TP52s

Mark 42

"The MacGregor 25 is in a select group of only 24 boats such as the
Laser and J-24 and F27 that helped usher in the fiberglass era."

The Mac25s have survived storm and cane. MacGregor Yachts builds ocean sailboats just like Pacific Seacraft.

Unlike the 1950's corvettes, which didn't float as well.

Are you aware of the F-88 Concept. This car would have changed history if put into production. She is a V8 that looks like a Corvette. The Corvette division lobied to prevent production. Many Mac26x owners are sports car enthusiests. The F-88 was also fiberglass.

Fiberglass was not new even in the '50s though:
http://www.boatus.com/goodoldboat/BirthofFiberglass.htm

Guzzwell added a layer of fiberglass to Trekka prior to finishing his circumnavigation. I asked him if he might have been the first to use the
material on a boat and he speculated that perhaps that was true.

"...lets get real Laser and Taser are way to close in naming to think
Ian Bruce and Frank Bethwaite not close colaborators at one time."

Hey... MacGregor, Mcdonnell... it must employ high tech aerospace technologies.[/QUOTE]

Yes Roger MacGregor worked for Ford Aerospace while starting MacGregor Yachts. I have been told that Catia, the software used by Boeing and other aerospace manufactures was used to design the Mac26x. This is why she is the most symentrical vessel produced by the Yacht Company. I was told that the starboard lines were drawn and the mirror image used for the port side. There was no indication of that when the Mac26m rolled out. Catia is a mainframe software product.

The Aviator was a great film, likely a favorite of yours. I obtained a solo pilot license prior to stepping into a sailboat. Perhaps this gives me a view a bit different from others, and closer to Roger MacGregors, and Frank Bethwaite.

The designer of the Tasar and the Laser, Laser II, something Laser, worked together for many years at the company that later became Bethwaite Design.

 

I have been told that Catia, the software used by Boeing and other aerospace manufactures was used to design the Mac26x. This is why she is the most symentrical vessel produced by the Yacht Company. I was told that the starboard lines were drawn and the mirror image used for the port side. There was no indication of that when the Mac26m rolled out.

All of the available yacht design programs model one half and mirror the other, and have done for well over 20 years. You would have to be an idiot to do it any other way.

You talk as if yacht design with a computer was rocket science only done by a small number of people. The reality is that all professional yacht designers and naval architects, as well as thousands of amateur designers, have access to extremely accurate, 3D design and analysis software. Most of these programs are able to send files to NC cutting equipment to cut or mill accurate moulds or plugs - see http://www.janicki.com/marine.html.


Catia is a mainframe software product.

CATIA runs on desktop machines under UNIX or Windows, it is an excellent 3D CAD program but not well suited to the design of yacht hulls.

I thought you knew something about computers Frank, mainframe based CAD systems went out with gramophones.

 

Hi Andrew,
I work with Catia every day. I'm curious why you feel it is not a good boat design software? Also, just so you know, this question is for my own education, Not to support any of Frank's notions about sailing.

Scott Awalt
CMM Programmer

Owner
Sugar Magnolia
S2 7.9 #253

 

Scott

Just the lack of dedicated hull design tools and built in analysis for hydrostatics and stability. I also have issues with the quality of some of the surface models i have seen from CATIA, although I am sure this does not apply to their 'A' class surfacing modules used by the automotive industry.

Designers that use CATIA for marine work still typically use a hull design system such as Maxsurf or Fastship for the initial hull design and analysis, then take the surface models through an IGES NURBS file into CATIA for detailing.

Andrew

 

Thanks Andrew. I mostly work with Boeing aircraft parts. There are alot of complex surfaces in the models and have never had a problem with the quality. Except if I have to use an .iges translation out of Catia 4.24. I can get up to .001" error on a surface then. However, I'm not looking at the mathmatical definition and comparing. Thanks for the info.
I looked at your website. The software does look cool.

 

Which CAD program was used to design a boat is totally irrelevant to
the quality of the design. It's like saying "This design was entirly
drawn with Eberhardt Faber pens and pencils"

Boats (and airplanes) have always been drawn by laying out
one side and mirroring the offsets to produce the other.
The Mac 26 is no more symmetric than any other commercially
produced hull, except maybe early Hobie Cats.
But that symmetry is not important. A difference of 1/8"
from side-to-side would not produce a perceptible difference
in performance. It woul likely be less that 1/10 of 1 percent
difference in drag & speed & other affected forces.

BTW, CATIA is the worst Piece Of ***** CAD program I've ever
seen.

I'm convinced the French (who designed CATIA) should have
remained a German territory after WWII. It has to be an Airbus
plot to drive Boeing into bankruptcy. I prefer pen and ink on
mylar to CATIA. At least CATIA V.4

I haven't used CATIA V.5 yet, but it appears to be almost as
good as Unigraphics (UG), which is not as good as Pro-Engineer.

I can produce better models, in 1/4 the time it takes with CATIA
using UG. And they will be 50 times easier to edit for design
improvements later down the road. CATIA sucks.

And I have over 5,000 hours with each.

I used to hate UG, until I started using CATIA.

