrieve, and re-launch a spinnaker. He also did, apparently, build an interesting little boat on which to test some of his ideas, and I have seen drawings of what he and Eric Sponberg have been working on. If you don't want to take him seriously, that's up to you. But sailing is dull if we keep designing the same thing endlessly, and new boats have to compete with brokerage boats, as Paul B has pointed out.

RHough

12-20-2006, 02:57 AM

A lot of us spend too much time in these forums, so don't be too harsh. The Doug Lord I respect is the one who was the first I know of to build an RC sailboat that could launch, retrieve, and re-launch a spinnaker. He also did, apparently, build an interesting little boat on which to test some of his ideas, and I have seen drawings of what he and Eric Sponberg have been working on. If you don't want to take him seriously, that's up to you. But sailing is dull if we keep designing the same thing endlessly, and new boats have to compete with brokerage boats, as Paul B has pointed out.

I've given Doug props on more than one occasion. I think he is a pretty clever guy. From various threads it is obvious that he does not have the knowledge to bring his visions to life at 12" to the foot scale. Absent any evidence of successful design, (the designer of the Rave "helped" with his foiling tri, and as near as I can tell he sublet the design of his canting 1 Metre) we have only his manner and character to give weight to his statements. I would expect a credible person to be able to admit failure as part of a learning curve. He claims his Aero-Skiff(tm) foiled, but had some control problems. The project was abandoned, and he has now gone on to the "X-18" 110 deg canting keel,foiling whatever ... he talks about "my 60' foiler" as if it exists, he cites 2 year old experiments with canting keel Melges 24's as successful, yet AFAIK canting keel M24's are not taking the class by storm. His claims are outlandish, and his response to being challenged varies from condescending to abusive. It is very hard to take anything he has to say seriously. After getting the last thread he started about his 60' fantasy foiler locked, he's started another one.

Yes, he's clever, he did a spinnaker launch, retrieve, and relaunch on a 50" boat. No small feat, even though the boat is small. However, he has earned his reputation. He doesn't play well with others.

I can't agree that sailing is dull. Things evolve to a point at which they are very good at what they do. The very nature of the air and water is type forming. Broad bows and pointed sterns aren't likely to work. :( We keep designing almost the same thing, because that's what works. If every new design is 50% closer to the perfect boat after only 7 generations 50% closer to the ideal is less than a 1% change.

There are enough lateral thinkers with more computing power on their desktops than mainframes of yesterday that I doubt that a hullform exists that some contributor to Popular Science hasn't tried. We still get people posting about golf ball dimples and sliding hulls on a cushion of tiny bubble ball bearings. We have people thinking that ejecting the keel and mast will somehow make a boat safer from sinking. We have people claiming that wing sails with half the area and lower CL will drive boats at the same speeds as soft rigs.

That new designs have to compete with brokerage boats tells me that boats with broad appeal (the ones that real people sail and the marinas are full of) are very much alike. It is when the corners of intended use are explored that we see innovation, but because the wind and sea have not changed, the corners are becoming type formed also. The Open class hull form of pointy bow and wide beam at the transom has proved to be a winning type. The long, narrow light displacement cruiser (ala Sundeer) is a winning type. The thought of cruising a class 40 has really gotten people riled up, but if the type works with a bit more traditional interior it could be the shape of things to come. I'm with CT in wondering if a 30 something boat of the same type might be a good boat.

Vega

12-20-2006, 03:02 PM

I'm not sure about the price. Owen Clarke's Open 40s seem to range from about 240 Euros up to 340. I'm not sure of the price of say a Beneteau 40.7 or a Farr 40; the numbers I can find seem way too low - can you give us an idea Vega?

I'm liking the look of the Class 40s more and more, but they're not ideal for my personal taste or for the races I do as far as I can see. It would be interesting to see a 28-32 foot version.

You mean from 240 000 to 340 000 Euros.;)

Regarding ocean-racing absolute performance a First 40.7 has nothing to do with a class40. In that type of boats (First) my favorite one is the x-40.

http://www.x-yachts.com/seeems/12756.asp

The First 40.7 and the Bavaria Match are relatively fast and inexpensive boats. The First costs only 158 000 euros, but the x-40 costs 263 000 Euros.

The least expensive of the 40class boats is the A40. It costs 142 900 euros. It was the first boat, and precedes the 40class. It was elected French boat of the year 2004. Now it is slower than the others and they are advertising a new A40.

The Pogo 40 costs 170 000 euros and the Jumbo 40 costs (a Rolland design) cost 183 000euros.

The Farr 40 costs 232 000 euros.

These prices include the French VAT (taxes) of 20%. For export the boats cost less 20%, plus the taxes you have to pay in your own countries.

Paul B

12-20-2006, 03:06 PM

I've given Doug props on more than one occasion. I think he is a pretty clever guy. From various threads it is obvious that he does not have the knowledge to bring his visions to life at 12" to the foot scale.

