Minuet Yachts: a 2m fun boat-can the design be improved?

I finally went through all the pictures I had!



Note the forestay sag.


Note again the forestay sag. You can see the positioning of the daggerboard and mast quite clearly here.


During a sail change. It takes forever to change a sail in the cramped cockpit. I would definitely recommend some sort of snuffer for a headsail if possible, so lines can be left attached.



And the spinnaker run. She tends to roll around a lot running downwind. This is about as far as she would go though.

 

Mini Crossbow project?

What beautiful country you live in! I've got an idea for you-first you have to do some homework:http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sailboats/crossbow-fl-43615.html
I'm thinking you could build a hull a couple of feet longer(or so) than the "Minuet" and experiment with on-deck movable ballast. It might be a lot of fun-you could use the daggerboard and rudder you have now. I've got a 100sq.ft sail from a "Hoot" that I'll contribute if you go forward with the experimenting.
But first you need to take whatever time it takes and read the whole thread.
There are people that try to contribute and there are the other type. You will get a good idea of the concept.

 

I've been toying around with ideas for a longer-than minuet boat with the same seating arrangement.

The first would be like Wild Oats XI only on a 10 foot scale. Maybe an 80 lb canting keel, a tall rig, DSS, twin daggerboards... You get the idea.

The second idea would be perhaps a little bit longer, but be based on the old J-class. Tons of overhang fore and aft, fairly narrow, but not as narrow as the WOXI idea. Have not decided on the keel configuration on this yet. Canting, deep fin, or whatever.

I have not considered sliding ballast. I have considered carrying 20 lbs or so of lead I can move around inside the boat, much like the guys in the Volvo ocean race move stuff around, notably sails, which they stack on the windward rail for long legs.

 

What is interesting in a boat like this is the chance to experience new things.
So why not think about a new geometry boat, very cheap, easy to build, that does not need deep keel, with the ballast water, and wing mast?

 

Nice pictures! I see your keel mast setup now. You didn't mention that you had the keel lift tackle on the front of the mast. You should be able to get that to work from a mount point at boom level by moving the attachment to the keel lower (so it won't interfere with the sleeved main).

Downwind roll is intrinsic to keel boats due to aerodynamics, following waves and the way righting goes smoothly through zero. On big boats it can be bad enough to cause a broach. On your boat it is just another good reason to have a deep oversize rudder.

About Doug's offer of a sail in return for a boat build and the task of reading his entire thread. Let me be the first to say you should decline ONLY because NOTHING is worth reading that entire thread! It's Doug's personal "Mein Kompf" and it has turned hundreds of otherwise mild mannered bloggers into stark raving lunatics. (Doug, don't bother arguing the point -if I didn't say it someone else would) But I do suggest you take a look at maybe the last half dozen pages. That will be plenty to get the gist of what it is about and what Doug is about. Then you should consider a counter offer for the following reasons

-The ideas of moving ballast above the surface while allowing the crew to sit in one seat with the controls has a lot of merit and relatively little work has been done with it. Doug has done it on RC models a number of times but he lacks the time and money to do the full human scale proof of concept he needs to move to the next step (other peoples money).

-I don't know for sure but based on pictures I would say that the two of you represent the upper and lower bounds of the 90% bell curve of potential sailors -a boat built for both of you would cover 90% of potential sailors mass.

-You both appear to have an interest in small boat DSS -Doug has a set of foils in an appropriate size. The result would be the one man WOXI you were interested in. Without Doug it could take you years to get as far and without you or someone similar Doug won't finish it in his lifetime. If Doug backs off his reading requirement and ups the offer to include a whole sail rig in return for you building the boat and helping with the testing and video documentation he needs -that could be a good deal all around.

If you are wondering why so much opinion -I am one of the people Doug has driven crazy. Now about once a year I suggest to Doug that he do some supporting development or find a collaborator in return for parts he has gathered but will never use otherwise.

 

Crossbow fl

Skyak, I'm not interested in your negotiation on my behalf or in the "terms" you propose. As you know I don't agree with you very often and your suggestion to RC "to read the last few pages" of the Crossbow fl thread is an example. Stay in your own world,ok?

 

I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. The rig would be nice, but not worth the investment just to get it. It sounds like the crossbow is basically a fast,wet little thing that's powered up for speed. I have a Hobie Fox (F20) for that. I would be interested in the mini WOXI, but mainly for the "Oh it's so cute!" Factor combined with some "I can't believe it's passing the 30 foot keelboat!"
The current minuet can't keep up with catalina 27s and the like. It tops out at 5 mph. They can do 9 mph. The only hope it has now is to out power them in light wind. I'm not really interested in keeping up with the beach cats, that's what my trimaran is for, although that project needs help too, but it will wait.
I also don't have the funding for more boats now. I want to perfect the ones I have.

 

Ps, I am going to make a little smaller rudder, about 3/4ths the size and shorter. The full H16 rudder put too much leverage on the little screws mounting the rudder. One of them pulled partway out of the wood mounting plate.
I've beefed them up, bedded them in epoxy and added some glass, but I want to reduce the lever arm on them too.

