Sketches of Pete Goss Aqua Quorum

Does anyone know where I can find out more about the design of Aqua Quorum, Pete Goss' 1996-7 Vendée Globe boat? I'd particularly like to know more about the design of her canting keel.

 

Have you tried here?

http://www.petegoss.com/

Pete's a friendly guy, but it may all be too long ago

or here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canting_keel

Richard Woods

 

Thanks, Richard. I started with wikipedia, and I have Pete's book. I hadn't thought of asking Pete directly. I'll do so.

 

The designer was Adrian Thompson


Paragon Mann Ltd, Eskdale, King Edward Road, Lonan, Isle of Man, IM4 6AB.
T/F 01624 614889

If you do a bit of Google image search you can find photos.

Ive not heard of Paragon Mann, Thompson. I believe their work is with the military.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/vsv.htm

the link for VSV boats is dead. www.vsvboats.com

 

Thanks, Michael. One of the things I want to chase down is canting keel patents. Pete Goss's description of Aqua Quorum's keel system in his book doesn't sound any different from the systems used today on Volvo and Vendée boats, but I believe those all licence the 2005 CBT patent. I'll see if I can get hold of Adrian Thompson, or someone in his office that can answer that. Pete wouldn't have been concerned with things like patents, he just encouraged Adrian Thompson to produce a remarkable boat, which he then sailed with his own brand of skill and crazy enthusiasm.

 

Its been a long time but I think I saw an article in Seahorse Magazine. You might research the mag

 

I think I have a better feel for the systems now - Aqua Quorum and the current Vendée and Volvo boats are sleds with a transom-hung rudder and a dagger board on each side, set at an appropriate angle of incidence for the immersed part of a heeled hull. Wild Oats XI is an example of a CBTF design, with lateral resistance surfaces in tandem. each able to be oriented, and no other means of steering. Does that sound right? The canting ballast keels on both types are pretty well identical.

 

All those boats are highly optimized to track straight while sailing on a reach under autopilot.

Autopilot is the whole game..nothing else matters.

The twin transom hung rudders plus dagger boards assist in this tracking ability.

Older boats had single rudders that pivoted to the correct angle of heel.

Last 60 footer built.


http://


subir fotos

 

Nic pics, Michael. I take your point about tracking straight on autopilot. But I reckon the switch to twin rudders was triggered by the hull form. These arrow-shaped sleds are sailed heeled much of the time, and a single rudder on a wide, shallow transom would barely touch the water even if you canted it.

 

On the old boats designers canted the rudder.

http://wavelength30.zxq.net/paul_lindenberg.htm

http://

 

Yes. A canting rudder makes sense on a hull that heels about its design centreline, but separate rudders are needed for sled hulls that approximate in plan to an isosceles triangle, where the effective centreline runs from bow to the leeward transom bilge - which also makes two daggerboards, each aligned with the heeled hull's 'centreline', necessary.

That's also why CBTF-type hulls like Wild Oats XI don't need port & starboard daggerboards, just a pair of surfaces jutting down from the design centreline. Their heeled hulls still point in the same direction as when they are upright.