If by clever you mean someone who doesn't seem to understand the physical realities of boat design and construction, well then you might be right. As far as we can tell he can't do any design drawings himself. He certainly can't post them.

He constantly refers to the Bethwaite/Billoch 100 footer as if it is something real. In fact is is nothing but a sketch done more than 3 years ago. Nothing's been heard of it since, except from Douggie. Same with Langman's canting deck 60 turned canting keel 100 footer. It was going to do the Hobart race two years ago, and it hasn't been seen yet. It wasn't going to have any foils, but ol' Douggie keeps talking about it like it's about to be launched with the foiling package any day now.

He has been on the same rant for at least the past four years, like the repetitive activity of a caged primate. Here's a post from him on another board from October 2002. That's more than four years ago. I am sure you will recognize the same tired old claims he's still using today:

"A revolution in model sailing (and full size sailing) is about to be unleashed: monohull keelboats with hydrofoils that lift the entire boat clear of the water!
The feasibility of this kind of design has recently been proved in full size boats like the I14 belonging to David Lugg in Australia and several Moths from Western Australia.These boats are monohulls that are stabilized by the crew and fly on hydrofoils.
As of todays date NO ONE has succesfully sailed a monohull keel boat whether a model or a full size boat -on hydrofoils.But in a very short time that is going to change .Using a combination of a canting keel and on-deck sliding rack for stability these boats will sail on just two hydrofoils: one on the rudder and one on a daggerboard just ahead of the canting keel strut.
The advantages are tremendous: a keelboat is self-righting and therefore in the event of a "crash" the boat will recover automatically. The boat will be much faster than a conventional keel equipped monohull and will be able to carry more sail in higher wind without pitchpoling problems.
These boats will never be as fast as some foil equipped multihulls but will certainly establish themselves in rc sailing as the fastest type of monohull --whether they can routinely beat traditional keelboats around a triangular course remains to be seen--but the probability is very high that they will.So stay tuned--more here soon!"
_________________
Doug Lord
lorsail@webtv.net
http://www.microsail.com
http://www.monofoiler.com

Vega

12-20-2006, 05:22 PM

I'm liking the look of the Class 40s more and more, but they're not ideal for my personal taste or for the races I do as far as I can see. It would be interesting to see a 28-32 foot version.

But you have those versions. The manufacturers and designers of the 40class boats came from the two most successful Ocean racing monohull categories, the 60 (and 50) open and the Minis 6.5.

The First Pogo was a racing mini for the Transat, and that was more than 10 years ago.
http://www.pogostructures.com/?m=5&s=1&l=en

They have now the Pogo2 (6.5) , a very popular boat and still a strong contender in the Transat.

http://www.pogostructures.com/?m=2&s=1&l=en

After that one, they have made the Pogo 8.5. It was a huge success. It was the first cruiser racer of the family. It was elected French boat of the year 2000.

If you read French you can see the enthusiastic welcome that the boat had on the French specialized press:

http://www.pogostructures.com/?m=3&s=4&l=en

The transoceanic solo races, raced in small inexpensive and fast boats, raise among the French and many other Europeans a huge enthusiasm. The next Mini6.5 Transat (16th edition) is going to start on the 16 September 2007. Inscriptions opened 2/12/2006 and on the 15/12/2006 they had 131 Inscriptions, for a maximum of 75 possible.

The race starts from Fort-Boyard (France) and finishes in S. Salvador da Baia (Brazil).

Paul B

12-20-2006, 05:47 PM

But you have those versions.

After that one, they have made the Pogo 8.5. It was a huge success. It was the first cruiser racer of the family. It was elected French boat of the year 2000.

If you read French you can see the enthusiastic welcome that the boat had on the French specialized press:

http://www.pogostructures.com/?m=3&s=4&l=en

Do they have similar races for the 8.5 in or around France? It seems it is too small for many offshore races (by the requirements, not by the ability of the boat).

Stephen Ditmore

12-20-2006, 06:02 PM

CT 249

12-20-2006, 07:14 PM

Thanks for the pricing information, Vega. The Pogos look a lot cheaper than I thought they would be, based on my information about the price of the Minis which is very high.

I know of the Pogo 850 and the Minis, but for my personal taste they are too short for their beam and rig size, and not amazingly fast for the price and rig size (at least in the case of the Mini). The 850's not much quicker than say a First 31.7 or Beneteau 25. We've had a few very beamy boats in the Open style out here for years, and I still don't like the idea of packing a big rig and big beam onto a short hull.

The French are doing some nice interiors; a bit of timber to brighten things up, enough facilities for cruising, but without lashings of teak and air conditioning. Good to see.

On the other hand, the enormous difference in Handicap between the Pogo 40 Race and the Pogo 40 Cruiser may indicate that the dual-purpose boats have no chance in Open racing, where they do have a very good chance under other systems (like the X 40 link you posted).

About "Regarding ocean-racing absolute performance a First 40.7 has nothing to do with a class40. In that type of boats (First) my favorite one is the x-40."

