16' Keel boat-high performance

trimaran?

If you look closely at p319 you(I) can clearly see a wake; the one on p261 is a close call but you can see that the leeward cross arm appears to be generating spray way outboard from the hull.
You raise good questions on unballasted boats but I repeat my question: do you think the M4 is a trimaran because it has buoyancy pods?
As far as ballasted boats go I think the answer is a lot clearer: the ballast develops all the RM in the normal course of sailing; they have fixed and/or canting keels and are probably capable of self-righting. The sailing characteristics are all those of a ballasted monohull-albeit a very light ,very wide(from an RM standpont) monohull.
===============
Another consideration: On keelboats with buoyancy pods the characteristic is that if the pod touches the water it slows down whereas on a trimaran if the ama touches the water it adds to the RM to the point, on a well designed boat, of flying the rest of the boat and increasing speed. The monohull keelboats with pods generally have the pods quite high so that they only contact the water at a relatively large angle of heel-the point being to prevent the thing from capsizing or being knocked down before ballast can be shifted across the exceptionally wide beam. Seems like a clear cut difference to me.

 

What Trimaran

So is this a trimaran? see attached

I say that in the normal course of sailing she doesn't use the amas. They're just there in case something doesn't work out so nicely in the primary mode.

OOOPS! Someone forgot to fasten the keel and the bulb before they left port.

This has degenerated to another of those threads with hypothetical claims followed by round after round of desperate explanations in answer to legitimate questions.

Let's face it, there are going to be certain folks who will continue to toss all kinds of what-if boat designs on the table in the hopes that one of them will work. I'm reminded of the process of a kid building one of those wooden push buggies from the scrap stuff his dad had laying around in the garage.

So, here we are, faced with another attempt to marry an odd grouping of technological parts to solve a problem that doesn't seem to exist in the real world. Personally, I'd be happier if the proponents of this type of stuff would simply start looking at the process as one that has legitimate as well as perceived limits to the space one can leap in order to effect change.

Let's see a boat that has solutions designed to make a logical move to the next level and not an artificially manipulated conglomeration of parts simply because it can be done.

OR, it really might be time for me to haul out the '64 Chevy Impala with the surplus JATO rocket on the roof and this time I'll equip her with a watertight floor, a pair of life jackets and a GPS system to verify top speeds. No, it's not a rocket boat as the rocket engine does not come into play in the normal course of tooling around the harbor. It's only there in case of emergency.

 

So Doug, what you're trying to say is that designers of those boats, who told me how they should be sailed and the theories behind them, are full of b.s.?

You think that instead of listening to the designers, I should believe some guy who has never seen these boats, who has never spoken to the designers, who has never been told how to sail them by the designers, who doesn't have access to the higher-quality versions of those pics some of us have?

Re the point about the M4; yes I agree the M4 is a hard boat to call. Can I remind you that even many of the open-minded Mothies found this a difficult point.

But your last paragraph seems to underline the difficulty in what you say is a clear-cut call; you speak of "relatively large angles of heel". As you said yourself, we are dealing with things that are "relative" and therefore not clear cut so surely the delineation is not as easy as you claim.

Again, please give us some idea of the dividing line....how often can you touch the hull before such a boat becomes a tri? What is a "relatively" high angle of heel? How much speed does one of these boats have to lose when the float touches? The way you describe the boats that are "clearly" monos is actually a clear description of the way the trimaran HSP and Tri Fli worked. They slowed when the "training wheels" hit the water and the point of the floats was to stop the whole thing capsizing before trim could be altered.

And once again, what about the tris that had minimal floats (like the Formula 40 Promocean) set quite high, and attempted to just use foils for support "in the normal course of sailing". Were they also monos?

If you don't count the hulls you don't use "in the normal course of sailing", if monofoilers improve to the stage you claim they can will we stop calling them "monohulls"?

PS damned if I can see a wake from the lee float on p 319. I do know it's not meant to be sailed on the float; but hey, that's just what Julian and Frank say and what do they know, they only created, designed, built and sailed the things......

