MX Next-new dinghy design

Discussion in 'Sailboats' started by Doug Lord, Aug 18, 2012.

  1. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    MX-Next

    ==========
    I think that is a real short sighted approach to viewing new designs and technology. You seem to be saying that because it doesn't already exist there
    must be something wrong with it. I seem to remember some people saying similar things about the first Moth on foils.....
    And, by the way, the MX-Next is not just a rendering-it is a design.
     
  2. CutOnce

    CutOnce Previous Member

    I'm not so sure that showing a rendering makes it a design. Designs are documentation on how something that exists and functions is built, not a speculative document on how it may someday be built and how it may possibly function.

    Whatever happens with the MX Next, like all of Vlad's promotions it is very attractive, incorporates edgy and trendy visual elements and looks like it is going 45 knots when sitting still. Then again I've seen a lot of visually stunning women who lost their appeal once they opened their mouths, talked and spoiled the vision.

    I like seeing these concepts, the earlier the better, so I'm all for seeing renderings posted. I do however have a great degree of scepticism about crossing the huge gap from concept to functioning boat - and the even wider chasm from functioning boat to market acceptance and one design class racing.

    Vlad has already got enough on his plate today for the next couple of years, unless he suddenly wins a Powerball lottery. I'd just like to see the mini-SpeedDream cross the first hurdle to functioning boat - and then the full sized version get built.

    --
    CutOnce
     
  3. idkfa
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    idkfa Senior Member

    How does the MX next compare to the Hoot?

    http://www.gohoot.com/

    Sorry to unstable to be fun, go with a moth if that's the kind thrill one is looking for.
     
  4. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

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    Dictionary definition of design: A plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, or other object before it is built or made.

    I can't believe this is not obvious: a design of a boat must be completed before it is built! The technical specifications shown for the MX-Next in the first post are the result of the completion of a design-one would have to have a complete design in order to know those numbers. That is not to say that the design may not evolve as it goes from a plan on paper to a finished boat-it will and that is part of the sailboat development process.
     
  5. maxstaylock
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    maxstaylock Junior Member

    I have just seen the line drawing, on the Speed Dream website. It does look pretty fine, could someone with computer skills post it here? If allowed?

    So, initial feedback: The bow looks very full, low down, which is good for hard deep reaching. But there seems to be a fair bit of volume high up too, makes me think, it may not pop up, but rather dig in, compared to a real wave piercer. If it had another foot of bow, and less volume, it may be an easier boat to trim fore and aft. Bow windage is also too high, as drawn. This is a big factor in smaller multis, which can even lead to lee helm, if you let the bows sky too much with the wind forward of the beam, so, lower and longer please.

    Next, the hard wings. (hiking/trap racks) Hard wings were tried, in cherubs, 14's, and moths. They were dismissed, in favour of tubular wings, for reasons of weight, windage, and in chop, they could add too much buoyancy. In the UK, only Merlin Rockets and National 12's continue with the wing approach, for class rule reasons, and they can be a real handful in a breeze, prone to waves and hull steering. Whether a hard wing or a tubular rack, it is always slow to dig it in. The only advantage of wings, over racks, is it is easier to stop the sheets getting washed out the back. Go Tubular Racks. To allow the sailor to properly trim the boat, fore and aft, across a range of conditions, the Bmax has to be carried a long way forward and aft. Idealy, from about the mast, for upwind hight mode, up to 10 knots app. And extending past the stern, a foot or two, because, on big days, you can never be too far aft. The wings, as drawn, look cool but allow very little fore and aft trim options for the sailor. Style over substance. Change them for racks. 1.2 meter projection min, either side of the narrow hull, would not look out of place, and at least the outer spar needs to extend a decent distance fore/aft, think 18 footers.

    Difficult to say anything about the rig, as all that is shown is a stick, pointing out of the hull, at a jaunty angle. If it looks a little like the Devotti D1 rig, it will not be too far off. The fine line between success and complete failure, in a single hander can be 0.5 sq m of sail, and one wrap of carbon on the mast. The mast/sail combination on a small single hander, has to work between 5 knots and 30 knots, and be controllable with only downhaul, outhaul, kicker and mainsheet, by a person who is already very busy, so it needs to be as automatic as it can be. I would choose freestanding, by choice, single hander monos of this size seem to be 50/50 between free standing and stayed, a well designed freestanding rig (D1, RS300, and if course the finn and arguably laser) is no disadvantage performance wise, simplifies kite work, and cuts down on the number of breakable components.

    Foils, again not shown. In ten years, maybe building a high performance dinghy without hydrofoils, would be as ridiculous as nowadays building a high performance dinghy with a symmetrical kite. Who knows. But, at the current state of development, I would doubt the experience exists to allow a foiled up larger dinghy to be built and gain a following. All attempts to build a practical course racing foiler, outside the moth class, have failed. Canting keels and multis slow acceptance into mainstream, have shown the buying public shy away from brand new ideas, and the market is rarely wrong (by definition). Whatever, designing a bad foiling system would be worse than no foiling system. May be a possible future retrofit, if the rest of the platform is good enough. (e.g. RS600FF) But T foil rudders are gradually gaining acceptance among development classes, again 14's, cherubs, cats etc. A good way to cut back on aft volume a little, improving manners, cut down the effective displacement a little upwind, and more rocker to make the boat less nosy downwind, for very little modification in sailing style, and shore side handling, relative to other single handers.

