New low-cost "hardware store" racing class; input on proposed rules

I suspect that if people are sufficiently determined to cheat then they will... Falsified receipts aren't exactly difficult to obtain, or, well, buy both cheap and expensive materials and have your next door neighbour flog the cheap stuff on ebay...

 

Here's an idea from horse racing. At the end of the season, have the top 4 or 5 boats be required to enter a claiming race. Any bidder that wants to buy, at or above the claiming price, gets the boat at that price!
Nobody would invest 3000$ in a cheat to win boat, he may have to sell for 1500$ at seasons end.

 

Yo,

We discussed that before. The issue is I might be willing to spend $600 on a boat, and would be pretty happy to then sell it for $1500. But I won't spend countless hours building a boat to then have to agree to sell it with my time valued at nothing. Figure a decent boat yard guys time costs $20/hour, this boat likely would take at least 100 hours... So that's at least $2,000 in labor that went into building the boat not including the materials.

I think the better option is to require publishing the designs of the winning boats. The winners will have to justify their construction, when others are building them the next year, and can't come close to matching the BOM for the money.

 

Allow me to ask the question a slightly different way.
As I understand it the point of he exercise is to promote design, construction and material efficiency. Simply stated "Who can do best for least by being clever."
So lets say you normalized things, at 50 hours of labor ( approximately 6 work days) and $500. This would be a "0" handicap boat. By an algorithm yet devised, one could handicap those who took longer to build and or spent more money. It would have a way of monetizing performance upgrades beyond basic, and would , over time, determine what was worth doing or not.
Would that be a workable solution? It prevents me lavishing hours on lousy materials or and makes justifying expensive sails hard to do.
SHC

 

the sweat equity in the boat is largely offset by it's a "used" boat at the end of the season.

 

It is true that people will cheat any rule, rule enforcement in any contest is largely based on the honor of the participants. Presuming since there is no money prizes, the incentive to go to a lot of trouble to intentionally cheat will go away (I can not imagine there would be a lot of money in the number of plans sold, that is more of a minor benefit that off-sets your costs and efforts).

Since we largely have to rely on the honor of the people entering, than it would best I think to keep the rules simple. Although the idea of tracking build times is interesting, since some will spend several thousand hours building, some will spend less than 100, making that part of the score or handicap means that information too would have to be accurately recorded (unsupervised), in this case by the entrant (which would not be to his advantage to record accurately, plus it puts an additional burden on the entrant). therefore lets just keep it simple and not count hours to build at all, less incentive to cheat at all, and it does not take extra effort to stay within the rules. Requiring that part of the score be your time to build would be impossible to reasonably enforce. So lets not bother with it. I think however, that for the winners, to have a reasonable estimate for the time to build is not a bad idea, it can be included with the plans package when they are sold. But it should not be part of the score.

I do not care for claiming rules at all, it still does not prevent some deep pocket entrant from going way outside the intent just to win, and it might be a way for a competitor to unfairly eliminate his competition by buying their boat. It also kills the incentive to build a better boat, or to put extra effort into trying out new ideas. For that alone I would reject the claiming rule in any form.

It seems to me the simplest way to keep a record of materials cost is to submit receipts, or as an alternative, for items that were used but do not have receipts, just to show sufficient documentation of cost for those items (catalogs pages or web site print outs, etc.). Yes people can still cheat, but I think it is a good idea to have the top 3 or 4 season point winners have a detailed cost review done by the judges before awarding season champions. IF cheating was discovered they will be disqualified and banned for one season. That will keep people from blatantly cheating more than any rules. And you may have a lot of "also rans" who do some minor cheating, but who cares about them?

Thank you all again for your ideas, keep the discussion going. All are valuable contributions toward assisting us in formulating the rules. If all goes well we will be living with these rules for a long long time.

 

I like the idea of a materials list, not so much "2 sheets of ply, 4 2x4s" but more of which materials are allowed.

for example:
Any dimension common SPF lumber
A couple specific types of plywood
Any steel/ss/brass/copper fastners available at a common hardware store
Glue
Epoxy
Glass (let's say only regular e-glass, no s-glass, carbon, single/bi-directional)
Paint
etc.

With those limitations, I'd think the overall cost would become more of a function of boat size than materials. You can put a lot of time into a boat built with simple materials, but you can only cram so many sheets of underlayment ply into a boat. If you can't cover it in carbon and custom SS fastners, the price just can't go that high.

Also, I presume part of the purpose here is to encourage new boatbuilders/sailors to get involved - keeping the materials simple, familiar, and easy-to-get would help a lot there.

I'd imagine it would also encourage more creative DIY-style bits (home-made deck hatches, no specialty sailing hardware, etc) if everything has to come from lowe's or home depot. (and I can't really think of anything a small boat _needs_ that can't easily be built at home or sourced from a hardware store)

I agree that you want to give entrants the flexibility to build a really nice boat that they can enjoy outside your class, and one that will last a long time (hence getting the price to a point where epoxy/glass is reasonable)

 

I agree entirely, and once we get the ball rolling with the first few seasons, with plans published, many will see how simple and inexpensive solutions can be used for most small boat needs. Rather than running to the Harken catalog for everything. That is exactly the kind of mentality I want to break with this kind of contest. let the materials snobs buy from the specialty stores, the rest of us "99 percent" will make do with simple home made hardware, thank you.

