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

Some Moth Class history

When I started sailing Moths in the early 1960's, sleeved-luff sails were not legal in the "International" Class, but they had already been developed to a very high level in Australia. So, when the 2 Moth organizations merged in the late 60's, I was able to buy a sail directly from the Garry Fogg loft in Sydney. What a wonderful improvement that was! The attached photo is from the 1968 Worlds in Cannes, where I believe I had one of only two sleeved sails in the fleet.

 

I remember that photo!

I really meant in the UK fleet

RW

 

That is a recipe for a very nice boat with negligible risk. As a professional designer I can understand your preference for common conventional solutions, but don't you have some development you have wanted to try? The issue of used parts will need to be discussed with the fleet. It might be a good idea to allow used for at least the first year to put the boats in the water that much sooner. A fleet of 6 would be a great start. So the build is a demonstration for Edensaw? Sounds like a great promotional opportunity! It would be awesome to build a fleet of six 2man racers for less than the base price of a single laser -a great soundbite!

About the wingmast rig, $300 is an ample budget for materials too. I would think the Boeing refugees would have a field day making some little wings. It would be a much better application of their skills than trying to master the arts of sailmaking and mast bend. Alan, what do you think?

 

I want to use conventional rigs, not because I am a professional designer, but because I am a poor boatbuilder (in every sense) and want a simple boat to race that takes little time to build. I don't want a boat to experiment on, I want a boat to sail on

However, if you want me to design you a wing sailed 14ft boat then I could do that, but it will take longer to make the mast than the hull

So whatever the "fleet" says, I'm going to use a second hand mast for my build and as many other used fittings as I can buy cheaply. Recycling has always made sense to me

RW

 

Richard:
I would love to hear more about your experiences with the sleeved-luff sail, compared to the more conventional rigs. I only competed in Moths for 1 more year after the 1968 Worlds, so I only have limited comparisons that I can make. Perhaps we should start another thread, since it doesn't really fit in this one.

 

All I want is for the class to be a success in drawing people with some home shop capabilities to sailing & human powered small boats and some great fun events.

Of course as an observer from afar I am a fan of new contributions to the art but all my suggestions are just 'What if...' You build the boat you most want to sail.

For an all new rig build, a fractional sloop rig is pretty straight forward isn't it? The mast is easy to bend and the sails reaction is predictable. Much more predictable than unstayed.

The wing mast does not bend, but then it doesn't need a bunch of control gear and experience to know how to use it. If everyone builds conventional then you are the clear winner on dingy racing experience.

 

I think this thread is going full circle for maybe the third time

the underlying concept of the proposed class will result in boats very similar to those built in their tens of thousands in the UK and Australia in the 1950'-60's. Boats like the Enterprise, GP14, Hornet, Mirror, OK, Gradute, Solo - the list is endless and I have only picked those that are actively raced today.

Those sort of dinghies never caught on in the USA, I suspect for a whole list of social reasons, nothing to do with the boats themselves

So Australians and English people find the concept a bit strange - well I do at any rate. Why reinvent the wheel, why not just build an OK with a wooden mast?

That's why I think if I had proposed a new class like this the only rule would be that every boat used a Laser sail, anything else goes. (So actually you could race a complete Laser, which would be a nice bench mark)

The simplest wing mast would be a piece of 4in x 1in with a set of diamonds (or two). But you would still need to sort out a reliable way of attaching the sail track. I certainly won't be buying an expensive router to make one in a wood mast, when I can buy a used metal mast for the same money. You are right, it is easier to tune a stayed rig to a sail than a sail to an unstayed mast

check this out, even professionals have problems

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKP0VoUjoLM

And I like the idea of being able to build a reasonable racing dinghy in two days (with a bit of help) and then use a Laser rig. So I could, for example, fly to the UK for 2 weeks, spend the first week building a boat and racing it the second week. I'd take the sail/foils with me on the plane

Richard Woods

 

To Doug, when I saw the Sydney loft comment I assumed you were in Oz, but you are in California - where? I will be driving through, south to north in Feb/March and we could meet up

RW

 

Why settle for something as basic as the Laser rig?, a Solo (stayed) fully battened rig is much better...and off the shelf too.....

The foils are a bit bigger too.....

Thanks for the comment on the rotating mast btw Richard something I believe can work with the correct profile. Even if the Class I currently sail has now limited 'movement' my own boat is unaffected by such restriction (new boat rule revision) and I built the mast gate big enough to allow it.....hahaha.

 

Yes but Solos aren't that popular outside the UK and, presumably still, Holland. And even then there are only 6000 ish, not 206000 ish

Agreed, the Laser rudder is too small

Think about the Graduate and Firefly. Both started with rotating masts, both now have fixed ones. Why is that?

RW

 

Richard:

That would be great if we could get together when you come up this way. I tried to send you a PM with my contact information, but that didn't work, for some reason. I'll try sending an email to the address given in your website, instead.