I know that the 40.7 is nothing like as fast as the 40 (I'd shown the difference in the Handicap National) in terms of pure speed. I was comparing them in terms of speed for the dollar, or speed for accomodation. To me, pure speed isn't not very relevant because they're all keelboats and therefore all pretty slow.

Doug Lord

12-20-2006, 07:50 PM

You two have made comments based on a complete lack of information-and I'm tired of it; you have used inuendo, fabrication, sarcasm and misrepresentation to make your points in trying to portray me in the most negative light possible. Thats unfortunate because Stephen has a good thread going here and I deeply regret having to reply to such drivel.
Neither of you has posted a single proposed rule-right or wrong I have; you say my sportboat foiler preliminary calcs won't work: PROVE IT IF YOU CAN!!! I've posted a preliminary rule and the parameters of two boats to fit within the rule. You have posted nothing but negative trash when it comes to me-so PROVE I'm wrong instead of your inuendo laced malarkey. Sportboat foiler won't work? Show us why!!! "Sportboat 600" rule won't work? Why?
--------------------------
Here are comments made by Mr. Hough, the man of many faces- about my "Fantasy Foiler" when he was in a good mood:
* #16 * Post Feedback * Flag for Moderator *
09-09-2006, 04:58 PM
RHough
Retro Dude
*
Join Date: Nov 2005
Rep: 69 Posts: 725
Location: Port Moody BC
Doug, I'm impressed.
I'll be the first to say when my knee jerk reaction is in error.
I still feel that SA/WSA is too simple to be of much value. Although Doug is correct that a boat with a higher SA/WSA ratio should be faster.
I took the liberty of generating some drag and power curves for Doug's 60' CKSDBMF and an ORMA 60' Trimaran. I considered both wetted surface (skin friction) drag and induced drag fom the foils on both boats. I did not consider wavemaking drag, spray drag, or foil profile drag. Both boats will probably have similar additional drag in these areas.
Bottom Line:
Doug is absolutely right. The 60'MF is potentially faster than a displacement multi-hull.
I used Doug's Figures for foil sizes and weights. The 60'MF rig ends up being about 100' tall, which just happens to be the limit for an ORMA 60.
The ORMA 60 has only a 151% advantage in Sail Carrying Power over the 60'MF
My calcs show that the 60MF should be able to lift and foil just over 10 knots of boat speed. The drag polar peaks at lift off, then goes down until the boat speed is 25 knots or so. The negative slope of the drag curve (pink) is due to fact that the CL required of the foils goes down faster than the drag due to skin friction goes up. I used an AR of 7.5:1 (15x2) for both the main foil and the rudder foil and a max CL of 1.3.
The drag curve for the Tri (blue) has a flat area from about 10 knots to 20 knots for the same reason. The foil produces the needed lift at lower CL values as speed increases.
Somewhere between 20 and 25 knots the MF has lower drag than the Tri and the MF enjoys a drag advantage at all speeds above 25.
I added a line (yellow) to show the relative drag of the two boats.
The violet line shows the 151% power advantage for the Tri.
Right about 35 knots boat speed the Power Advantage curve meets the Drag Penalty Curve and above that point the MF should be faster.
I did some basic rig efficiency calculations to get a feel for the total drag vs power available for the two boats. These curves are purple for the MF and brown for the Tri. It is interesting to note that below about 15 knots boat speed the MF has very little power to spare. From 15 to 30 knots the percentage of available power required to equal drag is almost the same, and above 35 knots the Tri has more spare power than the MF.
These very basic calculations show that at 50 knots both boats have power to spare. This cannot be true, since ORMA Tri's have not hit 50 knots. I made no attempt to estimate parasite drag for either of the boats. At boat speeds over 15 knots or so, the aerodynamic drag of the hull and rig start eating into that extra available power and in practice all the extra power seems to be used somewhere in the 40-45 knot range.
I still don't think that a 60'CKSDBMF can be built that will foil reliably if at all. However, if it could be built it has the potential to compete with ORMA 60's.
Attached Thumbnails
*
__________________
"Those who fall in love with practice without science are like a sailor who steers a ship without a helm or compass, and who can never be certain whither he is going"
Leonardo Da Vinci
*

*

*

Paul B

12-20-2006, 08:07 PM

Paul B

12-20-2006, 08:34 PM

A challenge to prove a negative. You can't get any more desperate than that. I will be happy when you build these things and prove they can work.

You couldn't get your theories to work in a monohull model.

Then you built a 16 footer that failed so miserably you parked it for years and tried to convince everyone it was a success. So you junked it instead of facing the "humiliation" of actually letting people see it fail time and again.

So on to a new 18 foot idea with even more difficulty in the design. What is the time schedule for that one? No answer I presume. Just yakkity yak yak.

When asked hard questions about that one you don't answer, and on to more crazed postings about 60 foot canting foilers.

Your 14 footer is on hold until someone else designs it, right?

What happened to your 12 footer and the 17 footer designs that a "Major" boat manufacturer was going to build? What about the 17 foot canting keeler you had "in development". What about the mini with your silly high drag keel (TM)? What about the 20 foot foiler you were going to have launched by early this year? I guess none of that can happen if you don't produce working drawings, eh?

