Sailing video project

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1) From my friends' perspective it had nothing to do with being able to balance a boat pre-takeoff--there was no assumption that a boat would have to be as narrow as a Moth to function as a bi-foiler which ,of course, is not a requirement for sailing on just two foils. Balancing a narrow skinny hull prior to takeoff is not a prerequisite of bi-foiler technology. And the bi-foiler becomes very stable in roll when on foils-and can be very stable in pitch as well-depending on design.
It had more to do with his understanding of the hydrodynamics of foiling on two foils and the control problems he forsaw. He was just an example: none of the major foiling pioneers came up with a successful two foil hydrofoil-that was left to someone who didn't know it couldn't be done!
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2) There was no one decision not to use curved lifting foils on Open 60's that I am aware of -and the fault, in any case, was not with "hydrodynamics". To the extent that "fault" can be assesed it was with a lack of imagination in the application of hydrodynamics held back by pre-conceived notions of what would and would not work. Something somebody thought they knew! I see that kind of thing all the time. It seems obvious that if any scientific testing had been done the foils would have been adopted on Open 60's way before 2009.
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3) In the context of what I was talking about I mentioned 6-7 knots as the "light air" a Moth will take off in as compared with the 12-15 knots required on Rave's and Hobie trifoilers. The ability of a bi-foiler(not just a Moth) to take off in light air is a function of design reducing drag enough to make it possible. The Moth bi-foiler had a minimum of 1/3rd less drag than any previous foiler!
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4) Thanks for fixing the picture-at least it appears that the problem is resolved.

 

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You know, CT you need to be called out on this kind of thing!!! NOBODY ever said such a thing yet you include the words as if paraphrasing a comment-and it's just NOT true!!
At one point Stumble used the words "poorly understood hydrodynamics" which was a FACTUAL comment not an insult. Hydrodynamics is still relatively poorly understood but 50 years ago it was much less understood, as it applies to sailboat design, in light of what is known today.
Twisting(or adding/subtracting) words such that what you say has no relevance to anything anyone else said is a technique you have used repeatedly over the years-it seems to be something intrinsic to your thought pattern and it is not fair to the other posters or to any attempt at having a reasonable discussion.
Showing a Flying Scot being passed by a Moth or similar scenes should not be viewed as insulting to the slower boat-it should be viewed as an illustration of the progress being made in sailboat design.
This video, as I understand it, is not a video of what may or may not be the most popular boats, it is not a video describing the historic foundation(if any) of modern sailboat design, it is not a video trying to promote any point of view-other than the incredible development recently in sailboat performance.
As I said before-it is a celebration of sailing that will show many people-probably for the first time- what kind of progress has been made in using the wind for fun.

 

Have you seen this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ow8QbXhZJU&feature=related

 

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Thanks! For more info there is a thread here: http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/sailrocket-2-set-launch-36825.html

 

That was obviously a very minor error in a quote, Doug, not an attempt to twist anyone's words, as is obvious from the fact that I had used the term "poorly understood hydrodynamics" in an earlier post.

I did not twist anything, any more than you did by referring to the balance of Moths only prior to take off in response to my earlier remark.

If it's a video celebrating sailing, that's cool, but in that case why refer to popular old boats in a bad light?

And don't try to psycho-analyse others, Doug; you're not qualified.

 

CT, one small point: you can't equate your 10-12-14 foot dinghy range numbers game (40 to 1) to the 30 foot Diamond. Sure, there have been more successful 30 odd foot yacht designs than the Diamond but few would have the outright speed of the Holt boat, nor would they be as accessible, talking 30 foot yacht here, to the non wealthy class. You base your success credibility very much on numbers ... and I don't think this approach is relevant to the proposed film, nor to excellence in boat design. I mean the Optimist and the P Class have huge numbered fleets but if you honestly stand back and look critically at them, they are both terrible designs. The only thing they have going is that they are sort of scow shaped. Conformity is no indication of good design. Another example is the H28 here, Herreschoff's worst design by far, but large numbers exist, very popular still. What I'm saying as that it doesn't matter how old the designs are; look at the turn of the 20th Century Napier Patiki, 50 or more years ahead of its time, high performance, constructed to the state of the art of the time and only recognised by a few ENLIGHTENED sailors.
And that is how I see this film/video - a concentration on enlightened design and construction, not necessarily the most expensive ... that means foiling Moths, foiling multihulls, planing lightweight big dinghies, wing rigs and so on.

