Law abiding Kiwis.

Discussion in 'Multihulls' started by Gary Baigent, Mar 31, 2020.

  1. trip the light fandango
    Joined: Apr 2018
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    Location: Rhyll Phillip Island Victoria Australia

    trip the light fandango Senior Member

    My hands are tied as far as working on the boat goes , my next phone call to the police may be " I need a boat to catch fish, it is essential..food, but it 's going to have to get a fair bit worse. The nice policeman described having to tell people they couldn't go to a wake last call he answered.. So this community minded skippy is hungry for all things boat , which brings me to your proposal...nearly.
    As a fan of your centre hull shape on Groucho and Frog they look other worldly, underwater..[err cuttlefish..?] . I wouldn't be surprised if many fast cruising trimarans in the future look just like that main hull design.
    Which brings me to my question. Can you really[fast] "cruise" a foiling boat with those little floats? I assume you aren't trying to fly without a transverse centre rudder etc...so semi foiling..?
    I get that the small outer hulls create far less stress than floats the same length as the main, even with that beam.., and it would tack more easily...?,. Is the compromise in less buoyancy versus more structure and weight , wetted surface worth it, ..for cruising?. [​IMG] [​IMG] great shapes.
    edit , err. the transparent feather like part of a squid..
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2020
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  2. Gary Baigent
    Joined: Jul 2005
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    Location: auckland nz

    Gary Baigent Senior Member

    Hi Tripper. Years ago I did a White Island race on foil stabilized Newick 36 trimaran Mokihi, except owner Max somehow had lost both the angled float foils (which I had carefully designed and built) so we sailed with open foil cases which made very ugly, draggy water/air ventilation noises. None of this pleased me much. Even so we thrashed the mixed multi/mono fleet in the 2 day/night Bay of Plenty and return race. Newick designs do not have large float volume and the open draggy foil cases surely did not help. Finishing the wind was gusting 30 knots plus and we were cockily carrying full working sail and completely burying the leeward float. And I kept thinking if we had the foils the lee float would have hardly immersed. And we would have been even faster.
    Foils make a huge difference - and I've reduced the floats down on subsequent boats. If a foil breaks you are in trouble and have to reduce sail. But so far this has not occurred. One point: if you have a small float design it has to be wide in overall platform beam, square or near square platform, like 10 by 10 metres on my cruising foil trimaran design posted earlier here. And you need an inverted T or similar rudder to lift main hull stern in sympathy with lifted lee float. Recent French maxi tri designs have inverted T main daggerboards too.
    If you are wanting a more cruising oriented design with small floats and foils, then you would still have to be strict in not ending up with the usual cruising heavy platform. You can have more space in main hull but still have to treat it as if a race boat, therefore minimal and light furniture and gear. Foils do incredible work, reduce pitching, lift the lee float, levers main hull up ... but the boat still has to be kept light.
    Here's my first foiler Flash Harry and the Newick foil stabilized Mokihi.
     

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    Last edited: Apr 26, 2020
  3. trip the light fandango
    Joined: Apr 2018
    Posts: 505
    Likes: 104, Points: 43
    Location: Rhyll Phillip Island Victoria Australia

    trip the light fandango Senior Member

    Thanks for your response, after re reading my 2nd question[since deleted..] I think there are a few areas that I don't fully grasp as to the balance of foiling, so I'll wade back into the relevant forums and see how I go. I think lightweight cruising has a lot going for it.
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2020
  4. Gary Baigent
    Joined: Jul 2005
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    Location: auckland nz

    Gary Baigent Senior Member

    Hauraki Gulf sailing on Groucho. Second photograph is at Otata Island at the Noises. Originally named Les Noisettes by Du Fresne- because shaped like knuckles of a hand. You can see them in distance in first photograph. Beautiful place. Third shot is at Waiheke Island.
     

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    Last edited: Apr 27, 2020
  5. luckystrike
    Joined: Feb 2010
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    Location: Germany

    luckystrike Power Kraut

  6. Russell Brown
    Joined: Jul 2012
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    Location: washington state

    Russell Brown Senior Member

    That's Jan's Ollie. Adagio and Ollie usually finish at the very front of the Mac races among the top 50 and 70 footers. Adagio is the fastest rated boat under 40 feet on the Great lakes and it's 50 years old! Ollie is self-righting. The ama's are less than 100 percent buoyancy and are happy being completely underwater. I'd love a sail on that boat. It fits my appreciation for boats that do it all, but with low loads and low horsepower.
     
