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

As I have said from Day 1, the USA doesn't really have a dinghy racing scene as seen elsewhere. And I don't know why.

But to answer your question. You won't be competitive in a Finn unless you weigh over 200lbs, say. Which rules out all women and a lot of men (including me). And a Laser cannot be home built of course

Actually making the Laser an Olympic class killed it for average sailors. The national championship entry list collapsed, more people go to qualifiers.

I have said elsewhere

http://sailingcatamarans.com/index....technical/421-my-seven-important-racing-rules

that you need to find your own level. You don't play tennis against Andrew Murray or golf against Tiger Woods

People have a good idea who will win the BM before the start as it depends on the weather. This year was windy, so the Fireball and 505 were bound to do well. In a calm it might be the Thames A rater.

And it is a long race with lots of mark roundings and hundreds of boats. So sometimes slow boats win as they have the benefit of clear wind round the course for quite a while. But sometimes the race starts in a calm and then picks up. In which case the faster boats do well

You can check results here

http://www.thebloodymary.org.uk/results

Richard Woods

 

Glad to hear of your progress. I am wondering if you have gotten to drag vs velocity projections for hulls light and heavy yet, and how you plan to handle the two conditions. When you do we will have a better idea of rig requirements.

This also reminds me that we need a proposal for event locations and the race configurations.

Have you browsed 'The design of soft wing sails for cruising' tread? I think it has some very relevant tech for a rig with very good lift and drag where the shape comes from the battens, not sail cutting/sewing. the poor properties of the fabrics you are considering would benefit greatly from good battens. Another interesting rig is on Matt Layden's Paradox. - continuously variable reefed lug. I think both attributes might be combined and the result would be a winner. The last rig I would like you to look at is the downwind sail on the freedom 21 and 25 cat boats. It's a symmetric spin with a pole between the tacks. By moving the pole around (easy) and outhaul along the pole it makes a super useful sail for aft of beam wind.

I would sure like to see successful construction without epoxy but it sure is useful for joining and additive manufacture. I have heard good things about tighbond III. Vacuum bagging might still be useful for laminating.

About your frivolous question -If you ever wanted to be cool in the eyes of your grand kids or anyone in their generation you must video the races and it is the best thing you can do for the class.

 

I asked about the Javelin because i recall a forum member proposing he relaunch his very used ‘Javelin’ as a competitor. In this case, if in ‘original’ condition, sails etc, perhaps a valuable benchmark.

Due to there being only 4? boats proposed so far, i am going to send this set of rules to several interested parties around Puget sound.

We, as a team, are proposing to only use readily available tools and techniques, and to declare these techniques as part of the ‘inspection’ or qualifications for the competition. This so future competitors can use them too. I hope the judges will be lenient, as we are all learning.

In Seattle's Q&D races, tool WEIGHT was penalized, so i spent money buying light weight electric brad nailers, etc. i even made tools and gauges from plexiglass, but the judges were not amused. They allowed a pneumatic nail gun for another competitor, whose compressor was in a truck? So much for fair competition, but we won that event on pure speed, so all was forgiven.

Skyak; Good points about the boats developing for local conditions. If we wanted truly even international competition, we would make it “One Design’ perhaps a large Puddle Duck Racer. In fact one of my concept proposals was a PD to comply with the current rules, in both transomed, and double floor/no transom versions. It had twin dagger boards, and twin rudders, and was discussed with a ‘Biplane” rig as well. Its large skin friction and large wave making drag was an issue, but if it could be sailed on one edge, like an old Moth, then it was better. Slop like waves impeded progress, and it was eventually rejected.

We had not read the forum about ‘soft’ sails, but we had already decided on using the battens for sail shaping, that and a loose footed boom should allow good, adequate at least, sail shape control. We have some innovative approaches to setting the sails between windward and downwind work too.

We have considered the ‘light’ and heavy’ sailing conditions, and have rig solutions. As we are not expecting to have to change on the water, these involve adjusting the sail(s) on the land/beach. We were inspired by Sydney 18’s and the Bahama “A” classes rigs for this.

Earlier experiments with Polysulfide and similar adhesives had suggested a suitable candidate for the Seattle Q&D, and we will use that again. Tightbond 3 is similar, but we didn't test that at the time.

Im not sure about the Freedom 21 Spiniker, as I'm not sure it would be legal unless the boom was quite short. Good point though.

 

I mentioned the Windmill as another good bench mark

I don't think the Freedom rig can have worked as well as claimed, or others would use it. Instead people went for bowsprits and asymmetrics

The old scow Moths worked in flat water, less good in a chop even when heeled. And they had very low, almost no freeboard, unlike a PDR which stops dead in any waves. That's why the Mirror was such a clever design (and the Scamp etc that has the same pram bow)

I have watched the Bahamian sloops racing, but sadly, so far, not sailed one. They only have one, huge, unstayed mast with a long overhanging boom and a short "Dutch style" gaff. Which of course is a good alternative to a fully battened mainsail. But I still think the Merlin Rocket mainsail is a better approach

Richard Woods

 

It's a bit OT, but the three different Javelins present fascinating examples of different national design themes.

American Javelins, although an Uffa Fox design, are like a smaller Daysailer and therefore extremely heavy by other standards - some 250kg for a 14 footer. It's also a strict single-manufacturer one design.

British Javelins are a Milne design like a baby Flying Dutchman; much longer (17'7" or so) lighter (118kg) and faster than the US Javelin. It's a multi-builder one design.

