fast but lightweight cruiser

Wow an artist and a boat designer. You continue to amaze me Gary Baigent.

 

Seems like the Kiwi's did everything before anyone else. Definitely a fertile creative culture there. I'd like to see photos of that boat though, Gary.
Personally I am more drawn to the single outrigger platform for single engine motorboats for multiple reasons, but the pod style catamaran is pretty fun to drive as you can see where you are going and generally stay dry.
Making slow progress on the model making, but I'll soon post some photo's of the results.
Russell

 

Russell, I got a little mixed up with Digby Taylor and Ossie James; it was the latter who asked Jim Young to design the lake tourist, shallow draft catamaran. Digby built something similar to my drawing but smaller scale. Will find out more.
But here are a couple of sections (apologies, realize I'm way off topic thread - but still kind of interesting) from the Jim Young book regarding his power catamaran and also a foiling single hull craft which he is playing around with.

46. Power Cats – the ultimate?
I DESIGNED A 22-foot power cat for a friend, Tony Quest and he built her in sheet ply with foam and glass reinforcing. I also built one power catamaran for our own use, also a 22-footer.
I believe it to be one of the ultimate power boats, fast and able to maintain speed in rough water.
Now this was a most successful boat, she was hydro-foil (underwater wing) assisted and could be driven flat out through a head sea, yet almost magically presented a remarkably smooth ride.
The powercat was powered by one 90 horse power Honda four-stroke engine mounted behind the inner side of the port side transom. Adjustment of the tab under the cavitation plate eliminated steering bias. Twenty-two knots without the foils, 26 with … but some people don’t like catamarans because they think they require two engines, which isn’t necessarily the case. I wanted one wide bottom panel instead of two narrow ones in each hull. The asymmetric hulls started off with a fine entry which twisted down to a planing surface, a foil and fairly deep vee. As the hull moved the foil took up lift and transferred support from flotation to foil. It was a gradual transition, with the hulls lifting higher as the speed increased; the result was there was no plunging or slamming.
In many boats with a sea running if you see a wave coming, you duck your head because you expect to get doused, but my cat didn’t throw spray at all - none, thanks to the 20 to 1 outer beam/length ratio. Once you’d lifted up on the foils there was also less boat to penetrate the waves, so not only was she faster and more economical, but she skipped through the waves with absolutely no plunging.
47. The monofoiler
TO AVOID THE NEED for two motors, I’ve also designed an alternative, a foil assisted, semi-vee, mono hull, 7 feet wide and 18 feet in length, of trailerable width, with flared sides, and an additional pod, with about 60 degrees vee protruding below the bottom along the centreline and extending down to the depth of a long shaft outboard. The key to the concept is that when at rest the pod is flooded and the hull has normal stability, but the pod completely drains out once the speed reaches eight knots, providing the extra volume of buoyancy and lifting the hull clear of the surface and running on a narrow knife-like pod. A foil extending out towards each side performs two functions: it lifts the hull further so the pod is all that is left in the water and provides the stability of a hull of normal beam. By sharing the support with the foils, the pod acts as a damper, preventing the foils from breaking the surface, which overcomes the problem of “hunting.” Without the dampening effect of the pod, the foil lifts the hull as the speed increases until it breaks the surface. It then flops down until the air is eliminated and then rises again to break surface in a repetitive cycle. This is called “hunting.” With the semi-immersed pod the extra lift generated by the foil is absorbed by the increasing weight of the hull as support is transferred from pod to foil with the speed increase. The size and area of the foil is dependent on the projected speed. The angle of attack of the foil is controlled by the power trim; lifting the stern up as needed. The foils can be made retractable, like centreboards on small yachts. Here is the potential for speed in comfort plus economy - just waiting in the wings - but more on that later.

 

When will this book be available, Gary? I want a copy. I got very interested in Kiwi designers when I was there and collected quite a library (with the help of Harmen Hielkema) on designs and designers to take back with me. I loaned these books to our wooden boat school and someone actually stole them.
How will the book be marketed? My wife has been learning a lot about publishing and marketing books and e-books. E-books can really help drive sales of print books as we have been finding out. We are in the process of re-publishing Project Cheers. Have you read that?
All the best,
Russell

 

I've got a rare copy of Project Cheers, excellent book, excellent people. Bernard Rhodes, who lives here at Putiki Bay on Waiheke Island, helped Dick Newick work on the hulls and is in the book. He sailed to NZ on his first 22 foot Klis tri - you probably know all about that; he wrote about it in an AYRS.
Jim handed the pdf file yesterday to a lawyer to check for slander, abuse etc. - to save us from being sued. Can't see it happening but sometimes other designers can be hyper sensitive. He has a printer lined up and will pay for a small run. He said only a small run because all his friends of his sailing generation are dead - to which I rudely laughed.
When I wrote Light Brigade (a history of NZ light displacement yachts) I posted it here on Boatdesign.net so people could download ... and I think Jim would like to do the same too.
I know Harmen - he's one of those weirdos who likes proas. Just joking. Love your boats; have talked to Rob Denney about them. He's another rude Kiwi living in Oz.

 

dear Mr. Woods, I'm a big fan but I must ask where you got the idea that your Wizard is faster than an L7? In southern California your Wizard rates phrf +79 and the fastest L7 rates -9. The slowest L7 rates +48, still faster than most F-27s. In head to head racing the Wizard is usually not even in the same ocean as the L7. If you have some evidence that I'm wrong please put forth... Thanks.