I like your idea about type of materials used, though it seems an open door for blatant cheating, using more expensive materials but than claiming they bought inexpensive dimensional lumber and remill it. No way to prove otherwise. Also, rather than limited materials, which would also limit creativity, this would not necessary keep costs down. The main focus is cost, so that is what should be measured. And that is where the difficultly is in keep the contest fair.

I will bring this idea up to the committee next meeting, it is worth discussing.

I have not check for a number of years now, what would it cost to cover a 14 ft plywood hull with fiberglass and epoxy resin now?

I did just check on the cost of a 16' 2-1/2" x .125 aluminum tube for a mast, about $100-160, depending where you buy it. Of course a laminated doug fir one would be only about $40, but also weigh much more (and be more work!). Either would fit within total proposed budget I think.

 

Good point, but if we're assuming your participants are going to lie about their materials, there's really not a good way to prevent this no matter what you do. And I would still go for a price list, even if you limit materials. I see the issue with limiting creativity, but you (maybe?) also want to be welcoming to those with more limited skills. I don't really have the ability (or desire) to do things like making my own carbon-fiber mast, and would be disinclined to race with those who do (even if they fit it into their budget).

Perhaps handicapping for those who come in under-budget could help? If I make a mast out of 2x4 and you buy a $150 aluminum mast, perhaps I don't have to carry as much cargo (based on money I spent, not weight of my components)?

Depending on how tight knit your group is, it might not be a bad idea to do group buys for some materials (espcially glass and epoxy which are so much cheaper when bought in large quantities). $5 a yard glass (at for example fiberglasssupply) is only $2 or $3 (or less) if you can buy it in big quantities, same goes for epoxy, if you buy a jug of WEST at the hardware store you'll easily be paying 2 or 3 times more than the price for a bigger buy online or directly from a supplier.

If you bought glass and epoxy from a hardware store, it would eat into a really huge chunk of your budget, but if you could get it at a more reasonable price, you could probably glass a boat like that for about $100 if you were careful.

Also, how are you going to deal with people who happen to have a lot of a given supply laying around? I have a big roll of glass laying around, so I could put the small bulk price-per-yard into my budget, but a first-time builder might not want to get a giant roll of glass or a gigantic jug of epoxy (and so would have to budget a bigger slice of their boat towards certain materials).

This I think again argues for group buys on some of the common bulk ingredients to help equalize price in this area.

I could see a similar issue for sails (where people are using dacron instead of polytarp or tyvek), if you buy sailcloth in big quantities it's of course cheaper. (especially if you can get a big enough order to go direct to a fabric manufacturer I imagine).

 

The current price of aluminum is in the $2.40 per pound range. Aluminum suppliers, unless they know you, will try to charge outlandish prices. $100 to $160 for the size you mention is a bit much. You can negotiate the price if you are aware of the current going rate. Most suppliers have a minimum order rule, likely in the $200, $250 range. So when buying masts, get several of them and negotiate price. Also don't mention boats, just pretend to be a metal fabricator.

Tubing commonly comes in two lengths, 20 and 24 feet. The 20 foot ones can usually be had in 6061 alloy. The longer ones are most often 5052 or similar alloys. This is architectural grade stuff that is used for hand rails and that sort of thing. Either will work but 6061 is probably a better choice.

 

The stuff to use would be mylar monofilm. Cheaper than any finished woven cloth, but far better results, visually and performance wise, than the crud materials. Have to work out a catalogue supplier, but probably available. Mind you I believe someone on this thread builds sails with ordinary heat shrunk packing film, but they are rather special sails and probably not the sort of thing you guys have in mind...

 

The object is to price the materials from a source anyone can buy at small quantities (enough for one boat). So anyone can buy the plans and build it for limit budget.

If people do group purchases or use left over materials to save money, these material would still be counted for at the regular price for the purpose of the class limit. So either receipts for the actual price, or a print out from a web site or catalog to justify the small quantity retail price.

I did not do a lot of shopping for the AL tube mast cost, just went to an on-line supplier that had no purchase minimum, and would cut to my length (both would add to the cost). It did not occur to me to look for a price in the 20 ft length, it might be cheaper to buy it long and cut it myself.

Since the cost of materials is such an important factor in the rules we will have to come up with a policy on it so everyone is scored fairly. The small quantity retail prices is best way I can think of to normalize the cost limit. Quantity discounts will give advantage to those that can buy a full roll of fiberglass or 10 masts at a time. So it can be done to save money, but the small quantity retail purchase price is what will be counted.

I am not sure the materials to make a carbon graphite mast could be reasonably made within the price limit, but if it can than that will be something you have to decided on. You can always pay someone else to make it for you, only the material costs count. Exept for weight, not sure it would give you an advantage.

