new low cost design competion

While it is great to hear of such high standards and I would like to see the finished boat (link?) how long will it remain looking like new in use, even when glassed?” The molded plastic and fiberglass boats I had were heavy and got rather banged up by the end of the first season. In my experience it did not happen in the water, but on shingle shores getting in and out, transporting it between water and home, car-topping, tripping over it in the garage etc.

I quickly realized it was the weight of the boat that was causing it to take punishment and it was all happening out of the water. When I built them small and light they didn’t get bashed around, and can hang on the wall of the garage out of the way. Glass is structurally essential to some boats like strippers, but if it isn’t needed I don’t do it. One of my boats gets stored outside all the time, it is finished in latex house paint, like my house, which also stays outside in Canadian winters and summers. They are both doing just fine. BTW latex paint takes far longer than the can says to harden; I try to give my boats a couple of weeks before use, to allow the paint to fully harden, but it continues to improve for months.

The thread is about low cost - and therefore - small boats. The design objective is best speed for lowest cost, which will likely be met by the lightest, fastest boat that will carry one person. That person will then tuck it under his/her arm and walk off with it and the prize.

I have no trouble getting fair hulls using chine logs which is easier and faster than S&G, provided I start with decent materials. There are some tricks to this of course, which I can pass on in another thread, but it is far quicker and more pleasant than hours of sanding epoxy fillets. I don’t even own a longboard and have so far had no use for one.

 

lets do it

hey,P Flados;
you seem to be the first poster that really understands where I'm comming from with the" low cost prototype, beefed up later concept.Build one,If it doesnt perform up to expectations,scrap it and build another-when you get where you want to be,THEN pull out all the stops- nice paint,etc.I see your're in the Carolinas,I'm in Texas,and I dont know where CutOnce is located,but I would be willing to trailor my entry to some agreed upon lake venue roughly equa-distant between you two for an informal mess-a-bout and maybe a timed run or two.(My 300 dollar wedge shaped dinghy is a bit of a dog upwind but SPOOKY FAST on a reach).I would also like to meet Terry Haines and Lampy,but I aint driving from texas to canada--I doubt the old ford would make it.

--Saw

 

Like most middle-aged Aussies, I grew up racing boats with hulls and decks of 2-6mm ply. None of them had fairing bog on the chines, none of them had chine tape, most of them were varnished. Hull weights ranged from 60-80lb (11' Moths, strong enough to take big fully-battened rigs and wings and sail between Sydney Heads, where the windward shore is the Antarctic) to 140lb (14 footers).

There's a huge number of 30+ year old boats like this around. My kid's Sea Scout troop has two 14 footers that weigh 140lb - boats around Lightning speed - and are still around at 35 years of age. They are horribly battered and dented by beginners using them to remodel the wharves and rocks, and roughly fixed with car bog (!), but they're still sailing.

So you can certainly get years of service out of a light ply boat with no glass. If you want it to look shiny, then just make sure it never touches anything but water and a trolley.

Which gets back to the earlier point; we already know how to build boats that are light and fast. As has been pointed out, a competition such as this will go to an expert builder who can make an ultra-light hull, but such a hull may (or may not) be quite complex. You'd probably have a trapeze (a piece of clothesline) and an ultra-narrow hull. It would weigh in at 120-140lb for a 12-14 footer and be hard to sail, because in fast boats adding dollars make boats EASIER to handle, not harder to handle.

So while it's a fun idea, once again there seems to little chance that the outcome could take us places we haven't been before.

As they found out in the '30s and earlier, a boat designed for easy and cheap amateur construction and attracting new sailors isn't particularly fast, nor is it a development class - it's a strict one design with tight rules that prevent people from introducing extra complexity for extra speed.

As a design contest, with points for low cost and easy handling and construction and a few points for sailing speed, an idea like this could be great. As a pure speed contest, it's going to be won by a Stevo Moth, or an International Canoe or 12' Skiff copy.

PS - is polytarp cheaper than the cheap Mylar film used for patterns and windsurfer sails? Mylar seems very cheap, is very low stretch, and performs well in many sailcloth applications; often better than the best dacron. It's also very fragile, so a Mylar sail could be an easy cost/performance winner in the short term (or in the long term, WITH CAREFUL HANDLING) but it's in no way suitable for a knock-around boat. That's the sort of problem with a speed/cost race - you end up with stuff that's fast and cheap, but impractical.

PPS - sorry I didn't reply to everyone earlier, it's been busy here.

 

What you miss is that its all about your local boat building and owning culture. These feather light ply boats without glass (and I have a 1970 one in my garage right now which is in for major work only because the damn glue has given out with age) were built by amateurs in their own yards.

Sure a lot of those guys became pros later - the list of Cherub World champions from the 70s practically reads like a who's who of the top of the sailing game in the 90s - but they weren't pros when they were doing this stuff. But they were guys who'd watched other people do their boats and they all progressed together.