Also, that keel tackle is going away on the race rig because I don't want to put it on the fiberglass mast. I don't actually need to raise it at all except when I run aground in the mud, so maybe I'll rig some kind of lever to raise it 6 inches or so.

 

About your J boat idea

-What do you value more, sailing a boat that LOOKS like a scale model, or sailing a little boat that performs the best possible for it's size?

-As you know the J has been done in fine detail and the resulting boats rotted in yards and basements despite their beauty. The magic of the J is the fine development of the hull and keel. When you scale that down severely you either follow the math of performance and get a boat that is not recognizably related -but optimal performance

-or you scale it to look right and lose the performance and the raison d'etre. Then again, I use the term 'performance' loosely since typical dinghies with hiking crew will dramatically outperform these little keel boats because they can power beyond hull speed. Shifting ballast gets you the righting you need to get past hull speed but it's a long way to reach planing and drag is rising exponentially until you do.

Canting keels are complicated and it gives up the best attribute of your little keel boat -that any beginner can jump in and safely sail it in rough conditions. The canting keel is fast but not as fast as a simple little multihull the same size.

If you are interested in moving ballast inside the hull you would be better off with a wider hull with more form stability -then move the crew and some water. You could make a minil 'open 60' or if you like classics do a New England cat boat. Moving lead inside the hull is kind of pointless because the room you save with the lead you have to give up with foam to make the boat unsinkable (all boats this size are made unsinkable for safety). One other thought I have had is to mount heavy lead batteries so they can be shifted from side to side -then you have power when the wind drops.

 

Doug, I know you don't care about my opinions -without you telling me...again, and again...

I have learned well not to talk to you, or about you, but your suggestion that he read your entire thread was just too much.

I do hope you find a collaborator, or whatever you need to make a real boat to test your concepts.

 

You need to mount the boom anyway. You could put the tackle on the front of that mount and attach to the keel down in the DB box. You might still be able to lift the keel entirely. The big keel boats will envy your ability to sail right up to the beach and step out in ankle deep water.

3/4 size rudder is still huge relative to the boat. I am not sure you will reduce the pintle force much. The lever is slightly shorter but you are doubling sail area so lateral force will increase and you will spend more time at higher speed (the real force limiter).

 

It is unlikely you will out power much bigger boats in light wind because wind tends to increase with height and they just reach too much higher. The only way to go faster than bigger keel boats is ballast shifting and bigger than proportional sails.

 

Any mini keelboat would struggle to keep up with bigger boats in terms of all-round performance. The International 2.4 Metre is a very refined 14 foot mini yacht, but it's around 20% slower than a Catalina 27. In light and fluky winds on a small lake the 2.4 would be competitive upwind because they point so high and tack with no loss of speed, but downwind in a decent breeze the mini yachts are left far behind.

How a mini WOXI would go is an interesting question. Without checking the numbers it's hard to see how it could develop much more stability or speed than the K1, a modern slender 15' singlehanded keelboat with a carbon mast, light (50kg) hull and 60kg lifting keel. While the K1's keel doesn't cant, the skipper hikes it like a normal dinghy so in practical terms it's got a similar righting moment to a 70kg+ canting keel. The K1 has a nice sloop rig without a spinnaker and is rated roughly 5% slower than a Catalina 27.

The amount of stability DSS creates is affected by boatspeed, so it would have proportionately less effect on a slower boat and therefore seems unlikely to play a significant role in speed in a baby WOXI.

 

Dss

In my opinion,to effectively use DSS on a small boat ,it needs to be capable of planing.

 

Yes, again, much of the appeal of the pocket yacht is lost once you venture away from the minuet design as it is, or something very near to it.
The whole idea is it is simple and easy to sail, comfortable, and attracts lots of attention.


As for the boom, the new boom will simply hang from the sail at the tack, and will be held down by the down haul. I don't intend to have any sort of solid mounting point for it. I may do a steel shaft with the fiberglass mast inside, so that the steel shaft -going up maybe 6 inches above deck - can support whatever I put on the base of the mast, like that lever.

As for the rudders, I feel pretty good about the setup after all the reinforcements to the transom, but I don't want to push the envelope, and a nice wood rudder would match the rest of the boat better than the hobie plastic rudder.

I figure for the time being I'll just run the gaff rig I had. It works fairly nicely and it is extremely versatile. Ie: I can raise or lower any and every sail completely, and even switch out the mainsail, without ever moving in the cockpit. I can also raise the daggerboard completely up into the hull.

Back to the WOXI idea, I found another thread that basically follows that idea. Here it is:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sailboats/16-keel-boat-high-performance-7603-5.html

I was also thinking something like this, but with a canting keel, dual daggerboards, and DSS. Granted, many of those features may be completely useless at this size. http://features.boats.com/boat-content/2002/06/looks-like-a-full-sized-yacht-look-again/