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

Congratulations on a fine, almost piano like finish. Has anyone commented as they should on this magnificent job.

 

Yes, it's a great looking boat. How is yours progressing? I'd love to see some pix.

 

Mac's Boat

Macbeth...

That is a very good looking boat. How did you generate the lines? Do you have some favorite software to help?

It looks to me like it will be challenging to build unless you already have learned and practiced 'traditional boatbuilding skills'. It looks like it can only be realized with some form of planking; perhaps strip planking to keep it as simple as possible. But it escapes me to see how it could be made with a few large sheets of plywood for most of the hull. Is that perception true?

The interior seems very open... lots of room. But the rigging and underwater foils are not described so I cannot see how well that roominess will be preserved. To you envisage a pivoting centerboard, a dagger-board, or lee boards? Do you intend to rig it as a cat-rig... a miniature Nonesuch? The cat rig will keep the openness pretty well. I guess the best foil for staying out of the way of everything would be a pivoting centerboard with a fairly long narrow (high aspect) blade.

Please tell us the rest of the story...

Dunnage

 

I use Delftship, then use the coordinates to do it in Freeship, which will generate the forms. The advantage of doing it in Delftship is that it has some sophisticated software for making sure the panels develop as a section of a cone, so that you can build in plywood. The panels for this one develop with very little stress in them. I would still need to use sufficiently bendy plywood to make the curves, but they won't have a lot of stress in them.

I'm thinking a pivoting centerboard, so that I can shift the clr back when I'm sailing under only the main. It also has advantages for sailing onto a beach.

I was thinking of a set of club 420 sails. If you've read the link, you know that I've also considered building it longer than the class will allow. 14 ft. is a little short for taking a couple of friends out. But I'll probably build to the class length so I can race it.

The thing is, racing is not my highest priority, and with the wide waterline beam, I'm pretty sure my boat would be slower than Richard's. I want a boat that suits my needs when I'm not racing.

I'm thinking a pivoting centerboard.

 

Say, has anyone signed up for the Wooden Boat Festival on Lake Union in July? It seems like showing up with at least a couple boats would be a good way to promote the new class. Just go to this page and register: Wooden Boat Festival | The Center for Wooden Boats https://cwb.org/events/festival/

 

Macbeath,
At first I dismissed your idea of a presence at this years Wooden Boat Festival. The experience of the last couple of years clearly showed that, while it is easy to get people to talk, it is much harder to get anybody to actually do something. Of all the dozens (?) from around this and many other countries who eagerly contributed to the rule making only two, Dunnage and myself, actually followed through and built two capable dinghies according to the published, Hardware-Store-Class rules.

It has occurred to me that a possible reason for the disproportionate participation of online chatters and actual builders is the fact that they belong to different demographics; the potential builders don't spend much time surfing the net and the "chatters" don't spend much time in the shop, assuming they have one. I count myself among the former and I had to be told by someone else about the existence of this Forum.

So, here is my suggestion for you. You have connections at the Center for Wooden Boats. At the upcoming annual festival they have the Quick and Daring contest where people actually build boats. And they are being watched by other people who also think that they should be building boats. Or tell their boat-building friends about it. Why don't you place a poster in the Q&D area with information about the Hardware Class and links to the forum. Perhaps also place it in the CWB web site. There are lots of eyeballs at the festival.

 

Well, the festival starts tomorrow morning, so this comes a little late, but I've made some copies of the rules for monohulls and I'll see what I can do. Most of the competitors in Q & D are not racing sailors, but perhaps we can find some interested. I'm not so sure about posting the rules for Challenge 600 at a different event, that might just confuse people about what's happening. This is the first Q & D since Dick Wagner's death, and it's the last event he was hands-on with, so this year is about his legacy, not about me promoting something else.

I had thought that having two actual boats and their builders at the festival talking to flesh-and-blood people would be more effective in recruiting local competitors than chatting on an international forum.

I have been trying to use my influence at CWB. I have proposed that they have a presence in the Duck Dodge by having privately owned boats (because of insurance issues, CWB boats can't race in the duck dodge) which would be built by their owners, possibly providing a place to build them at the north Lake Union facility. The boats would earn their keep at CWB by being rented out in the livery. This would solve two of the problems with making the class, and sailing in general, accessible to more people. One is having the place to build, which is why I haven't built, and the other is having a place to keep the boat that's not too expensive and is close to where you race. I'm hoping it would also bring a more engaged group of volunteers into the Center. They would be 14' boats built of materials costing less than $600.

I've talked to the director and some other folks, but the programs director, who would need to be on board, was in the race to Alaska and hasn't yet started sailing back. I'll broach it to her when she gets back.

I think another problem in recruiting people is that some are intimidated by the prospect of designing their own boat. I've designed a simple, stable one for the CWB boats. It should have a fair turn of speed, but it's certainly not the fastest that could be designed.

The National 12 class didn't catch on until Yachting World published plans for the Uffa-King design, so a design that's easy to build and accessible helps. Yes, I know Richard's design is already out there, and it's a faster boat, but most people aren't skilled enough to sail it safely, and it's not everybody's daysailer for the family.

I hope I'll see you and John at the festival.

 

Well, I got a positive response from some of the Quick & Daring contestants, and the instructor from the Wood Technology program thought some of his students might be interested, but I've not heard from any of them since.

 

It was worth a shot. Long odds.

 

I suggest you simply start racing. Even with just two or three boats, such is likely to draw attention. The goal should be modest. To get one new fleet member per year.

From the work and expertise I have seen go into the existing boats, I can say they are not semi-disposable boats like pdracers. Much more is expected of them and therefore the commitment needed to join the fleet is all that much greater.

A pdracer can be slapped together in as little as two weekends. One of these boats is likely to require dozens of them to build a competitive boat.

Not only should the existing boats be raced, but they should be beach cruised as well. Then they need to be written about. Magazines like "Small Craft Advisor" would be good venues for this.

 

For those interested, i will be doing some experiments with laminated tyvek for sail material. I will start with some glue tests, then lamination tests.

 

Another reason for the difference between the online chatters and the builders is that many of us who were involved in the chat are already involved in racing (and building or restoring) other boats. Any time that we take to get involved in this class is time and effort taken away from the racing we currently do.

 

I love this concept.

Was just curious, (as I am in the wrong area and not in a place or skill sets to build one of these) but would it be reasonable to use a Junk-Rig to save cost so that you could finish the hull better in the cost limit?

 

Is there any evidence that a junk rig is at all cheaper? You need lots of battens, more control lines - and the claims that junk rigs are cheaper for equal performance just don't add up. A lot of the stuff the biased junk rig fans come up with is just incorrect. For example, they talk of the loads being distributed more widely and therefore cheaper sailcloth being workable - but in most boats under 30ft the loads are generally pretty small anyway.

 

My idea was simply that one might be able to make a good junk rig using say, tarps.

Of course, it may be cheaper and more effective for a small boat like this to have a simple catboat rig. I was just thinking aloud on what would work well with a tarp as sailcloth. But now that I looked to see what around I think the simple most inexpensive rig would be to take a 20x16 tarp ($13) and then cut it for a Catrig (Gaff style) or lug rig. The 16x20 would mean that you could cheaply use it for a lot of sail designs for a class like this.