New low-cost "hardware store" racing class; input on proposed rules

That's the problem with defining a boat according to its use; another different boat used the same way gets the same name.

Being one, I don't find anything demeaning in the word "Grandfather" but it's clear you do not hold the older and/or less athletic sailor in great esteem. Since we haven't finished defining this class yet it seems a bit premature to start creating another. Surely there are enough fast sailing boat classes that favor the rich, the athletic, the risk-taking or those fortunate enough to live on the waterside that we can have just one for all the other sailing folk to enjoy . . .

 

I agree with Upchurchmr and sawmaster, it makes the boat safer, is very useful despite the athetic ablity of the crew. And I just to not see how you are going to enforce it, by hooking your toes under the edge of a floor board, thwart or bench people can still hike out, and that could be more dangerous. Are we going to have people staging protests when they saw another crew leaning out further than they though they should? I am not sure it is practical to keep all body parts inside the box rule, would looking around your sail, or untangling a halyard or a sheet be penalized because some body parts went outside the gunwale?

Hiking straps, and hiking out with them, are part of the mix. Even simple little boats have hiking straps, it is part of sailing a dinghy.

And I suspect with a class like this most builders will be part of the crew anyway, and the older more experienced designers and builders I think will have the advantage over a younger and more fit crew, their boats will be better. If this class become popular than the older builders can perhaps team up with a younger crew, or we can even create a "senior" category (what age is the cut off?), as well as a "junior" category, different crews can even race the same boat.

 

Why not just have a minimum side deck width, with a stipulation that your knee joint can't be outboard of the inner edge of the side deck? That would mean you could still use a hiking strap to keep yourself in the boat, but you wouldn't be able to hike way out like a top notch Finn or Laser sailor, so the stresses on the legs would be far less. All you'd be able to do is maybe hang your butt just over the gunwale and lean back. Far less strenuous. It would still allow an advantage for very fit sailors, but not nearly as much of an advantage.

 

I think that the Flying Scot class is a no hiking boat. Not sure about its little sister the Highlander.

 

For those who don't want hiking, Frank Smoot has created (along with others) the perfect boat. Stable, easy to trailer and launch, quick to rig, fast, you stay in the boat. relatively cheap and easy to build.

I don't expect most to admit it, but this is virtually the ideal boat for most of the posters.

http://www.diy-tris.com/2012/images-2012/Pointy boat w new sail-small.JPG

The Video: http://youtu.be/C8kUq4BouS0

 

Hiking really is a part of dinghy sailing and NoEyeDeer provides a good option to allow "normal" hiking without the extream.

A clean rule could be "when hiking, the sailor must be resting on a surface at least 12" (or some other value) wide and knee joint must not be outboard of the inboard edge of seating surface. Alternate configurations are allowed as long as they limit the sailor to a position no further outboard than the above."

A quick look at the sailor with his feet hooked under the strap (or whatever) should make for easy checking of rule compliance.

Now, do you want to limit the top deck width or max overall "boat" width to keep people a consistent max distance from boat centerline to knee?

Before foils, the Moth class was moving to very narrow hulls at waterline and racks to get righting moment. No reason to expect a different overall trend (with a wide deck instead of a rack) for this class.

 

===============
You're right but "hand lines" are allowed from the top of the centerboard case cap to the gunnel at max extension. Personally, I'd rather sit on a fixed or pivoting wire supported seat.

 

I agree with Noeyedeer and Pflados--sounds like a reasonable rule if you intend to address the hiking aspect.--on a different note,I had intended to tape and glass just the seams of my plywood creation,but so far I've only seen polyester resin at the big hardware chains.Does anyone know of a hardware store where epoxy resin is sold?

 

Its not a hardware store, but Rockler has West System and Wood Craft has System 3.

 

That's a good point and not the only problem with buying from a hardware store.

As an exercise I happen to be just completing a canoe using materials obtained almost entirely from the local hardware store. It's a strip-built canoe, using cedar strips cut from fence planks, laminated pine ribs and spruce stems, and "outdoor" glue. It does contain a small quantity of marine ply, but if I were not permitted to use that it could have been replaced with cedar.

Frankly, I regard it as a temporary craft with a short life expectancy, built only to test a couple of theories about design and construction. I now have data from the build and I will use it on a few short trips to evaluate performance, then it's into the dumpster with it. Any boat I intended to use more than a few times will employ epoxy where appropriate.

I could get around the lack of epoxy with design changes and the use of fasteners and sealant, or I can build a decent boat without epoxy using marine ply at the cost of some weight, but if limited to what my local hardware store has I would buy one of their plastic boats. I built boats from their stuff some years ago but the quality of ply they carry these days is questionable on a floor let alone a boat.

 

Not a bad rule, but it does restrict design freedom by mandating a boat with a minimum size sidedeck, and a really keen sailor will still be using core muscles.

In saying this I am not meaning to be hyper-critical, in fact quite the opposite. We often criticise classes but IMHO only when we try to make a new one (or deeply study an existing one) do we really understand the complexity of the issues involved and the way that the different possible virtues of a good class and boat are often in direct conflict with each other.

Actually doing an exercise like this really shows how much harder it is to create than to sling mud from the sidelines. IMHO many of sailing's ills are caused by people abusing the popular classes without actually having the guts to sit down and try to create a new class, or to understand that fixing an existing class is not easy in reality. When you do that, you find that in the real world you simply cannot create a class without significant flaws and therefore focussing too much on the flaws of existing boats is simply ridiculous. Similarly, anyone working on class rules has to learn to go with the flow of opinion (informed and guided opinion, perhaps) or they will not create critical mass.

 

One of the advantages of a class such as this is it can be changed more easily than a fixed design class, if experience show that the rules have a loophole, because new designs are expected each year.

 

This is one of the big issues; just about every development class (perhaps EVERY dinghy development class?) maximises overall beam and minimises waterline beam, limited by (a) rise of floor (or similar) rules and/or (b) by the instability that the most skilled sailors in the class can handle most of the time, after significant practise and training.

The issue is that a class designed for the most skilful is not a class that the average sailor can sail particularly well, although perhaps modern light and responsive rigs can help - but they are not available in this class.

I've doodled something that is basically giant Moth or Int Canoe with solid wings that seems to fit within these rules and which would wipe the floor with a Vanguard 15/Tasar style boat - is that the intention of the class?

 

Fair enough, IF that is said straight-up in the class rules. Otherwise experience says that there is (justifiable) aggro from (a) those who designed a winner within the rules and then found out that their champ was going to be banned next year; or (b) those who found that their existing boats were outmoded by the winner if rules did not change; and/or (c) those who were prepared to build new boats but found that the sort of boat that had evolved was something that they were not interested in sailing (i.e. if the class develops into something like a giant Moth or a Canoe or perhaps a Merlin/N12/H Jolle/NS/MG/old R type then early adopters who thought they were building a modern cheap version of a Snipe/Scot/Lightning/Interlake/early Moth/Bolger type daysailer may get rather annoyed).

 

CT249,

This issue is the exact thing that has been bothering me the most. It there any way to prevent that? I am thinking if that we might leave the boat rules alone, and just tweak the type of racing events that are held to try and keep the mix of types and skill level varying from year to year.