Also of course they were sailed by folks who knew that you don't bash a boat up the beach but take care of it. You've never had a light fast boats culture in NA, unlike Aus/NZ and to a (much) lesser extent the UK, so you just don't have the skills off the water or in the workshop. They also live under cover if there's frost and should be maintained dry, but then they'll last for years. Its storage that kills most older boats...

But the problem these days isn't so much money as time. No way I seem to have the time to do stuff my old man did forty years ago. Still don't quite know why. Maybe too much yacking on the internet, but unpaid overtime has a lot to do with it too.

And unfortunately if you've got cheap time use cheap materials... Cutonce' problem with paint illustrates this perfectly. Automotive paint is just too brittle to use on wood boats. It chips too much. So what do you use thats flexible enough to take the knocks, good finish etc etc? Well, we're back to yacht paint I'm afraid... And figure out the time for those 3 coats and everything else and it would have been cheaper to start with that...

 

Pity - but if you would just be coming here to watch me dancing with the turkeys, that doesn't happen any more. Turkeys age too quickly to make good dancing partners.

 

I'll try that one on my wife. She's told me I'm a turkey many times.

The paint was a real learning experience, gggGuest. I learn best from scar tissue. Once I learn from a mistake, I don't repeat it. I don't have a lot of cheap time - hence my issues with building a boat that repeats errors I'm past.

I'll probably build a boat like this, but doubt I'm going to contest the results. First, I've got lots of boats locally to measure the results against. Second, I'm not within driving distance. Third, I don't want to constrain my results by a budget I feel inappropriate for my limited (and valued) shop time. I'll post pictures and results - and I expect pretty reasonable results.

--
CutOnce

 

Where are all the fast cheap homebuilts?

thanks to CT249 for your comments:
I do,however,take issue with the notion that such a contest would not "take us anywhere we haven't been before".Maybe in Australia or NZ there are reasonably high performance home- built alternatives to $14,000.00 production dinghies,but here in the U.S,there is,as far as I can tell,only one-the Dudley-Dix Paperjet.Even this boat,at about $3,000 for the Kit,(I dont believe plans are available),sails,and finish,is about twice the cost of what I believe an entry level performance dinghy could be.It is also,apparently,a rather tedious build.I read an account of one builder who was ONE YEAR into it and still not done.Or maybe he was just an incredibly anal perfectionist.(my dad could turn out a reasonably good plywood daysailer in two weeks).I just cant believe that there would not be a market in the U.S. for kits or plans for a dinghy that could deliver 80% of the performance at about 10% of the cost.I wish there had been such a design when I was growing up.

---Saw

 

There are lots of options available. B&B's Core Sound series. Dix designs. Steve Clark's International Canoes. Eric McNicholl's Quetzal & Falco. Phantom class dinghies. You could build a wooden Contender. Contacting Meade Gougeon can get a a list of boats.

Homebuilds haven't succeeded in North America since the 70's. People just don't have the time and want instant gratification. The other problem is that none of the designers market as well as they design - once one or two examples of a design are built, they move on.

The other problem is that small, light and very fast boats don't fit well with the North American small boat mentality. They don't stand up at the dock. They need constant attention when sailing. They aren't beer & cooler friendly. You swim a lot.

I like the idea of the D-One and the RS100 because they are a little tamer than a single hand trap boat (RS700, RS600, MPS, Swiftsolo etc.). I think more of the Laser folk would try higher performance if the boat looked more Laser and less 49er. 49ers got a bad rep due to quality problems here at first. Competitive I-14s are priced for trust funders at $25-$35K and up.

--
CutOnce

 

CT 249's post 78 mentions some idea's that are not too far from some of mine.

I was actually thinking of a 12' to 16' Skin on Frame square back kayak/canoe (see post 12 & 13) as one element and "clamp on" features to achieve function similar to an international canoe, or even better to add an airfoil shaped crossbeam with surface piercing foils at the tips.

The foiler option is really where I would go first. The foiler would have a big advantage in that wind drag across the hull and hull weight are a lot easier to deal with than optimum hull shape for high speed displacement operation. It could be similar in concept to the 1/3 scale prototype used for the Hydroptere project (see http://www.hydroptere.com/_en/galerie_photos_hydroptere.php?id=53#centre). Alternately, I was thinking of trying putting the crossbeam and foils more to the rear, and go with front steering along the lines of what land sailors use. There are real structural / stability advantages to this layout.

The whole thing would be modular, such that initial trials could use on-hand / cheap used components for some elements. Used canoes / kayaks can be had cheep and resold later, my ragged old hobie sails / mast / rudder could be use for initial testing, etc. Figuring out the layout, foils, and structural issues before making and sizable cash expenditures would be a first goal. It would also facilitate getting out on the water and having some fun a lot earlier than going for a full build from scratch.

 

I like the Uniak idea. Dense stringer frame with some kind of urethane coated fabric. Bunch of labor tying it all together, but very strong and flexible when done and should be very cheap per pound.

 

If multis are allowed:
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/garyd/

For mono, simple sailing canoe:
http://www.storerboatplans.com/Beth/beth.html