Focus! Take on ONE project and see it through to success. Build your 25 foot "sportboat" with the foils and canting keel and all your (TM) rig stuff and go out and rip up the Melges 24s, if you can find a venue that will let you race. Or build your 18 foot thing with sliding this and that and, well, I don't know what you would do with that. Better yet, build you 14 foot "People's Foilee" and get in on the potential goldmine if you can win the selection if they decide to admit a foiler into the Olympics. Why should the Blade and the Prowler be the only choices? You can put your talent on the line against those guys and maybe be the big weiner.

On the other hand you could sit at your TV and type the same things over and over again for another four years.

Foiler-canter-foiler-canter-foiler-canter-foiler-canter-foiler-canter-foiler-canter-foiler-canter-foiler-canter-foiler-canter-foiler-canter...

Quoted from a study about repetitive behaviours:

"This repetitive, apparently senseless behaviour indicates neurosis or
even insanity. It is caused by boredom, loneliness, frustration, stress
and psychological and habitat deprivation."

You two have used comments based on a complete lack of information-and I'm tired of it; you have used inuendo, sarcasm and misrepresentation to make your points in trying to portray me in the most negative light possible. Thats unfortunate because Stephen has a good thread going here and I deeply regret having to reply to such drivel.
Neither of you has posted a single proposed rule-right or wrong I have; you say my sportboat foiler prelininary calcs won't work: PROVE IT IF YOU CAN!!! I've posted a preliminary rule and the parameters of two boats to fit within the rule. You have posted nothing but negative trash when it comes to me-so PROVE I'm wrong instead of your inuendo laced malarkey. Sportboat foiler won't work? Show us why!!! "Sportboat 600" rule won't work? Why?
--------------------------
Here are comments made by Mr. Hough, the man of many faces- about my "Fantasy Foiler" when he was in a good mood:
* #16 * Post Feedback * Flag for Moderator *
09-09-2006, 04:58 PM
RHough
Retro Dude
*
Join Date: Nov 2005
Rep: 69 Posts: 725
Location: Port Moody BC
Doug, I'm impressed.
I'll be the first to say when my knee jerk reaction is in error.
I still feel that SA/WSA is too simple to be of much value. Although Doug is correct that a boat with a higher SA/WSA ratio should be faster.
I took the liberty of generating some drag and power curves for Doug's 60' CKSDBMF and an ORMA 60' Trimaran. I considered both wetted surface (skin friction) drag and induced drag fom the foils on both boats. I did not consider wavemaking drag, spray drag, or foil profile drag. Both boats will probably have similar additional drag in these areas.
Bottom Line:
Doug is absolutely right. The 60'MF is potentially faster than a displacement multi-hull.
I used Doug's Figures for foil sizes and weights. The 60'MF rig ends up being about 100' tall, which just happens to be the limit for an ORMA 60.
The ORMA 60 has only a 151% advantage in Sail Carrying Power over the 60'MF
My calcs show that the 60MF should be able to lift and foil just over 10 knots of boat speed. The drag polar peaks at lift off, then goes down until the boat speed is 25 knots or so. The negative slope of the drag curve (pink) is due to fact that the CL required of the foils goes down faster than the drag due to skin friction goes up. I used an AR of 7.5:1 (15x2) for both the main foil and the rudder foil and a max CL of 1.3.
The drag curve for the Tri (blue) has a flat area from about 10 knots to 20 knots for the same reason. The foil produces the needed lift at lower CL values as speed increases.
Somewhere between 20 and 25 knots the MF has lower drag than the Tri and the MF enjoys a drag advantage at all speeds above 25.
I added a line (yellow) to show the relative drag of the two boats.
The violet line shows the 151% power advantage for the Tri.
Right about 35 knots boat speed the Power Advantage curve meets the Drag Penalty Curve and above that point the MF should be faster.
I did some basic rig efficiency calculations to get a feel for the total drag vs power available for the two boats. These curves are purple for the MF and brown for the Tri. It is interesting to note that below about 15 knots boat speed the MF has very little power to spare. From 15 to 30 knots the percentage of available power required to equal drag is almost the same, and above 35 knots the Tri has more spare power than the MF.
These very basic calculations show that at 50 knots both boats have power to spare. This cannot be true, since ORMA Tri's have not hit 50 knots. I made no attempt to estimate parasite drag for either of the boats. At boat speeds over 15 knots or so, the aerodynamic drag of the hull and rig start eating into that extra available power and in practice all the extra power seems to be used somewhere in the 40-45 knot range.
I still don't think that a 60'CKSDBMF can be built that will foil reliably if at all. However, if it could be built it has the potential to compete with ORMA 60's.
Attached Thumbnails
*
__________________
"Those who fall in love with practice without science are like a sailor who steers a ship without a helm or compass, and who can never be certain whither he is going"
Leonardo Da Vinci
*

*

*

CT 249

12-20-2006, 10:03 PM

Perhaps what's needed is an 8.5 class. In the spirit of "Mini 6.5" it could called the "Petit 8.5". Paul B, could it be precisely the kind of entry level class for young designers to showcase their boats that 1/4 and 1/2 ton classes, and MORC, used to be?