 

Yes, as I mentioned before, the Diamond is a fast and great boat. And yes, it is accessible. But the point is that most of the Holt boats were fairly slow in most terms. The fact that Holt could design a fast boat (Conquest, the Hornet, his Merlins etc) but designed slower boats for the mass market surely underlines that he was making a conscious choice to concentrate less on speed and more on user-friendly qualities. That ties in with the point that it's not speed that interests the majority of sailors and potential sailors.

Whether you can actually critically say that the Opti is a very bad design is a moot point. I first saw them in pics and then watched the Italian team train when I was doing a worlds in a high-performance class in Lake Garda, and I thought they were completely horrible POSs at the time.

Then I saw the way that beginners here use them, and I saw some of my own kids start sailing, and I understood why they appeal to kids so much. I started my own son on an Ant at first (the stepkids started in Tornadoes) so I am in no way blind to other classes, but as Steve Clark says the Opti is the Golden Retriever of sailing - it takes care of kids. Yes, it can fill up but it does so very rarely. It does many things very well. Its success is not just because of numbers, because it has taken over in many areas where other classes had the numbers and the power. The P has been criticised but having only seen them in storage I can't comment about them.

The derision directed at H28s and Optis is a classic example of the "only my personal preferences are right, everything else is wrong" stuff that can harm the sport IMO. Who has the right to say that the H28 is a bad boat? It certainly gives a large amount of people a huge amount of pleasure and what exactly is wrong with that?

Are Optis and H28s perfect? Of course not, but neither are foilers, Extreme 40s, Volvo 70s, Patikis, Rocket 31s, unrestricted 18 Foot Skiffs, C Class cats etc. Nothing's perfect, all of them have their issues, but why bag them out? Why not accept that they all have strong points and weaknesses and that no type has a mortgage on giving people enjoyment, which is the reason most of us sail?

I still don't get the reasoning that says that those who liked the Napier Patikis were "enlightened' and the rest were dills or blinded by conservatism. The history as I understand it is that the Patikis ended up in Napier because they couldn't handle the chop in other places. Those who didn't "recognise" the Patikis could very well have recognised them as an interesting boat that didn't work in the conditions in most areas - Mercia for example starting cracking up very early when sailed in Auckland. Rather than being poor benighted "unenlightened" ******, perhaps those who chose not to sail Patikis just didn't like boats that broke? Who is to say that those who had such preferences are "unenlightened"?

I'm 99.99999999999999% sure from "The Logans" and "Southern Breezes" that Elliott and Kidd say that the Patikis were basically what were called "Raters" in many other places. Half Raters in the USA and UK were as light as 385lb at 24' LOA and you know, they were extraordinarily popular for a time, with up to 60 Half Raters alone built per year.

And yet they died out (apart from the Thames and Napier for a while), for many reasons that were well prophesied and well explained at the time. That is, they were fragile, quickly outmoded, arguably dangerous at times, and fit for no purpose other than racing. These are perfectly valid reasons for not sailing a class. You don't have to be "unenlightened" for giving up when you spend a shedload of money on a racing boat only to find that it is obsolete within a year or so and is now worthless even for cruising or resale.

There is simply no evidence that it was conservatism that killed the Patiki-like raters - many of the leading social and sailing powers of the time were into Raters, just as they had been into Una Boats in the UK (BTW inferences that Una boats were looked down on socially appear to be factually incorrect, as they were accepted and sailed by some of the most powerful in the land - it just turned out that they were yet another example of a class that didn't suit local conditions).

If the decision to sail Patikis or not was a question of being "enlightened" or not, then those who had once been "enlightened" enough to sail them in Napier would have kept on doing so, but in fact (as you know) they stopped sailing Patikis in Napier soon after the earthquake destroyed the sheltered harbour that was perfect for them. It was obviously not a matter of being "enlightened", it was a situation where the boats only suited particular conditions that were rarely found. Once those conditions ceased to exist, so did the reason to prefer them over other craft. Or do you think the sailors of Napier suddenly stopped becoming "enlightened" after the quake?