 

This is my first post here, so be nice! I have been reading through this thread and am intrigued by the idea, I really like it, and I think it is do-able. However I just had a few comments.

First, the max mast hight (I'm assuming that the rules preclude any spars extending above this, it isn't really clear) will create some difficulty. by limiting the mast hight rather than the air draught of the boat you are creating a possibly unintended trade off. The best way to achieve a sizable rig (which the boats will need being in Puget sound with light air, and with their weight because of the 500lb crew min) will be to either rig the boats with standing rigging and deck step the masts or create sub structures on the decks to extend the rig as high as possible. Wouldn't it be easiest to make a maximum air draught rule, or a rule that limits bottom of CB to top of rig? It would be easy to enforce, lay the rigged boats on their sides and use a tape measure! A max hight of 22ft would allow for a design trade off between rig hight and pointing ability.

Second, does the proposed rule now allow multihulls as I see no restrictions on hull hollows, I liked the simplicity of monohulls only. How about a max hollow of 2" excluding hiking benches/wings which are still restricted by the maximum beam.

Third, how about not limiting the amount of crew, that way if a light weight crew wants to have three crew members they can race on more even terms vs. a heavy weight two person crew. Keep the minimum weight limit in place and make the rule that the team has to declare how many crew are going to sail at the start of the race day, they cannot sail with less or more than their declared amount.

Finally, why is there a rule excluding spinnakers? It seems to me that the cost limit is the driving factor behind the rule, if someone wants to put their limited resources into a downwind specific sail, then go for it.

Please don't take this as a criticism of your work so far, I think the idea is fantastic and could possibly gain traction in getting youth and families working together to build boats and sailing them together. It could also be much bigger than just being limited to Puget Sound.

 

Thank you for your post RevvyJ!

All good comments. I will comment on them one at a time.

I have gone back and fourth with the height limit, from height above water level (difficult to meausre before hand), height from board to peak, and no limit at all (since price determines that). Since I would like the boats to be practical, and minimized cost, I thought a mast length would be easy to enforce, easy to raise and lower, and limit cost and complexity. Yes, it would lead to deck stepped masts to gain some height, but so what? The reason for this rule is to limit cost and ease of transport, the mast length is what determines both of those issues. And I see no reason to limit board depth since this is not a limiting factor for any of those things. We have a meeting coming up in two weeks, this, and the overall box rule will be discussed extensively for the purpose of fixing the rules. The object is for the rules to create practical low cost day sailors. So what ever we decide will be to achieve that goal.

Originally I had limited it to mono-hulls only, since these kinds of boats are more popular than all multihulls. But several comments were why to limited it since there are dimension rules anyway. I like mono-hulls too as day sailor, I have sailed and raced both mono and multi-hull, they have their place, but ultimately we want to sell plans and get more people involved, and we will sell more mono-than multihulls I suspect. My current thinking is to start out with one class, and than break off with a multihull class after we have more participants. We might start out with just mono-hull, or with two classes. If two I would make the dimension rule for muliets a bit different (larger).

Your idea of a no crew limit is one worth considering, I like it. Would they declare that up front when entering, or is the decision up to the point of race start? They could choose crew depending on coarse and conditions, seems perhaps a bit unfair for those with only two crew available. Some of the races will be solo as well. Perhaps some events can be done as unlimited crew, some two crew, and some as solo? This could be announced ahead of race day, or be 'surprise' added at the event. I will bring this up at the meeting.

Spinnakers are generally only used for racing, not often do recreational sailors use them. They do add complexity to the operation of the boat, and it means that the cost of the spinnaker would not be invested into better rigging or hull. Many classes of racing exclude spinnakers, I wanted to keep it simple, and the type of boats that many would enjoy sailing even if not racing. I will bring your comment up, my tendency is to not limit the type of rig at all, but I also want to keep the design and operation simple.

My long term hope is that we get multiple chapters around the country and than we can have national champion races. The more people building low cost boats means the more better ideas and designs that will be come available. So local, than regional, and ultimately national championship races would be a lot of fun. That means more good boat designs to publish and sell, and more people participating in low cost sailing.

Once we have the rules fixed I was thinking we could send them around the country to organizations that promote boat building to hold their own events. We will make them available on a website for free download, and hopefully once the word gets out, there will be chapters starting up all over the country. Eventually we can organize national championships.

 

I hear what you are saying regarding rig, my only concern was that it leads most designs to a stayed rig to get maximum height, although that may not be the case. It may be that having no rule about rig height is the best way to go as the whole boat must be a series of compromises to stay within the cost limit, this may be all the limiting factor needed in regards to the rig.

My thought was that crews would have to declare the number of sailors that they would be crewing with at the beginning of the regatta and they have to sail with the same crew for every race unless specified in the race instructions. That way if the wind drops they wouldn't be able to leave some crew behind and take advantage of a lighter weight.

I look forward to hearing what your end results are with this!