 

Sdb

Hold on Chris (249)! It was me that pointed out that Mr. Bethwaite called the HSP a trimaran! My own 14 footer years ago with small buoyancy pods was described by me as a trimaran; in my last post I said that you had made ".. GOOD POINTS" regarding unballasted boats of this type! I grant you that in the unballasted category the mono with buoyancy pods is hard to tell from a tri with small amas. The case of the M4 as well as the entire UK Moth discussion was referenced by me in an earlier post. I'm trying to discuss this not lay down any "laws".
I do feel that the subject of the last part of this thread- my winged SDB and the Bethwaite/Billoch, Langman, Out 95 concepts are significantly different than the unballasted boats we have discussed and much more likely to represent a considerably different type of sailing machine. When they sail like a monohull but look like a tri which is it? I think the answer may be important at least in the larger boats. And if the Maxi Skiff concept using sliding on-deck ballast also happens to match up perfecly with a monohull hydrofoil configuration
what then?
A self-righting pitchpole proof configuration with the speed AT LEAST equal to current multihulls has got to be an exciting prospect to any sailor who loves going fast on the water. These guys MAY HAVE come up with the ultimate speed machine: fast as hell on the water with no possibility of pitchpole or non-recoverable capsize. I think it is a very exciting concept that has merit in one form or another from small to large.
======================
The key dividing line from hard to tell to clear as a bell has to be whether or not the boat carries lead ballast in the keel possibly along with a facility to move lead or other forms of ballast side to side on deck.
Lets see: in how many discussions can it be found that keelboats carry lead and multihulls don't? The term hybrid comes to mind and maybe that is the answer.....

 

Since it has been well established that the HSP and other trimarans don't have any requirement for lead ballast, it begs the question; "Why add a keel or other ballast to a boat that does not need it?"

Coming from another direction, since non-ballasted designs have been proved faster by increasing RM with multiple hulls, why retain a ballast system when it is not needed for RM?

What is the design goal of a podded, moving ballast boat?

What can a podded moving ballast boat do that an un-ballasted boat cannot?

What's the point?

 

????

Read what I wrote about the SDB. Read what Bethwaite wrote about his version of the Maxi Skiff. Read what Langman wrote about his version of the Maxi Skiff. Read what the Out 95 guys wrote about their version of the concept. Links have been thoughtfully provided in previous posts to make the process as painless as possible.

 

Doh!

From Doug Lord:

"Lets see: in how many discussions can it be found that keelboats carry lead and multihulls don't? The term hybrid comes to mind and maybe that is the answer....."

Geez, only 109 posts into the objective lesson and we arrive at this epiphany.

That's advancing the art?

 

Doug, in two or three sentences;

What is the point of a ballasted multi-hull?

I don't want to read hype. I'd like someone to point out what a podded, moving ballast boat can do that cannot be done with a traditional tri or catamaran.

All the people you sight have a design goal of building a boat that will be classified as a mono-hull while stretching the definition further than anyone with eyes and a brain can accept.

In every form of racing, lead is added to slow vehicles down. It's called a weight penalty. Why would anyone design a boat with a built in penalty?

 

On what planet?

I just checked again:

2004 "Orange II" 120ft Cat, Bruno Peyron, FRA, 706.2nm.29.42kts

2006 "ABN AMRO TWO" 70ft, Sebastien Josse, AUS, 562.96 nm, 23.45kts

In Doug's world, 143 miles short and 6 knots slower is equal speed.

On planet earth, the Rube Goldberg School of Yacht Design is not even close to current mutlihull speed.

 

Very nice picture of Hydroptere. What is it Chris? Looks like a monohull with training hulls. Wait a minute, what are those wings growing out of the floats? Seems like the floats don't really need to be in the water. Must be there for emergencies only.
Definitely a monohull, no question about it! Someone should tell Alain Thebault not to get those floats wet unless it is an emergency, as if he does, something catastrophic could happen as he would be very mistaken if he thinks he is riding on a trimaran.
Someone should tell a certain Mr Lord that some of us are real enthusiasts about yacht design and get sick of sifting through pages of B-S trying follow a thread which could be really interesting if it were not being hijacked!

 

Sdb

"Frosh", it would be hard for me to hijack a thread I started! At any rate, your comments show no understanding of the concepts being discussed here and instead simply add to the BS posted so regularly by a couple of others. If you trully had an appreciation of yacht design you might recognize a new concept when you saw one and be able to comment intelligently on it.

 

Ah, back to the personal attacks I see.

NEW Concept? What new concept?

Ballast?

Sliding seat?

Sails?

The only new concept I've seen come out of RGYD is the idea of getting rules changed so your combination of old ideas can compete. In other words, when you can't beat them any other way, you get the rules changed to allow movable ballast and power assist, then hype your hollow victory over fixed ballast, manual powered machines.

On second thought, even getting the rules cahnged to suit your design is not new either.

Where's the new concept?