Yes I'm interested in numbers, but that is because I'm trying to stand back and not use my own preferences but assess it in more of a scientific way. If the question is "what technology makes sailing more popular" you don't learn much by saying "well, I think type X is a POS therefore it must be a POS, because whatever I think is right IS right...."

The very fact that you say that this film is about "enlightened design and construction" is an example of the thing that concerns me - the idea that some fast boats are "enlightened" and therefore that other boats are apparently sailed by poor fools who have never seen the light of truth is a way of denigrating other boats and sailors - and who can claim to be so much better at judging these things that they have that right?

 

Hey CT, the Napier Patikis/Half and One Raters/Thames Raters and other similar craft were sailed by the "enlightened" - they were the top crews, they sailed fast because the designs were clever, ahead of their time and they were the best designs (and best sailors) to windward and 20 plus knots downwind. Remember a Napier Patiki sailed three times round the top Auckland A Class keeler. We're not talking pedestrian boats for this video. We're talking about 18 foot type skiff sailors, or X40 type sailors of the day. Nor talking about which is the most popular design. Nor about being elitist as you seem to always get twisted up about. Enlightened doesn't mean waving a red flag at you and putting you down or an excuse to get on your "socialist" high horse and boringly lecture us all, enlightenment means not being ignorant, able to see clearly. The meaning is open to interpretation, sure. Also the Napier versions were around from before the turn of 20th C to the 1930's (there is absolutely no shelter, open Pacific, out from the city by the way)- and others were sailing here in Auckland until mid 20th C - so not bad longevity for a lightly built craft; I believe there is a restoration job going on right now. Have we strayed off topic?

 

We are off topic to a large extent.

I suggest you no longer trouble yourself reading my posts if they bore you so. I will stop reading yours as it is very hard to see that comments that refer to fast boats having the "the best sailors", "top crews", "best designs", "enlightened" and various slow but popular boats being "terrible designs, "worst design", etc as being anything but elitist.

BTW I can find no evidence that the UK and Australian (at least) Raters were sailed by "the best" - they were sailed by people like the Governor-General and other "establishment" types. I'd have thought the pros who were sailing the slower skiff-type open boats like 18s and 22s were among the "top crews" and "best sailors". Nor is it putting me down to criticise slow craft, as I sail or have sailed some of the fastest craft. The fact that the "fast boat good/slow boat bad" stuff is not aimed at me doesn't mean that it's constructive.

Over and out of here.

 

CT it is amazing to me that you would consider misquoting people, then fabricating quotes as being of minor importance. I am currently sitting on about 300k dollars of financing, have meetings set up to speek with major industry leaders, government officials, and some of the leaders of world wide sailing. The idea that I would for an instance rely on information provided by someone who can't get their facts strait is absurd. Even assuming that you are knowlagable, sincere, and may have something valuable to contribute, the moment you ascribe to people things they haven't said, or twist words to suit your argument as opposed to changing your position based on the facts you loose all credibility.

That being said CT did raise an interesting point. In that does the focusing on only high speed sailboats insult those who sail slower boats? Personally I don't think that it does, though it appears CT disagrees. Would others choose to weigh in on the question.

Secondly I originally asked for boat/class recommendations to consider adding to the project. Does anyone have suggestions for boats that have not yet been listed. Remember video is a visual medium, and therefore visually interesting boats would also be interesting.

Third. Is anyone aware on any technology, or new concept that has yet to be applied, that might be interesting to consider? At this point we are much more interested incasing a wide net for interesting ideas than we are at parring down what we have timer show.

 

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Only if you have a warped view of the world. Sorry, but I think it is preposterous that anyone could find an inspiring, upbeat story about the technological advances that have been made in sailboat design insulting! Just the logic of such a perception is bizarre to me-would you then be required to do a disclaimer showing how slow boats dominate the world of club sailing? Would you then have to put some kind of a warning label on the video saying something like: "Danger-contains high speed sailboat performance material. May be inspirational to some people."
No, Stumble, I don't think you have to worry about such a reaction from 99.9999% percent of the people that have the pleasure of seeing what promises to be an extraordinary video whose time has come. No one, to my knowledge, has done a video that celebrates a wide range of the most up to date technological advances in sailing and I think it is a great idea!

