New Member

Hello,

My name is Joe.

I'm an American English teacher in Shanghai, China (PRC).

I'm probably the least knowlageable member on this form, so I'll probably need the most patience.
I'll try not too ask questions that are too stupid though.

Although I know almost nothing about boats I've always been interested in them and I love going out on them. I am particularly interested in trimarans, specifically the Walker Wingsail. I'd like to try building one someday.


Walker Wingsale in the Bahamas

Like I said, I don't know much about boats and, if I build one, it won't be for a while. right now I'm interested in wingsails (I'm a pilot, so they seem to "fit"), and I've just read an interesting book on "stitch & glue", so I'd like to know more about that too.

See you all inside,

Joe

 

Welcome to you,
I learn a lot by reading these pages,
and there is a good search function,
or you can use Google like this:
http://www.google.com/search?&q=site:boatdesign.net "wing sail

 

Hi there and welcome to the forum.

If you google 'walker wingsails' you wil find extensive coverage of their entire history. But as you read all this stuff you should be aware that no report or view about this particular technology is entirely 'objective'. From the word 'go', Walker split the boating world so therefore most of what has been written is either from people who were 'for him' or against. At best, you could say that it was an underdeveloped and immature technology that never delivered the performance claimed. The development of rigid wings have continued and there are several projects using them for high speed craft, but as yet, they too are a long way from delivering the 'arm chair, simple, controllable sailing' promised by Walker.

Stitch and glue is one technique in the broader boat building world using epoxy resins and plywood. There is tons of info on the web as well as in books. I would also suggest you research 'multihull building' in more general terms as well, as this may lead you to other techniques which may prove more applicable to building the sorts of boats in which you are interested.

 

Welcome Joe.

TGoz

 

Welcome to the forum - man are you ambitious, talk about going in at the deep end! May I suggest you try something a little less controversial and more basic for starters - of course you can ignore me (most do!) but that wingsail thing ain't all it's cracked up to be (bit like Walker himself, who owes a lot of money hereabouts!) but will certainly 'get em talking'

American English? that's a sort of Pidgin English spoken by a bunch of ex colonials from out West that's harder to understand? isn't it?

 

Hey Joe!
Welcome from me also – I’m sure you’ll find these forums rewarding and informative.
I share your enthusiasm and I’ve just started building a 26 foot catamaran I designed in stitch and glue. She will have twin wingsails too.
Try this link for stitch and glue – It’s well illustrated and I’ve found it most useful. http://www.boatbuilder.org/index.htm
Also, if you send me your e-mail address to Trevlyns@gmail.com , I can forward some PDF files I’ve collected on wingsail projects.
Keep the dream alive!

 

Safewalrus'

You are certainly not ignored. I have been aware of you since I started here- a good thing, Take care,

TGoz

 

"American English".... isn't that one of those oxymorons?
Just kidding, Joe Your home country's linguistic oddities aside, you are most welcome here and I look forward to seeing more of this wingsail discussion.
I had the opportunity to watch a couple of prototype computer-controlled model catamarans (1-2 metre) racing last summer, identical boats except that one had a conventional rig and one had a wingsail. The wingsail boat went like a bat out of hell whenever the breeze came up. Had it been able to stay upright for more than two minutes it would have had a good shot at winning!

 

Yeah, I've been reading about him ever since he was in Popular Science back in the 90s. LOTS of stuff about the advantages of using wings instead of canvas. This seems pretty straighforward: they're just vertical airplain wings. I'm mainly curious the hull design; is the framework different for a wingsail than for a soft sail?

I like jumping into the deep end. 6 months ago I decided to teach myself PHP. Instead of starting out with <? echo "Hello World"; ?> like the books say, I wrote this calculator as my first project: http://joescuriosityshoppe.com/tools/ebay_fee_calculator/

In this case, however, I have to agree with you. I'm not going to build a 40' yacht for my first boat. For starters I don't have anywhere to keep it at present.

I remember reading somewhere that the structure and grammer of American english is closer to the original old english than modern Brittish english...

Very cool. I'd like to see your plans sometime, if you don't mind.

 

Actually Joe from what I see of modern English English (is that right?) and the uses it is put to I think American English is probably nearer any real form of language with decent grammer etc. The English I learned at school has degenerated into a mush I'm afraid, spelling isn't much better - whilst I have no problems (OK a few) with the lout in the street using crass rubbish ('he don't know better' so to speak) I get rather upset when people who should know better fall into the same trap! the standard of English is now very poor from every walk of life in this country. My favourite (sorry favorite for you) is the use of the word 'me' as in "Me and George went to -" In earlier and politer times it used to be "George and I went -". Sign off the times I guess we've become a selfish society...........sorry Joe, Whinge over!

Your not going to build a 40 footer as your first effort, you do surprise me! Something bigger then? no smaller, what 38 feet? What the heck go for it - enjoy and the devil take the hindmost

 

Timgoz

What I meant was people will try to ignore me! You can't ignore a boil on your bum can you? but by heck you'd like to!! Nothing like a bit of controvesy now and then to get people thinking is there? and thats what its all about, rethink you misconceptions. OK some time it don't work out but often a better way of doing things can be discovered from some idiot like me questioning the system (and some times it's sheer exasperating lunacy, but it's rising an eyebrow!)

 

I know, I feel the same way about American english. My sister says the same thing: "Me and Amanda are going shopping." Maybe we're not using poor grammer... maybe we're just emulating Chinese (that's the way they say it in Chinese).

I also can't believe that they're teaching classes in schools in eubonics now!

I'd be happy to. I'm in a good position to now: I make pretty good money and I have lots of free time. However, I have a small apartment in the middle of a big city, so I'll need to find somewhere close to the river to actually build the boat in. Then I'll need to figure out where to get the marine plywood & fiberglass materials (the hardest part, since I can't say much more than "hello" in Chinese!).

 

"American English".... isn't that one of those oxymorons?

Marshmat, not sure about the oxy bit.

Poida

 

"eubonics", is that the english people from mainland europe speak?

;-)

 

Everyone knows that "Strine" is the only true accurate representation of the English Language.

Mychael ( A dinky dye, True Blu, Orstralian)