I'd hate to see it compete for sailors with GP28. Is there a way to take the best of both rules and come up with a single class? If GP33 & 42 permit carbon hulls, perhaps the smaller class should be the one that doesn't. Accept that, and how much would one have to modify the GP28 rule to make it parallel Class40 (and permit the Pogo)?

I can imagine the Storm Trysail Club (http://www.stormtrysail.org/) and the Short-handed Sailing Association (http://www.stormtrysail.org/Pages/01%20Breaking%20News/Frame%20Pages/2007-BIRW-SAS-1.html) getting interested in such a class. It could be an entry level Bermuda 1-2 or Marblehead to Halifax boat.

Limiting beam to 8'-6" (just over 2.5 meters) would have practical benefits for trailering, though, at least here in the U.S. The deck flares on the Phuket 8 are removable to reduce its beam:
http://asianyachting.com/AYmasters/Promotion/Phuket8.htm
http://www.sea-phuket.com/boat-sales/phuket-sports-8s.htm

There's quite a few very nice trailable but Cat 3. capable 28 footers down here (Australia and New Zealand). With some loss of performance they could be built to Cat 2.

Young 840 (pics each side) is 1700-1800kg, has some space but generally a minimalist fitout, is a bit over 8.5feet but trails with a permit, I think. Rated considerably quicker than a Pogo 850.

The Beale 850 (middle pic) looks like a cruiser and has a full interior but it seems the quick versions would scare a Melges 24, although with only two M24s here it's hard to judge.

Some boats of this style will rate well IRC, and are very versatile because they do well around short courses yet could be sailed offshore (at least one has provision for positive buoyancy making it very safe IMHO). They have enough accomodation for a small family. I'd take a version of this class in the Sydney to Hobart and sail it or trail it home later.....great way to go. I'm not saying that they are better than the Open style, they're just another way to go.

I'm sometimes tempted to do some re-mortgaging and get one but my current 8.5m 2,300 kg Spencer fractional just collects barnacles these days cause I'm spending all my time in boards and dinghies, I have access to a trailable cruising cat, and the small offshore yacht scene is dead here. It's all just big boats, or golf handicap, or guys going on about the fact that they can go 11.2 knots intead of 10.7 knots. I'll have another go at sparking the half tonners up, as they have done in Europe, after the Canoe and Laser Masters worlds next year.

Stephen Ditmore

12-21-2006, 09:03 AM

Seeing as how the GP level is a 26, not a 28, they are different birds.
That's what I get for trusting my memory. :eek: Thanks for the correction. :)
http://www.orc.org/index.php?id=163

I'm happy to see that what I had proposed is the case: while carbon hulls are allowed in GP33 and GP42, they are not allowed in GP26. http://www.orc.org/fileadmin/user_upload/download/FINAL_RULES.pdf

Vega et.al.: What would you think of offshore racing in GP26s? What modifications would need to be made to the GP26 rule to produce boats for the type of shorthanded offshore racing engaged in by Class40?

CT 249: How 'bout the Van Munster GP26?
http://www.vanmunsterboats.com/ORC%20GP26.html
That's built near you, isn't it?

How 'bout the Thompson 830 (http://www.tboat.com/T830-design.html) or the Phuket 8 (http://www.sea-phuket.com/boat-sales...-sports-8s.htm)? My design aim will be to produce a boat similar in performance to these while being a more comfortable overnighter. Is that what you're thinking, too?

The more I look at GP26, the more I think I might design one. The overnighter features I have in mind can be added after for a cruising version of same.

Vega

12-21-2006, 01:29 PM

Sure, you can design a boat that is narrower and has a smaller rig, and uses live crew instead of water ballast. My information is that such a boat would be faster around most courses. But that underlines that the Open style is not always faster and more efficient, as you seem to be assuming. It's just faster in some conditions, yet it's often held up as being the ultimate.

You are interested in singlehanded 60 footers despite the fact that they are much slower than 90 footers. You are be interested in monos despite the fact that they are much slower than multis, so why is it illogical to be interested in cheaper dual-purpose boats? The LOA and the number of hulls and crew are all factors that slow a boat without making it less interesting, why then are other factors that slow a boat seen as being so bad?

Well CT, I am enjoying this exchange, but you have to take into consideration that my 1st language is not English, so it takes more time for me to reply.

First let me say to you that you have a wrong image of what boats I like or dislike. I know, sometimes I can be pretty confusing, because my tastes are wide (and not only in boats). You have said somewhere that I preferred beamy boats. That’s not true. Fact is that not long ago I used to think exactly as Milan:

Hi Paulo,

... but I don't think that open 60's are the optimum type for the racing in the wrong direction. In such race, flatish bottom with a very wide stern for planing wouldn't be as advantageous. I expect that a scaled down "Adrian" would be a better choice. Narrower hull with much finer bow and a rounded bottom would slice easier through the waves, with a less bouncy ride, giving a bit more "comfort" to the crew and less stress to the boat.