 

We discussed wingsail/wingmasts and they are on our list. We discussed minimal support (10% mast, 90% sail) to 100% mast. No we cannot make them quite as light as a typical mast and sail, but we can make them more effective, i.e. better overall performance. We would probably use kite rod (pultruded carbon) as a base material. Again, contrary to 'common knowlage' support strcuture with a non structural skin is lighter, but not better than a monoquoc, or structural skin varient. The 'mast/sail' interface is a heavy element, and an all wing quite efficient. Contrary to some discussion, they can be made to dump lift very quickly, and be varied to handle a wide range of conditions.

Rigging these boats on their sides, as is common practice in many dinghy classes today, should be perfectly acceptable. At one stage we considered being able to step/unstep masts on the water as essential for the ‘beach launching’ phase, but have slid this off the bottom of the requirements list, and onto the options list.

We will get some more information on Tarpaulin materials as we create it, the test lab is already set up. You sometimes have to read the MSDS to find out the fiber used for reinforcement. First step was to test spot and seam welding as a fabrication technique.

Mylar from old drafting drawings is fairly available, colleagues in the sail board sport used them for their early experiments. County Councils often surplus some fairly large drawings, and the wind does not care about some markings on the surface.

The CFD was a bit of a joke really, part of the psychological warfare on these pages. We would merely call ex colleagues and get them to run the models in the background.

We agree that used parts should be allowed for the first few years, but we as a team have agreed to serve the spirit of the rules and fabricate everything from ‘hardware stores’ though clearly used mylar drawings do not fall under this category.

Interesting Richard is planning to build a reasonable long lived hull. One of our number plans this as well. I, however, plan a ‘throw away’ using cheap ply and no fiber/epoxy covering. My last such lasted several years with reasonable care, but long life is not a goal for me.

Richard, tell us when you plan to visit Gig Harbor, or Seattle, and we will meet you.

 

I don't know, but a rotating fractional mast like my old moth winds tension onto the stays, and compression into the mast as the mast is rotated. The leverage ratio is huge. This messes up the original mast bend characteristics, and could potentially peel the deck/gunwale off.

 

We will be in Port Townsend pretty much all March, maybe from a bit earlier. We will be living on our Skoota 28 powercat so won't go north if it is too cold, equally we will go earlier if weather is warm

I've never heard of the rotating mast problem you mentioned - Sukisolo? Doug?

RW

 

Suki I get the point but the Solo rig is only available off-the-shelf in two countries, so you couldn't use it like a Laser rig (EDIT - already addressed by Richard). Richard's idea of using a Laser rig sounds really interesting, although how you stop the class quickly developing into a timber RS300 or Duflos is another issue.

The other good thing about using a Laser rig is that the lift/drag characteristics of that rig may inherently mean that you have to design a comparatively practical boat. The Laser rig's high drag means that it doesn't drive a low-drag platform very well (which is why you have to change your approach to rig when you use the foiling Laser) so the rig may (may!) help keep design sensible.

Using a LAser rig would also mean that the Laser is an excellent yardstick, so you could measure how well Joe Blow's design in Cowes is going, compared to Fred Nurk's design in Nebraska. All Joe and Fred would have to do was race against good (say, top 30 nationally) Laser sailors and send a link to the results and you could have some pretty good information about comparative speeds, plus the makings of an innovative ranking system.

Skyak, re "the wing mast does not bend" - it depends on how you make them. Bethwaites used to make wooden wingmasts that were bendy and beautiful. They were also complex, fragile and expensive. I think I know how to make a cheap and ugly version of the same concept but it would remain fragile and complex.

"but then it doesn't need a bunch of control gear and experience to know how to use it."

Oh yes it does! There's a very good reason that tuning guides for classes with wing masts tend to devote a lot of time to things like rotation angle and diamond tension - it's because these are complex beasts to use properly.

For a start, when the mast rotates you're going to need a way to limit rotation. This normally means building a strong lever that runs aft from the mast and is adjusted by lines leading to a cleat each side. A lot of the time you're going to want a way to induce rotation as well - that normally means another set of lines of some sort.

The inherent stiffness of a wing mast means that higher forces are required to bend the mast to flatten the sail (and yes, classes with wing masts DO bend them) so your downhaul has to be much higher-powered (12:1 or 16:1 systems using high quality blocks and lines are common) and your sail cloth, rig and attachment points have to be able to handle that sort of load.

It's pretty much impractical to use raking spreaders, lower stays, mast chocks or a ram on a wing mast, so you end up using diamonds to limit mast bend and these are generally only adjustable when the mast has been dropped - you can have adjustable diamonds but it's not that easy.

Everything also has to be rigged so that the mast can be rotated, which affects the mast pin, mast base, sail controls, stay attachments, etc. There's also a tendency for wing masts to significantly increase mainsheet loads - our old 100kg cat had much higher mainsheet loads than our bigger 185kg cat because the light boat had a stiffer wing.

And then there's the whole complex interplay of the interaction between mast rotation, mast bend, sail draft and leach tension, which makes wing mast control anything BUT a "set and forget" issue.