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Who likes the idea of those bare legs and other parts meeting a spinning prop during an upset? If you really have to go electric why not couple your motor to the jet drive? (Though I think either way you will find the range very, very limited.)

How about aircraft fabric. Glues on easily and shrinks smooth with an iron. Paint it with the pink primer and it is airtight, use the silver intercoat for U/V protection and then paint. Can't remember the price (And there is a lot of fabric in wings and tail plane!)

One of the problems today is that everybody wants what THEY want. By its nature a good school boat is not high performance. A fast boat, light and technical is expensive and perhaps not robust enough for school or club use. Back, back, back in the day our school had Fireflies. Clunky...

Perhaps the best way to appreciate the dynamics of sailing boats is to sail dinghies. I sailed them for ten years, all sorts. I never got the visceral feeling for my 36 footer that I did for all the dinghies. Part of the problem with discussing the dynamics in abstract is that there are...

Two things, Weight at the longtitunal ends of the boat will decrease pitching compared to weight added at the centre. Longer moments mean it requires more effort to disrupt the longitudinal stability. Weight added at the topsides is an order of magnitude more effective at decreasing heel than...

Looking at some of them there is not enough depth in the aft hull for accommodation. There are several reasons for carrying the beam all the way aft. Some of the drawbacks, re balance etc, have already been mentioned. The broad beam aft allows easy planing off the wind which became...

Hulls are designed so that contact is progressive and obviously most of the weight is supported by the wings at contact. The problem also happens when "Taxiing on the plane."

Hi Will, Probably not an engineer's bag, more for a hydrodynamicist. Glassy water has qualities all of its own. It's a well known phenomenon for seaplane and float plane pilots.

Small point. Flat calm water (glassy) creates more drag than small waves. (Landing a flying boat on glassy water is dangerous because, amongst other things, the nose can get pulled down by the drag.)

About the crew. Astonishing to think the design crew for Cutty Sark was 26 including Master, Mate, Carpenter and cook! One trip from the far East the actual enlisted crew was 19!

Actually there is a very good engineering reason for 'catwalk' side decks. If you look at a f/glass hull newly uprighted before the deck is attached you will see the topsides at deck level have almost no strength in the horizontal plane unless reinforced by horizontal structure. If the you...

At some stage the designers decided that long narrow bows that drove easily were less drag than traditional broader bows. (And for those pesky rules too!) Even so in some videos you could see the boat slow as they plowed the water for what appeared to be several waves at a time and the...

"The trend to open interior spaces and huge cockpits are great for people that spend their time at the marina though." That Cat I mentioned with the big cockpit has just arrived in Grenada from Australia via Indonesia, Maldives, Seychelles, Cape Town, St Helena.

Incidentally, the OP did not specify cargo carrying, he mentioned it in a later post as he was "interested" in traditional, possibly "work", boats for their design (rather than because he was interested in carrying cargo. (If I am putting words in his mouth I apologise.))

Your example of a Cape Cod cat boat is essentially a day sailor. I see very recent boats 50 or 60 ft with cockpits just 6 or 7 feet wide. No wonder cats are so popular. Sailed on a 45ft cat recently. The cockpit had room for real dining for seven or eight not climbing over each other and...

John Smithson. I'm with you. Far too many espousing the line "Look at the way boats have been built the last 200 years, that's the only way to go." Yes, 200 years but in the last twenty or thirty the world of boat design has been turned upside down. Look at the IMOCA 60 hulls and they are...

In fine weather, as a pirate, you tie your victim to the mast. When it's cold and wet she complains too much and you need the king post below.

Do twenty years in the business. Build a very, very comprehensive list of people who love you, will be your agent, promoter and recommend your product. Be that guy that everyone knows for quality work. Be best friends with every supplier and parts manufacturer. Design and build a boat...

From what little I know about aircraft wings, tip vortices also occur on broader wing tips. How about semi stiff tips placed perpendicular to the sail (as on a lot of commercial aircraft wings these days) to prevent them? A following post advises that a square top offered about a minute per...

The top of a main is less efficient in terms of useful energy usually for two reasons. 1. It generally has less control than the lower part of the sail, though recent pictures of racing boats show that, compared to the 'old days' the sails are remarkably congruent for their whole length...