If you go to my gallery you can see that the Oceangoing boat that I have chosen to modify and adapt for an eventual personal use is a narrow boat.

Now I have motives to think that I was underestimating the windward capacity of beamier hulls, like the ones from the Open60 or the ones from the 40class.

That’s why I have said that I would like very much to see an Open60 race against the prevailing winds. I would like to see if Juan K. is right about their performance against the wind, or if other kind of Open60 boats like the ones Milan is talking about, would be a better choice to win that race.

Those affirmations of Juan K only confirmed something I was suspecting. I don’t know if he is right, but my interest in the Open60 and the 40class has to do with that, I mean to find out the real performances of that kind of hulls, in comparison with more traditional and less beamier ones.

My main interest in the Open60s is because they are (with the minis 6.5) the most Open ocean category and that permits the boat to be less rule designed. I know that you seem not to consider size important as the main parameter, but I, as many people am interested in boats of a certain size, so for many people, best performance for a certain size is an important parameter in the choice of a boat.

About size, if they had an Open 42 to 50 Open class, I would be more interested on those, because it’s the size of boats most people chose (and are able to pay) as an Oceangoing cruiser. I am interested also in 90ft boats, but in a lesser manner. People that can buy them are a very marginal quantity.

About single-handed boats, versus boats that have to use a big crew as movable ballast: Well, I have not a great interest on those. I am interested in boats that don’t need a large crew to be sailed.
Most long distance cruisers sail single-handed with the occasional help of the wife. I am not interested in a cruising boat that needs a large crew, or that needs movable ballast in the form of a crew, to be sailed.

In this sense, single handled ocean racing boats give a much larger and positive contribution for the development of Ocean going cruisers than oceanracing boats that need a large crew, for handling the sails and for ballast (sitting on the rail).

You are wrong in thinking that I don’t like racing multihulls or that I am not interested in them. I don’t understand why they are not allowed to race the Sydney-Hobart, and I am in favor of allowing them to enter all ocean races.

My focus in monohulls is because I want to learn more in order to know how to have a better and faster cruising boat. And the cats are no option for me, by the reasons I explained in that thread about cruising that I have been running. I have to say that I never stop looking to see if anything interesting and suitable comes up, and recently something very interesting has appeared on the market...but the PRICE).

Finally about that story of beamy boats, I have to say that I don’t like beamy and fat boats. The boats we are talking about only look beamy on the paper. They are large transom boats, and if you take a look at the hull (outside the water), they look sharp and elegant. I don’t know how to explain that, but it’s true. I have seen a Pogo 6.5 in the shipyard, and it looked not beamy, but looked like an elegant and fast boat.

I wish everybody nice holidays and a good Christmas time.

CT 249

12-21-2006, 05:08 PM

It is an interesting discussion, Vega, and I apologise if the way I have expressed myself makes it seem that I am putting down your tastes and opinions. In the end, it just gets down to personal taste and the sort of sailing and cruising you personally prefer.

About beam; the Opens are sharper and more elegant along the waterline than above the waterline, but then again boats like the typical New Zealand craft are much narrower still.

I think the conditions we sail in may have something to do with the choice of boats. Here, the racing scene is about coastal races, the Sydney-Hobart, or short events. These tend to emphasise upwind ability, and evidence from the Open types we have is that they aren't that great upwind and that they are not that good around short courses. One other point is that some of our sailing grounds tend to have a very confused chop, even in light winds. Beamy boats with convex flare above the waterline struggle because the convex waterline gets hit by the chop. Boats with straighter flare seem to do a lot better. This was noted even decades ago in IOR yachts.

I don't think that you're not interested in multis; asking why people don't sail multis if they really want to get maximum speed was just a rhetorical question.

Merry Christmas and thanks for all the discussion and information.

CT 249

12-21-2006, 05:51 PM

That's what I get for trusting my memory. :eek: Thanks for the correction. :)
http://www.orc.org/index.php?id=163

I'm happy to see that what I had proposed is the case: while carbon hulls are allowed in GP33 and GP42, they are not allowed in GP26. http://www.orc.org/fileadmin/user_upload/download/FINAL_RULES.pdf

Vega et.al.: What would you think of offshore racing in GP26s? What modifications would need to be made to the GP26 rule to produce boats for the type of shorthanded offshore racing engaged in by Class40?

CT 249: How 'bout the Van Munster GP26?
http://www.vanmunsterboats.com/ORC%20GP26.html
That's built near you, isn't it?

How 'bout the Thompson 830 (http://www.tboat.com/T830-design.html) or the Phuket 8 (http://www.sea-phuket.com/boat-sales...-sports-8s.htm)? My design aim will be to produce a boat similar in performance to these while being a more comfortable overnighter. Is that what you're thinking, too?

