Libera Yacht Project need some help

Hi Everyone,

I have bought a libera class boat, called OPNI / ex Telebox-Speedy/
Now I would like to renew it. It is a carbon-kevlar honeycomb sandwich boat.It has wings wich are made into the boat, and there are lathers like on 18footers. Now it is 11.50meter long and 460kgs.

We would like to make a 2 concept boat.
First I would like to give a spoiler to its back to receive 12.70 length. We dont have any keels, we have only centerboard. and we will have a small swert in front of the mast. It is a great thing at upwind.
We will use 2 masts and 2 sets of sails. a long one(18.9meters) for the famous Lake Balaton blue ribbon regatta and centomiglia with the big wings,
and we will use a smaller mast and sails for the other regattas (mast height will be around 13meter) and using only the "inbuilt" wings.

What do You think about it?

I am thinking on a cantning keel for it.what You think could it work?

My biggest problem with the centerboard, is how to make the centerboard-case. It would be strong enough, but I dont want to make it to hard to take the centerboard in and out (we would like to take it out when it is on shore).
I thought I make the centerboard from plywood and laminate it with carbofibre to have enough strength ,
What do You think about this too?

I attached some picts, and 2 drawings. one is the original and the other is the new concept.

waiting your reply,
balazs

 

Plywood is not a good material for foils. Better to use solid wood or foam.

That boat looks like a real handful - you will need to properly engineer any changes you want to make if you expect it to stay in one piece. I'd stay well away from trying to put a canting keel on it. It takes more than some door hinges and a hydraulic ram to get that sort of idea working.

How about just restoring it to working condition in its original form. It might not be as exciting as pulling out the circular saw and making big changes but I bet it gets you more time on the water and probably at a faster speed!!

 

Sounds like an exciting boat! You might want to consider this idea-presented to Julian Bethwaite by no less than Cayard and Coutts. Below is the concept boat Julian came up with for them. Does the Libera have to be self-righting-I'm guessing that with the centerboard it does not? With the on-deck waterballast idea you don't have to add any wetted surface to the boat and you can use the centerboard as it was intended-to be able to reduce wetted surface when required. If you're interested in this potentially very fast concept ,please contact Julian Bethwaite at Bethwaite Design for advice-or another experienced high performance designer/engineer. Do that even if you proceed with the canting keel-and Good Luck!


From Julian:

"A few years back these pages graced a thing called the Pterodactyl, it was a big double proa that Russel Coutts and Paul Cayard asked me to do as the ultimate circuit boat. Among other things its nice to see the OMR*go that route, but Russel was big on having 3 tonne of lead on tracks moving from side to side, inside the wing beams. I thought moving water through 200mm diameter pipes would be better, but the concept has merit. "

 

Congratulations. Project OPNI was a very famous boat and won the Centomiglia Race in the year the old Classe A boats were outlawed. I believe the hull was build by Mark Lindsay. I will look around to see if I still have the article from Seahorse magazine about the build.

Why not just sail all the time with the Turbo rig and racks?

You will fall outside of the Libera Classe rules with a canting keel.

The board has to be 25% of the all up weight, so it will be quite heavy regardless.

I would not use plywood. You will need hardwood core at least, and probably a lead shoe at the bottom.


P.S.: You should disregard the comments by Doug Lord. He doesn't know the rule, and he constantly suggests the same thing to anyone who asks about performance boats, whether it is appropriate or not. Of course you won't want to add moving lead or water to a boat that sails with human ballast on trapeze (and it is against the rules). Same with the Canting keel.

 

Here's the article. it was from SAIL (1984), not Seahorse.

 

Hi Everyone,

Thank You for Your replies.

So take it in order....

Cantning keel or daggerboard:

In Hungary there are no libera class. Every one tunings his libera for winning the Blue Ribbon regatta, and other great regattas. I have the original keel, so we can use it on Centomiglia and other libera regattas.

I thougth the the cantning keel solution could be great and fast enough. As Full Pelt was very fast on Centomiglia this year, and beat the liberas.

Daggerboard solution would be the easier way to make it faster to the Hungarian regattas.

We Do not have the "turbo rig". we will rent it from another libera fro some regattas. so that is the main problem, perheps we will can buy one in the beginning of 2011.

The other thing is, with the smaller rig, we can handle a boat with about 6-7crews. With the "small rig" we will use huge square-top main and huge genuas. so I think it can be fast enough.

Thank You for the article, it would be interesting to see some other picts of building, and unforunatelly I cant find any picts about the on the internet...

 

What You think, this boat could work without traveler? like full pelt has?(see pict below)

And what do you think laminating the wood daggerboard with epoxy-glass?
what you think about the daggerboards form in side view? could it be parallel or other form?

Thanx,
balazs

 

I raced against that boat when it was new. The built-in racks were a big problem: One day, a serious summer thunderstorm came from the Alps down onto the lake. The alarms around the lake went off, so we all (1) put on life jackets, and (2) pulled down all the sails as quickly as possible. The wings, however, could not be "furled" so the wind caught to boat under the wings, and lifted the boat, tumbling it down the lake, over and over, all the crew left behind in the water after the first throw!

I would not bother with the hull extension -- its about planing, not displacement. You will ALWAYS be going faster than hull speed unless the cigarette smoke is going straight up.

I would remove the wings -- that will save some weight. Not much weight, as that's a very light boat!

Replace the wings with Aussie 18 style racks. A few 10cm diameter carbon tubes, some tramp material, and you're in business.

I'm not so sure that removing the keel is a good idea: the center of gravity is already a meter above the deck when the mast and sails are up. The keel really just allows you to tie the boat up at the dock without the mast lying in the water.

Sheet in, go sailing, have fun!