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  7. Gary Baigent
    Joined: Jul 2005
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    Location: auckland nz

    Gary Baigent Senior Member

    Cannot sail here yet so fixed up my 20 year old 6 metre x 20cm sit on top kayak. Sailboards and SoTs are legal. Cleaned, repainted and polished. Fast and very light boat. Definitely blew the no sailing cobwebs away.
     

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  8. Gary Baigent
    Joined: Jul 2005
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    Location: auckland nz

    Gary Baigent Senior Member

    Did many miles on this fast and early 1961 lightweight and true ULDB (before they were so named) monohull named Vim. Designed by Peter Nelson, 10 metres and narrow. Not a multihull but close in its radical in those times lightweight veneers construction. This photograph sneaked from a video made last year in Bay of Islands. When I sailed on Vim there was no silly eggbeater on the stern to spoil the boat's very attractive lines. Interior of Vim with beautiful woman.
     

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  9. Gary Baigent
    Joined: Jul 2005
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    Gary Baigent Senior Member

    Further to memories sailing on Vim.
    THE SECOND NEW ZEALAND light displacement design was another 34 foot yacht named Vim, launched in 1961 and designed by 27 year old Peter Nelson who was a dinghy sailor attempting his first keel yacht. If the Stewart 34 was more than influenced by US designers Rhodes and Tripp, then Vim should be recognized as the rightfully first NZ native light displacement design – although she was only a one off - whereas there was a large fleet of S34’s built.
    Compared to the Stewart 34, Vim had less beam and less rocker, a low wetted surface area planing hull, flush deck, fractional rig with a full battened main and almost half the displacement - Vim was an ultra-light displacement boat sailing a decade before the class was invented in California.
    Vim was constructed by Keith Atkinson, formerly a traditional boat builder, in five layers of thin mahogany veneers over stringers, glued with formaldehyde and initially held together until the adhesive cured by “half a million staples, removed later by 19 blokes pulling them out.” The high cambered deck was a lamination of four thin skins of plywood that was stiff enough to eliminate deck beams.
    “By later standards Vim was overbuilt,” said Nelson, “but in 1961, when ocean racing was just getting started here, the boat was considered dangerously light. A measurer, curious to see what was going on, came round to have a look while we finished her off. He shook his head and said, ‘No bronze fastenings, you’ll just put her in the water and she’ll fall to bits.”
    Nelson’s philosophy in designing Vim was an easily driven hull with minimum sail for high performance – so Vim’s hollow spruce mast was only 40 feet overall and 36 foot off the deck, simply stiffened and stayed with a single set of swept spreaders, upper and lower shrouds and a set of runners for forestay tension. The sail area was considerably less than S34 totaling 350 square feet and the number of sails carried was also small. In profile, Vim’s keel was similar to S34 and carried a similar weight (2800lb for S34) in a swelling bulge but the difference in overall displacement between the two yachts was that Vim at 5800lb was not much more than half that of S34. The Stewart design relied on beam and stiff, powerful hull shape for stability whereas narrow, not powerful Vim required ballast low and deep for hers. Nelson emphasized that Jack Brooke’s long keeled Glennis, launched in 1954 and his much earlier 1940 Gleam were important influences to him. And Gleam was a very close copy of the US Yankee 30. Like Vim, Gleam was a C Class yacht measuring 34 feet overall, light displacement (5600lb with 3000lb ballast) and notwithstanding the old fashioned long keel, was considered a high performer. Brooke attributed Gleam’s speed to the easily driven, narrow hull which required little sail area to reach maximum hull speed. Also in terms of wood laminating, Glennis was influential. Although only the floors were laminated, the hull being single skinned, this was the first time such a technique had been used on a large yacht and it gave confidence to others contemplating building in this manner.
    Marks and Sharp built Glennis and therefore laminating inside was nothing new to them after their experience in moulding their International 14’s – “but all the old boys looked at what was going on and shook their heads at the folly of such construction.”
    But Vim’s performance after launching was outstanding, taking 10 guns out of 11 starts, won its division on a windy Regatta day and was fourth to finish in the entire fleet of the Squadron’s Round the Island race.
    Fast Great Barrier crossing:
    ‘The seas began to build along with the wind. Both girls were now leaning over to leeward from the cockpit retching into the speeding white water a few inches from their noses. Soon they went miserably below. Nearing midnight with Cape Colville on our beam, Vim, which does not carry a large sail plan, was becoming overpowered, although in the gusts still stood up well, thanks to her deep ballast, heeling only a few more degrees than usual and powering on, still balanced and with no weather helm.
    But there was more wind coming so Jim went forward, lifeline attached as Vim is fine bowed, has no fixed lines nor even a pulpit and sports a highly cambered foredeck. Working carefully, the moon had gone behind clouds, he made the sail change. Even with the small working jib set, Vim drove on at the same speed for the wind continued to increase, shouldering her long bow over the wave tops and plunging at speed into the troughs, throwing sheets of water to leeward. But regularly now, with solid green water coming over and pouring from the foredeck I could hear, because the forward hatch was being overcome, the noise of water spilling below. I handed the helm to Jim, went below and forward to lash it tight, running a double line from hatch to floor and bouncing it tight – this crushed the rubber seal and stemmed the flow to few drops.
    At first, in these seas I had gritted my teeth, remembering jackhammer rides in other designs in similar conditions but Vim’s narrow forward sections just shushed into the waves with no jarring whatsoever.
    After an hour or so the smudge of Great Barrier grew larger, the seas eased a little in this north easterly and although we still pitched into some large ones, the worst was over. When the shape of False Head appeared, we eased sheets and bore away onto a close reach for Wellington Head. Vim immediately accelerated onto a plane, making a steady and continuous 12 knots, sliding smoothly over the now beam seas and as she rolled her weight into the troughs, throwing sheets of phosphorescence toward the gloom of Little Barrier.
    Soon the moon appeared again and lightened the seascape and when Wellington Head slid by on our beam, I was disappointed the sailing was over. Three in the morning – that means we’d crossed in six and a half hours, give or take a few minutes and most of that hard on the wind.”
     