The more I look at GP26, the more I think I might design one. The overnighter features I have in mind can be added after for a cruising version of same.

I had a look over Fred Barrett's own boat years ago. It was quite similar to the GP 26. Lovely boat.

The T830 had a short production run as the T8 here. Very fast, very expensive at something like $100,000 Aus. It has been said that it largely killed off development at the front end of the fleet, which until then had seen a bit of an arms race with optimising Rocket 780s and Elliott 780s etc.

Boats of the moment in the Sportsboats down here are probably the Bethwaite custom 8m Vivace (the canting keel version has been testing and sailing slower than the fixed-keel Vivace but there may be teething problems) and the Cawardine Stealth 8m Stealthy. Stealthy is a brilliant boat. She's similar in pace to the T830 and Vivace, but has a good interior; bunks, separate forepeak/head (I think), almost standing headroom from memory, galley, etc. The wings bolt on to a hull "inspired by" the Elliott 780 (third pic). Problem is getting all that into such a lightweight package means $$$$$$$$$$$ so only two have been made. The little wonder has more accomodation tha n Mumm 30 and goes quicker and can be towed behind a car, but more people spend more and buy Mumms. That seems significant to me.

Personally, I find it hard to see a small Grand Prix boat taking off. It's failed repeatedly in the past. Can many of the people who are happy to race a small boat afford to buy a race machine and then lose a lot of the value when it becomes obsolete? Okay, the Mini gets a following but is 120+ boats which mainly gather once every four (?) years for one race a viable model for the GP?

I know classes like the GP are trying to replicate the grand days of IOR quarters and halves, but quarters and halves had two differences which seem to be very important to me (although of course I may be utterly wrong). One is that the Quarter and Half Ton Cup started off as cruiser/racer events with low budgets. That meant that the average sailor could relate to them and they gained prestige from big entries and being a truly worldwide class. You had irrestistable stories of young guys building cheap boats at home and taking on the world succesfully; that doesn't apply if the costs are high and the rule too complex and typeformed. The fact that the cruiser/racer production halves were so popular gave the classes a prestige and springboard that allowed them to develop the fleets of racing machines - but can you just drop a grand prix class into place, with no history and no local fleets, and expect people to take notice????

Secondly, the Halves and Quarters were very competitive in local racing against open fleets, so they had a use when outmoded or in the 99.999999999999% of places in the world where you won't normally get a GP Class fleet very often.

I'm running another and very different class at the moment, and it's interesting to see how little conservatism there is, even in the yachting establishment, when you produce a new class that's cheap and dual purpose. However, that is in the form of sailing about as far as you can get from offshore yachts so it may mean zilch.

Stephen Ditmore

12-21-2006, 06:20 PM

I'm running another and very different class at the moment, and it's interesting to see how little conservatism there is, even in the yachting establishment, when you produce a new class that's cheap and dual purpose. However, that is in the form of sailing about as far as you can get from offshore yachts so it may mean zilch.

I expect my own sailing to be in my Classic Moth.... I take it you're also talking about a dinghy? Joy frequently comes in a small package, doesn't it.

Thanks for the report on boats down under in the 8m size range. It's very intriguing. Should I design an 8m I'm thinking in terms of a family version. If a pure raceboat can be pulled out of the same mold it'd be interesting.... but if I scare away the rest of the family, is it really a boat I would want?

Merry Christmas
Stephen

Paul B

12-21-2006, 06:41 PM

The T830 had a short production run as the T8 here. Very fast, very expensive at something like $100,000 Aus.

One T8 sailed up here, and then we had the Viper 830. The Vipers are considerably slower than a Mumm 30 in bouy racing, about 12 secs/mile or so. How do the T8s line up with Mumms down there?

Boats of the moment in the Sportsboats down here are probably the Bethwaite custom 8m Vivace (the canting keel version has been testing and sailing slower than the fixed-keel Vivace but there may be teething problems) and the Cawardine Stealth 8m Stealthy.

Are there any other canting 8s in the works? I heard a rumour that the molds were changing back to making fixed keelers like Vivace.

Stealthy is a brilliant boat. She's similar in pace to the T830 and Vivace, but has a good interior; bunks, separate forepeak/head (I think), almost standing headroom from memory, galley, etc. The wings bolt on to a hull "inspired by" the Elliott 780 (third pic). The little wonder has more accomodation tha n Mumm 30 and goes quicker and can be towed behind a car, but more people spend more and buy Mumms. That seems significant to me.

Is the Stealth actually 8m, or is it longer? What is the weight, and sail area? We don't have any 26 footers that go around with the 32 foot long Mumm 30s. I'm wondering if they call it an 8m, but maybe it is longer? Is it on pace uphill, or is it behind at the top mark and blitzing by on the runs?

I know classes like the GP are trying to replicate the grand days of IOR quarters and halves, but quarters and halves had two differences which seem to be very important to me (although of course I may be utterly wrong). One is that the Quarter and Half Ton Cup started off as cruiser/racer events with low budgets.