The only reason Boeing went with CATIA when they decided
on a companywide standard (after the McD Merger) was
because (a) they already had a large amount of product on it
and (b) TPTB were almost all heritage Boeing people.

 

There's a new Budweiser commercial...
those of you who've seen it will know the one I mean,
those who haven't seen it will recognize it when you do.

It starts out with three younginsh (mid to late 20's) adults
sitting outdoors on the grounds of a zoo, at a table,
drinking beer. One guy stands up and says "Hey, watch this..."
and picks up a banana off the table and walks over to the
monkey cage and taunts the monkey through the bars.

I'm trying to figure out who in this thread is the monkey,
and who is the guy with the banana taunting the monkey.

NOTE: you must see the commercial to answer...
you'll understand why after you do. Maybe someone
can find the video online... I'll look for it later if time permits.

 

Mark

I'm interested to hear specifics of why you feel CATIA is inferior to UG or ProE. Can you give me some examples of where you think they have gone wrong.

thanks

Andrew

 

Examples:
There is a function which reduces file (storage) size called "Pack"
What menu is it under?

After you use "Analysis" to determine things like distance between
objects... the data stays and continues to get filled up with text.
There is a way to clear the data... do you know what it is?

Do you know how to change the sizes of arrowheads in the
drafting mode... how do you change arrowhead sizes on
dimensions, notes, etc.? (Hint: no one at my work, including
the "CATIA Gurus" could figure it out).

If you have a file with a color pallette you like (the default one
sucks), how can you import it into another existing file?

In a Multi-Draft file, when you are defining sheet (plot) files,
you have to close all overlays, switch drafts to the next sheet,
then re open the overlays and create the next sheet file... this
has to be done for every sheet file. And, the way a sheet plot
file is created is ridiculous. You define it, the pick two corners
of a box, and it exists... you never click save or anything remotely
intuitive. And if you make a mistake... how do you dlete the plot file?
I can figure it out, but no way can I tell you w/o actually going through
it... because the method makes no sense.

Nothing is intuitive.
Adding a blank line in text, changing the way dimensioning works,
modifying solids, adding a spline.

What is the difference between menus CURVE1 & CURVE2...
which one do you use to draw a circle, a spline, or an arc?

You have to constantly edit the menus to add and remove
choices because of the limitted number of menu selections
available at any one time. You can store menu configs, but
this means that when you go to someone else's machine to
help him or her, you are stuarting with that persons (awkward)
menu.

And it just goes on.

Capped off perhaps by the "Help" feature.

Often times a function I want to use could be in one of two or
three menus, but is in none of the ones that make sense.

Many of the functions could be repeated in more than one
menu when it makes sense to look for it in more than one.

Usually there would be no harm to having the same function
appear in more than one menu.

 

Ran into an interesting website...

http://www.eskimo.com/~mighetto/lsfuzzy.htm

How's that effort coming along?

http://www.ssseries.org/flyertol.htm

Oooh... I just read more carefully... guess which two words
caught my attention:

http://www.ssseries.org/flyertol.htm#party

 

Water ballast was obsoleted long ago, when keels got deeper and deeper.

But, why would you even bother with water ballast at all?
You talk of how rules shape boats and restrict innovation...
by that logic, all monohulls are a waste of time.

Example:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?g=events/sp/020705sailormacarthu&a=&tmpl=sl&ns=&l=1&e=1&a=0&printer=

Followed by the Royal Navy ship HMS Severn, British yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur and her trimaran, background, are welcomed back to Falmouth, England, Tuesday Feb. 8, 2005, after completing a record breaking round-the-world voyage. MacArthur, 28, smashed the record for the fastest person to sail single-handedly around the world non-stop, when she passed the finish point off Ushant, France, Monday, having completed the journey in 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds.(AP Photo/Lee Durant, Royal Navy)

 

Here's one... and if anyone knows the answer, please TELL ME!!

I added views to a drawing using AUXVIEW (not AUXVIEW2).
I want to set the views so that they always show HLR display
regardless of what display mode I select globally.

I used to know how to do this.
I have spent nearly an hour looking through menus, and
have asked about a dozen engineers who use catia
almost every day, and no one knows what menu to
look for it in.

It belongs in AUXVIEW, but it may be under Graphic, Standard,
Image, or some other menu.

Please, if you know... tell me.

 

Please don't delete messages entirely...

If you decide to delete them, as a favor to those of us who came in
late and started by going back to the biginning... could you just
edit the message(s) down to "Deleted by author of post" or
something similar?

This system renumbers the posts, so there's no way to know
that you've skipped over a deleted post, and sometimes it
makes the thread hard to follow.

I'm about halway through reading them all... dying to know if
any Mac 26X's competed in the last transpac... but I haven't
reached that episode yet.

So far I've only reached the part where the TP52's lose their
fixed keels because they are structurally weaker than the
more complex canting rigs or the water ballast which is
firmly held in place by a PVC pipe valve.

 

Priceless.

 

Mark Mark Mark! Thanks for posting that photo, I've been looking for the original for weeks. I thought I saw it over at SA somewhere, but I couldn't remember where. Could you give me some idea of what thread it's on or where you found it? Thanx much.