 

BS as an art form

That's just Mr Lord's typical M.O. for discussions where he's been called-out. When he can't offer a suitable explanation, he tries to ignore that element of the discussion so that it just seems to go away. (at least in his mind, it goes away) When it doesn't go away, he complains of being hijacked and starts slinging the personal diatribe part of the repertoire in the sack of tools available.

It would be nice if just once, Mr. Lord, would address all the issues forthrightly without getting up on his back legs in protest. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I immediately mistrust anyone who will not answer direct, civil questioning while tossing invective to cover their retreat from the discourse. Take a look back through any of the issues as presented for these wonder boats of Doug's imagination and see how well he addresses issues that run counter to his hype. That should tell you everything you need to know.

When you study the behaviors of our current crop of politicians, you see very similar predispositions. Makes you wonder if Doug is talking boats or, in fact, running for office?

Of course, one could always just get it together, start acting like a normal guy and recognize that when one spouts-off about new, wonderous, boating claims, one will have to have a very thick skin to deal with some of the things that people will ask. How one reacts, says everything about their demeanor as a person.

Ya gotta have a sense of humor, or you're dead in the water.

 

Funny

It's hilarious to see some of the comments regarding designs/concepts by some of the best sailors in the world particularly the designs and ideas of Bethwaite/Billoch and Langman but also including the Out 95 guys. Gee, I wonder who is more credible: Julian Bethwaite et al or the Retro Dude ensemble on boatdesign.net?
Nobody has presented more technical detail on this subject than I have on this thread as well as both the previous discussion on this forum regarding the subject matter,the detailed discusion on the Moth forum as well as the articles by some of the most innovative guys in the world. Instead of reading and trying to understand the material most(but not all) of the arguments against this revolutinary concept have been thinly veiled ridicule of me personally or of the concepts presented-an obvious attempt to end a discussion that the previously mentioned "group" does not understand or want to understand. Kind of silly, guys....

 

What did I tell ya?

Did you see one substantive response to any of your questions? Did you experience any direct sense of responsible participation or subject ownership?

Or, did you get more mudslinging with the Retro Dude, collective application, in order to save face and redirect the topical disussion?

"Nobody has presented more technical detail on this subject than I have on this thread as well as both the previous discussion on this forum regarding the subject matter"

Presentation of technical data does not, in itself, constitute substantive material in a debate on the merits. It's but one test in the decision making process as it applies to boats and their value to a prospective customer.

"Instead of reading and trying to understand the material most(but not all) of the arguments against this revolutinary concept have been thinly veiled ridicule of me personally or of the concepts presented-an obvious attempt to end a discussion that the previously mentioned "group" does not understand or want to understand."

Notice the self-proclaimed use of the word revolutionary. It's not revolutionary when you rip-off the individual, progressive work of others, assemble the processed monster and call it special. Why not develop a truly creative idea of your own and then I'll be the first guy to second your revolutionary status before the Retro Dude ensemble?

Perhaps the reason the "group" does not want to understand the presented design argument, is that the presentation and the support, after the fact, has been less than forthright and open itself?

Perhaps, if the responses by the Design Maestro, Mr. Lord, were to be framed honestly and openly, instead of avoided and then counter-positioned as ridicule in an attempt to dodge the issues, one would have far better standing within the Retro Dude group? That approach just might find a piece of fertile ground from which the concept could be further developed? There have been several positive comments as to the potential of the craft, within the group and yet, Mr. Lord has chosen to dwell on the negative. Unfortunately, that has reduced the willingness of those making the positive comments to a mere trickle of support. I also suspect that Mr. Lord is nervous, that if someone else gets, too behind the process, that Mr. Lord will not be able to claim all the supposed glory attached.

Face it guys, this topic is going nowhere with the kind of openness that one would expect from a person that wants to propose their brand of creative endeavor on a boat of this type.

Way back on post #1, Doug asked the question, "does anyone think it would sell?" Judging from how many metaphysical and design permutations this boat concept has seen in the ensuing disussion postings, I'd have to say, with emphasis... NO.

Tell me something, Mr. Lord... have you placed your "revolutionary" boat idea in front of the feeding frenzy that is any one of the forum groups on Sailing Anarchy, yet? I'd love to read the postings there as the group-think masses on those forums just get themselves in orderly lines in support of your "revolutionary" thought.

Just watch, guys... Mr. Lord will ignore that question, as well as what it implies and he sure won't trot-out the tired "not a trimaran" argument at SA's forums. Mr. Lord has a way of moving-off into the darkness when critical minds take a long look at his claims and begin to position their own counter arguments.