I'm not sure about the late 60s (Arpege, Scampi, Accent), or up to about '73, but after that I think there were more and more outright race boats. Roy Cundiff's North Star won the Half Worlds ('74? or '75) and was pretty much a flush deck 30 footer with a square wooden box on top to meet the headroom requirements. I remember the articles about that regatta and there were a lot of these types of specials. Shortly thereafter things like Magic Bus, Newspaper Taxi, and the others weren't such dual purpose things either.

Secondly, the Halves and Quarters were very competitive in local racing against open fleets, so they had a use when outmoded or in the 99.999999999999% of places in the world where you won't normally get a GP Class fleet very often.

That is the saving grace. If you had a 10th place World's half tonner you could come home and be pretty competitive locally, against similar sized boats and overall against all other IOR raters. There may not have been enough halves in the area for a class, but you could still get a quorum by having 10 or so boats rating from 20 to 25.

It is all about having critical mass. Even the new Box Rules don't give any chance to race your TP52 vs STP 65 vs ORC42 if you don't have a class of your own type.

CT 249

12-21-2006, 06:53 PM

The class is actually a junior windsurfer; cheap and cheerful, not loaded with carbon.

The 8m I can see working is a family version, like the one you want, that has a spirit somewhat similar to the Classic Moth. That is, you know the Classic isn't as fast as the International Moth - but it's still a lovely boat to sail and it suits you and many people and therefore the various forms of classics are more popular than the foilers.

If I got back into yachts in a few years, I wonder if there could be potential in a class using IRC. You could make it a rating band class, in the mid .900s, with an LOA around 8.5m and a minimum DLR, and an announced intention of creating a box rule class of racer/cruisers. Maybe the class could be designed to run in tandem with a 7.5m racer class; again starting as a band class with the announced intention of developing a box rule, but the band class would always also exist. I really like the way the F16 cat was designed to rate the same as the F18, so the two can race together in a more meaningful way than if they were different in basic speeds. The 750R/850 CR combo could be similar. It wouldn't be a perfect class, but it may get off the ground especially if boats just outside the box could be grandfathered in.

However, this is pipe dreamng for me I'm afraid, as the difference in $ between a new boat and my current one is way more than the difference in function. After the junior windsurfer is established more firmly I may try to stir something up, but that's not going to happen for a while. I'd love to see a boat you may design.

Vega

12-21-2006, 07:28 PM

Do they have similar races for the 8.5 in or around France? It seems it is too small for many offshore races (by the requirements, not by the ability of the boat).

Paul, on the site of the Pogo 850 owner’s association you can see the races (right side, down):
http://www.assopogo.com/

Some are only for Pogos, others are coastal races and there is a classical Transat, the Transquadra, that has been won twice by a Pogo 850.

The boat is also used in Spain, in an Ocean championship for solos or duo crews.

The Pogo 850 is not a racing boat, it has not a racing version and its draft is only 1.75m.

As an oceangoing cruiser racer I think it is a fast boat. If we compare with boats of the same LOA, around here, only pure racing boats are faster:

Pogo 850 LOA850 – 22.5 First 27.7 LOA830 - 20 First 31.7LOA950 – 21
J80 LOA 800 – 21.5 J92 LOA912 – 24.5

But I believe that if the J’s or the Firsts were raced solo, they would be left behind very quickly. They need and are designed to be raced with a full crew on the rail. The Pogo is designed to be solo crewed and doesn’t need a crew on the rail to go fast.

Another difference is the extraordinary seaworthiness of this type of boats. For them, the worst conditions put them in an advantageous position compared with other boats of the same length and even bigger boats.

In on of the recent Ocean races of the Spanish Solo championship, the ANS cup, a Pogo 850, with strong winds (5 boats have retired from the race) won in compensated and real time. The second boat was a 52ft and it left behind also a First 47.7 that came third.

http://www.ans2000.org/noticias/

Perhaps what's needed is an 8.5 class. In the spirit of "Mini 6.5" it could called the "Petit 8.5". Paul B, could it be precisely the kind of entry level class for young designers to showcase their boats that 1/4 and 1/2 ton classes, and MORC, used to be?

I believe that when Pogo launched the new 850, they were hoping that the mini6.5 became the 8.5 class, but it did not work that way. The Mini6.5 continued as the basic entry class for Ocean racing and it has become more and more important. In the next race I believe we will have canting keel minis.
Take a look at the entry list for the next Transat race that will only take place 6 months from now:

http://www.wmaker.net/classemini_en/download/Inscriptions_Transat_21_decembre_2006.pdf

Have you noticed the size of the waiting list?
Take a look at the association site. I think they have more than 400 associates.

http://www.wmaker.net/classemini_en/index.php?action=rubrique&numrub=1

It is in the Minis that European young NA begin their racing career as well as young pilots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLeiFt0b5_Y&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvukolhoYpk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdqonZXKzWM

Many boats are made by the racers in the “garage”.

This is one of those garage boats. Is it not a beauty?