 

Publishing has changed a lot, Gary. With a bit of work (my wife, Ashlyn could point you in the right direction) you could re-publish Light Brigade as an e-book. How would it be advertized? People with web sides (like me) can post a link to your book on their sites. They are called affiliates. When a sale is made through an affiliate site a cut of the profit goes to the affiliate. It involves pay-pal payments to affiliates quarterly, but not too big a deal. We have our Epoxy Basic's book printed by Amazon as well as selling it as an e-book (and affiliates selling as an e-book). We can buy books from Amazon at reasonable cost for us to sell and Amazon sells the book as well.
Tell Jim that I can think of lots of people who aren't dead yet who want to read his book and if done right the book could trickle in money for a long time.
Light Brigade was one of the books that Harmen found for me. Wish like hell I hadn't loaned it.
Had no Idea that Bernard Rhodes was there.
Don't mention Rob Denny to me. Not many people that I truly dislike in this world, but he is at the very top of the list along with George Bush.
Russell

 

I sailed on the open deck Wizard in the race to Catalina Island in 2011. Since my airfare to the event cost me more than I had got in design royalty I was very disappointed that the boat wasn't ready to sail, never mind race. We were still fitting genoa sheet lead blocks after the start - which controlled our tactics for the first 1/2 hour or so.

you can see the report here, scroll down and note the photo showing the boats behind us, also the gps readout picture

http://sailingcatamarans.com/index....ng-flica-wizard-surfsong-eclipse-gwahir-janus

I hope to sail this boat again in March.

We raced our own Wizard with the cuddy fitted a few times in Europe. In one race we went round the windward mark just behind Reg White sailing a Firebird, and in another we were overlapped with him. That's when he told us to slow down. Which we took as a big compliment as he won the little Americas Cup, not to mention a Tornado Olympic Gold and the Firebird was open deck had a 40ft mast and was 4ft longer

We were also consistently faster than well sailed 8m Dragonflies off wind

Guess it depends on who is steering

Richard Woods

 

As I said, I'm a big fan. The socal ratings are based on the boat's performance over time. I think your claim that the Wizard is significantly faster than an L-7 has been disproven on several occassions and you provided absolutely no evidence to the contrary. I haven't raced against the Wizard in question but I've seen it up close a couple of times and in my humble opinion it's power to weight ratio would make it very unlikely to outperform an L7. Maybe in lots of wind on a broad reach. The L-7 has proven itself over time and the low phrf numbers are evidence of such. Most of those numbers come from the Marina Del Rey fleet where L-7s have sailed against a pretty strong multihull fleet over several years. If you can show a pattern of results where a Wizard sailed faster than an L-7 or any other fast boat that would justify your claim. I'd love to see it. Thanks.

 

What I did was supply you with a race report and a photo of the Wizard beating to windward with a Contour 34, F27 and maybe the L7 in the background. Taken about 1/2hour after the start, yet we had started last because, as I say we were still fitting genoa sheet blocks before the gun - we couldn't tack until we'd fitted the "lazy" one.

There was a L7 racing, I remember it pointing lower and sailing slower. It was way under our lee at one time, then I think it retired and motored in but we were well ahead of it when it did that.

I also know we sailed a faster return leg. On the return we started 1/2hour late, we couldn't even see the other boats starting, we were that far behind. But I know we beat some of them to the finish line and as I said, had the 4th fastest time even though of course we did nothing on handicap

I can do no more than report what I personally saw, sorry. Maybe the L7 was not sailed well, I have no idea, maybe - as I joking indicated - I am a faster sailor than the ex Wizard owner, again I have no idea.

Same goes for the racing in Europe, unfortunately you can no longer ask Reg White what he thought

My design being built for the R2Ak is being owner modified so I have no idea how well it will sail.

Richard Woods

 

again, with all due respect, if you had the 4th fastest time in that fleet then you should have corrected way ahead of everyone since your handicap indicates that you were the slowest boat in the fleet. I think that particular Wizard is a great looking boat and if it is faster than an L-7 all the better!

 

Cheney is a far more terrifying looney than Bush.
Rob Denny doesn't come within a bull's roar of those two crazies.
Actually I like his proa concept, yours too.
I mean you two are like ... family ... and yet you fight like harriers and bush hawks.
Yes, should get my act together about publishing. Just lazy.
Cheers

 

Sorry I didn't explain properly. In time taken we had the 4th fastest time, but as we started 1/2hr late we obviously didn't do well on handicap. In my report I wrote "We had a terrible start; we were over 1/2 hour late, as we couldn't get the engine to run for more than 10 minutes at a time and the start was 8 miles from the mooring and there was a very light headwind. We eventually crossed the start line at 12.30 (the others started at 12 noon) and then had a 30 mile close reach home. The wind slowly built to a F3-4 so it was ideal sailing, especially as the sun had at last come out. We took 3hrs 20 min for the 30 miles, so averaged 9 knots, top speed 13.5. See the gps print out below"

Incidentally, the new owner of that Wizard emailed this "Richard, thanks for such a fun design! Don't let anybody say a Wizard is slow - Saturday sailing in Southern California out of Marina del Rey, heading up the coast past Santa Monica. Wind 12-15 (whitecaps just starting to form) upwind @ 10 kts downwind with masthead spinnaker @ 16 kts!!"

Sorry Gary for hijacking your thread but I want to put the record straight

Richard Woods

 

I don't think it's Brown and Denny who argue because Mr Brown just won't.

It's the followers who bash each other.

 

I raced a reynolds 21 for many years against all kinds of multis in all kinds of conditions. After a mild turboing the r-21 could sometimes beat f-24 mk lls boat-for -boat. This was especially true in reaching or broad reaching conditions. The big problem was trying to go to weather, especially in chop. Then waterline is king and in my experience trimarans tend to do better than cats. As I said the Wizzard is a beauty, maybe the new owner will do some races and find out how it goes against an L7 for real.