  10. Burnside Style
    Joined: Apr 2019
    Posts: 14
    Likes: 1, Points: 3
    Location: Ocean Spring, MS USA

    Burnside Style Junior Member

    Gary,
    Do you have any drawings or images from the construction of this sit on top?
     
  11. Gary Baigent
    Joined: Jul 2005
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    Location: auckland nz

    Gary Baigent Senior Member

    Here are the fairly crude plans: measurements in metrics, sorry.
    3mm ply, glassed.
    Correction from earlier post on this craft: 6.1m x 0.52m - the latter correct measurement is approximately 20 inches - whereas I had typed 0.20cm, wrong.
     

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    Last edited: May 13, 2020
  12. Russell Brown
    Joined: Jul 2012
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    Location: washington state

    Russell Brown Senior Member

    Gary, if I were a kiwi I'd be more law-abiding than I feel as an American right now. There are things about this country that make me proud to be an American, but they are a bit hard to see right now. If by some wild chance I reincarnate, I hope it's in a country like New Zealand.
     
  13. Gary Baigent
    Joined: Jul 2005
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    Location: auckland nz

    Gary Baigent Senior Member

    Jacinda is doing a beyond excellent job - and is really appreciated by majority of Kiwis - but you would be surprised regarding the numbers of whinging right wingers here who have been spewing and expectorating in frustration. She just smiles.
     
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  14. Russell Brown
    Joined: Jul 2012
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    Location: washington state

    Russell Brown Senior Member

    I'm surprised about the wingers, but not that surprised. I was the only American in a large shop full of Kiwi's for 1 1/2 years and I didn't get on so hot with the young guys.
    Bent the law a bit last week and got out sailing for a few days. Eerily quiet in the San Juan's. DSC_7342.jpeg
     

  15. cavalier mk2
    Joined: Mar 2010
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    Location: Pacific NW North America

    cavalier mk2 Senior Member

    Ah now, mankind is one monkey floating on a log in the sea of space. Get the balance wrong and it is a swim to the end. Sort of the theme these days, no matter where you are there it is.

    We have a fair amount of boats out in the sound these days, nothing like normal but there have always been a few out sailing. Sadly not me yet but the day is coming.
     
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