    So, to sum up, if it is a hiking boat, it has to be faster, an work even better, than a D1. If it is a trap boat, it has to be faster, an work even better, than a Musto Skiff. Both were designed by genius, and developed by rockstar small boat racers. I would love to play with a racked up, wave piercing, t foil equipped, hiking, kite rigged single hander, a good bit quicker than a D1 or an RS300, easier to sail than a current moth or asymmetric canoe, that looks as good as Vlad can draw them. The hull shown, would be great at one wind angle, in one wind speed, but life is too short to wait for those exact conditions, and one still has to be able to use the boat to get home afterwords. If it could approach multi speeds, at least downwind, even better.

    Again, I know nothing. I am a very average small boat racer. A tyre kicker, if you like. Nothing I say has any broad experience or weight, just speaking from the point of view of someone who has raced a variety of dinghys and multis, never to any great leaps of performance, and often quite badly.

    Good Luck
     
  6. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    MX-Next

    The pdf for the boat is in the first post-I can usually grab stuff from a pdf but not this time.
    UPDATE -I got part of it:

    click-
     

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  7. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    -------------------------
    The NZ R Class is mostly foilers now and it was the second spinnaker equipped two person foiler in history-the I-14 of David Lugg being the first about a month after the Moth first foiled.
    Your comment about designing a high performance boat now without using lifting foils is like designing it with a symmetrical spinnaker is right on target-except NOW-not in 10 years.
    This MX-Next with lifting foils could perform as good as it looks....

    "Normal" foils shown in previous post......



    http://www.rclass.org/
     

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  8. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

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  9. CT 249
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    CT 249 Senior Member

    It's an expression that has been used before, by people such as Herreshoff and/or Olin Stephens towards America's Cup challengers if I recall correctly.

    It's not saying that if something doesn't exist there must be something wrong with it. It is saying that extensive experience among top designers and sailors has shown that certain features may be vital or may not work, and therefore it is odd that someone has apparently decided to ignore that experience. It's not saying that things can't change, merely a comment about differences.

    For example, common practice in a huge variety of classes is to have long wings so that crew weight can be moved fore and aft. In classes like the Moth and R this involves a slight weight penalty. If experience in Moths, 18s, Rs, Canoes etc over many years proves that this is an important ability then surely it is reasonable to point out that it is a facility missing in the boat under discussion.
     
  10. Paul B

    Paul B Previous Member

  11. Paul B

    Paul B Previous Member

    Unless I'm not reading things correctly, the 2012 R class Nationals had 15 entries. Only 3 were foilers. The top 3 places were taken by non-foilers.
     
  12. CT 249
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    CT 249 Senior Member


    As your own link says, at the most recent national titles "the foiling development or lack of restrictions has seen a distinct splitting of the fleet, with at least 3 of this year’s contingent committing to foils and the rest backing on the conventional. "......"The fleet consisted of 15 boats of which 3 were foiling; More FM (Steve Macintosh and Tony Park), Merde (Dave Pairman and Steve Fortune) and TheVirtual (Paul Roe and Jess Hix)."

    The top crew "stamped their dominance on the competition.....showing a distinct performance advantage" finishing with five wins and a second WITHOUT foils. Second was Massive Attack, one of the boats that has been equipped with foils but did NOT use them according to the class site.

    The foilers did very well at times but between the three boats their top places were one win and one second and 4th, 5th and 6th overall.

    The Rs are an amazing boat, it's a great pity that there now appears to be only one small fleet left (NPYC) and that its home has seen such tragedy. Decades ago there was something like 400 registered Rs with fleets across NZ. There's been so many declines like that in development classes that it would be great to try to work out why they happen; personally I think the problem in such classes is often the fact that the downsides of development are not considered by the cheerleaders of change. There seems to be a delicate balance required and that need is all too often ignored IMHO, especially by those from areas where development classes barely exist if at all.

    PS - bizarre coincidence of posting times caused by insomnia/hangover!
     
  13. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

  14. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Location: Cocoa, Florida

    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    R Class design

    The R Class upwind is harder to foil than a Moth because it has more weight for the amount of SA. The class allows the crews to sail with or without foils.
    This years Leander winner, L3, sailed without foils because of the anticipated conditions. It's a neat arrangement....

    Picture below is L3, winner of the 2012 Leander, on foils. L3 sailed without foils for this regatta.....
     

    Attached Files:


  15. CutOnce

    CutOnce Previous Member

    I'll have to agree to disagree on the meaning of "design" with Doug. Much of what is promoted here falls into the category I call product concepts - which is exactly what the MX-Next falls into by my personal opinion. Concepts may have drawings, renderings and plans. Concepts may even get a prototype built - but they have not yet been proven on the water to actually deliver what the designer proposes and predicts.

    Looking at Doug Kidder's Hoot shows exactly how long and far a product concept may go before it reaches what I think is a valid design. Years of minor tweaking, major changes and re-starts often happen. Even when a design is finished, it may be delayed from release by circumstances that have nothing to do with CAD drawings, renderings, prototypes or whatever.

    Basically, my perspective is driven from a value perspective. There is no measurable intrinsic value to CAD files from an unproven boat - those drawings gain value as the boat design proves workable - and much more value as more people invest their money in building and sailing that design. The most basic definition of value is "What would someone pay for this?".

    Innovation is only validated by real world success - both functional and financial. I'd love to see Mr. Murnikov finally reach both performance and market validation.

    --
    CutOnce
     
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