Kiwi/Australian Javelins are classic ANZAC lightweight dinghies of the sort that taught the skiff sailors so much. Sadly, these days this stream of design, which provides such an important influence on modern boats, is all too often chucked into the "skiff" bin despite the fact that historically they had very little to do with skiffs and in fact were often more advanced designs.

The Kiwi (Aus) Javelin is 14' long, is a development class, weighs just 70kg, and would eat the US Javelin alive and beat the Uk Javelin a lot of the time.

The difference between the three designs, and in particular between the US Javelin and the other two, seems to illustrate why Brits, Aussies and Americans often seem to find it difficult to communicate about dinghies.

That's not meant to attack the US scene, which has helped to create or created many of the greatest innovations in the sport for 170+ years (international sailing, rating rules, scows, lightweight hulls, skimming dishes, windsurfing, beach cats, one designs, ocean racing, offshore cats, tris, etc etc etc) it's just that development seems to be much more of a fringe thing than it is in the other major English speaking sailing nations. So, as Richard has observed, many people in the US just don't realise how complicated development dinghy classes are to run, and how many seemingly new ideas are actually ancient ones. This creates a basic communications block.

Take the soft wing sail - leading edge fairings like that are about 85 years old, and they've been repeatedly tried and regularly dumped. They are popular in windsurfers (and I like them and own a bunch of them) but whether they are 'better' for a dinghy is arguable, for a variety of reasons. That's not a reason to say they should not be tried, but it does mean that they could be approached from a very different angle to an idea that is actually novel.

Just my 3c worth.

PS - there is arguably a "US" class that already presents an arena for cheap home-built boats - the Chalanas of Puerto Rico. They are sort of like big home-made Aussie skiffs of the '70s, blown out to 22-28' or so, and normally carry cast-off rigs and a bunch of traps. There's some stuff on the web and Wooden Boat had a good article about them. They'd probably eat a 505 alive, for a fraction of the cost.

PPS - Richard, those are great rules....I do tend to struggle with the last bit of Rule 1 though!

 

Someone suggested painting the boats in bright colors. What does the forum think of painting the boats to promote our favorite charity?

Quite how we allow which charities, and how we police money from the charity going to the boat i do not know, but many of us probably support such organizations already. Perhaps only on hulls, magic markers do not work well on tarpaulin. I could even imagine having the bottom so decorated, so people could see it when on its side on the trailer, or when inverted in the water.

Just a thought, many of these charities get little publicity otherwise.

 

I may well use my existing yellow sail to start with, so naturally the hull will be purple with yellow decks

So a bit like these boats? And I am sure you've seen the PDRs in the 2014 Texas 200? All painted yellow with yellow sails for charity

RW

 

I thought the Freedom Spin setup would be appropriate because it is very easy to use for a symmetric. It would work similarly well on another big cat rig like Alan seems to favor. It is questionable for sloops -inferior to both sym pole and asymmetric. I think that is why it is not more common. But I still think it would work well with a cat rig in this class. It doesn't need any special skill to make or use. For example I think it would outperform an asym on a fixed bowsprit straight downwind which is likely best VMG. It easily gets out of the shadow of the main just by pulling lines -the pole does not have to be tacked.

 

To confuse the issue, the RS400 has a swivelling bowsprit. You pull it to windward in lighter winds

RW

 

Which would be much harder to design and build but would outperform the symmetric.

 

No not really. I last sailed a RS400 in late November. The bowsprit is fitted under the foredeck and goes in/out as normal. Then two control lines rock it to and fro, the inner end of the sprit hits the hull which thus limits the swing.

Not sure why others haven't used the same system maybe because it has limited stability as it is a hiking boat and so has to sail deeper

RW

 

I was under the imprression that no 'flying sails' i.e. sails NOT supported by a stay, were allowed. Equally, i am assuming the 16' total rigged length INCLUDES any poles or other devices to push sails out.

As such, the Freedom 21 type 'pole' (its 'middle' fitted to the stem head) would need to fit inside the 16' total length, and so be of rather limited usefulness, at least compared to a bowsprit.

 

I don't claim to understand the rule or even intent in this particular area. I do think that this type of sail control 'fits' withing the described envelope IN OPERATION. I recall Petro didn't want complicated downwind only sails but I am not clear how this limits sails to that intent. Lots of sails are not supported by stays (more than are). He might have just been looking to prohibit kites.

What I had in mind is like a symmetric spin but much flatter cut -this is how it differs from spins I think he does not want -no 'shoulders'. What I had in mind is not even exclusively downwind as it would be excellent for light wind reaching. In that condition it would be stretched flat and go from the 2ft ahead of hull to overlapping the leading edge of the main. In the more common downwind condition it would be pulled to the side opposite the main like a polled Genoa sail to balance forces. It's a very nice addition to a big cat rig main.

Of course this is just a suggestion, but it seems that at least you need an agreement in the fleet because spinnakers on bowsprits are the same but more complicated.

 

What you're describing sounds similar to the classic Australian/New Zealand "flatty" spinnaker, but they were often slightly asymmetric. If they have asymmetric seam tapering and a long pole, they can even be carried upwind in light winds. They were faster on close reaches than a conventional parachute spinnaker but slower downwind.

However this line of development can lead to something that is dramatically MORE complicated in use than an assy on a bowsprit. It was, of course, largely the fact that assys are MUCH easier to use in a high performance mono that lead to the creation of the modern assy.

 

I would be surprised if nothing similar had been done.

'CAN be more complicated' is of no consequence. My interest is in doing something super simple and effective. And remember, making the sail is a big part of what needs to be simple. Asm. on bowsprit makes sense for sloops but if you have a big cat rig main and bowsprit <2ft there isn't enough room and all the force is hanging over one side.