 

Stumble,

The sailing world encompasses many variations on a central theme, as I am sure you must know. The thrust of the argument presented here, aside from the members who are not aware, would be that many people are not interested in ultra high performance boats. Worldwide sales of boats indicate this reality with but a small amount of research. These sailors find deep satisfaction in lesser performing vessels that are well within their capabilities as average humans without strong technical skills as advanced athletes. This is the majority of sailing persons on this planet. It is also your biggest market place for sales of completed products.

If you and your producer friend are angling this documentary, or whatever, at the higher end of the sailing performance scale, you will immediately reduce your potential as to sales of a completed product. Why would you do that when there are much larger numbers of possible buyers of the finished video waiting for a product that does not exclude them from the story telling?

The first thing to consider is your market if you are going to do this for a living. Bread and butter subject material will always drive successful presentations. Later, when the subject material has been established and you are flush with cash, you can go after the more esoteric subject material to explore the possibilities in that area.

 

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Yes: the Tomahawk with foils by Jon Howes. Actually this falls between two and three. It was originally developed in partnership with Full Force boats and it was hoped that Ovington(UK builder of high performance boats) would build it. Unfortunately, due to the deteriorating economy the project never matured. Jon Howes is a remarkable man who has been developing a speed sailing concept for some time. He came up with "fully ventilated foils" for the Tomahawk that allow the boat to foil without an altitude control system(wand) which could be a major breakthru in the development of a "Peoples Foiler"( an easy to sail, beach sailable foiler that eliminates much of the hardship in sailing the Moth-like walking the whole boat out to deep water).
At any rate, Jon Howes has been responsive to me in the past and a short segment on him, the Tomahawk and his Monofoil might be good for the video.

Public contact info for John Howes from the Monofoil website:
Postal Address (Main Office)
10, Jesus Lane
Cambridge
Cambs
CB5 8BA
United Kingdom
Phone, Fax & Email
Telephone: +44 (0) 845 206 2070
Fax: +44 (0) 845 206 2071

Individual Email: firstname.surname@monofoil.com
Office Email: info@monofoil.com
Webmaster: webmaster@monofoil.com

Web: www.monofoil.com

pictures: The Tomahawk and the unique Howes foil:

 

I like the work of John Howes, but hasn't he hit a vacant spot in his efforts to create a boat that could be sailed by average sailors? As far as I can tell there is not one single boat of this type from a commercial source which would allow affordale prices.

Mr. Howes has put forth a number of interesting possibilities, but a simple search does not reveal a product that has struck a chord as a commerical product. Can you lead us to a successful string of products that would have his work at the leading edge of boats in use?

 

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I'm posting this and the references to threads because I believe in these projects so much:

1) MPX 12 High performance 12' trimaran. The reason that small trimarans are generally known as slower than beach cats is that if the full design potential of the trimaran is used the resulting boat can have so much righting moment that the main hull can never fly and the boat winds up being overpowered. The MPX system allows a very wide 12foot tri to fly the main hull in 5-6 knots of wind by utilizing a bi-foiler configuration on the main hull. The numbers for a prototype exceed those of the Moth as does its potential speed. Applications of this technology include the Self-Righting trimaran that I am building a model of to test both the self-righting concept and the MPX theory.
A model could be sailing in a couple of months. http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/mu...-self-righting-trimaran-test-model-36058.html
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/mpx-11-very-small-high-power-trimaran-33686-15.html

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2) Trapwing- this is a concept I've worked on for several years and is a concept to allow disabled and physically restricted people to be able to sail a high performance monohull. It involves sliding ballast inside a sealed wing to give extremely high performance w/o capsize in some versions. The buoyancy of the wing exceeds the sliding weight. A prototype for this boat has been delayed by an all out focus on the MPX system as applied to a Self-Righting trimaran.
There is tremendous potential with this concept. Trapwing info: http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sa...isabled-physically-limited-sailing-37048.html

Pictures-Top row is a small model of the Trapwing-the concept has been tested on several RC models over 10 years, Bottom row- MPX-12 w/planing ama,
click on image for more detail: