Possible Class of Small Ocean Racing Sail boat

[sharpii2]

Thank You thor.

Dear Thor:

Thank you for the links. I checked them myself and found the rule imfo volumous. It seems the sm rule ended up restricting a lot more than sail area.
(which, in my opinion, they didn't restrict fairly at all.

to summerise: The jib was measured as 85% of the fore triangle (no matter what its actual size) and the main was measured for its actual area. This way large headsails could be used which would favor ever taller masts.

At least tall for the technology of their time.

It seems later, in order to keep the already built boats competitive, they started creating a whole lot of hull restrictions, then rig restrictions on top of that.

It seems like they settled on a basic hull concept and restricted new boats to following it.

This is the absolute opposite of what I have in mind.

I do see, however, a need to have a minimum freeboard restriction added to my rule.

Perhaps a 0.5m midship or 1/3rd the Beam midship, whichever is greater, with the added stipulation that no part of the topsides can be lower than that.

Without this, the 1x19 class boats could end up looking like ballasted or rafted sailboards.

Without a doubt, boats of this class will be wet and cramped (to limit surface area) and have very short ends, but I do believe they will make handy single handers.

And since there is no loophole regarding headsails, I think this proposed class could do a much better job at discovering the best all around sail rig with a presumed prejudice (but not neccessarily) toward more downwind oriented sails. This is because most, but not all, long ocean races (as well as voyages under sail) tend to be downwind.

Bob

 

[Raggi_Thor]

I think it would be great with rules that inspire to build low cost boats. Small sail area should work in that direction, limited draft also. So this could be something new
A radical rule in this regard would be a maximum price, like we have in car racing, if someone offer you 5000NOK (700USD) you have to sell!

 

[CT 249]

I think you'll find the square metre restrictions were NOT intended to preserve the older boats, so much as to stop excessive development of every lighter, ever more fragile hulls. This is a very common theme on all (or almost all) such classes, from the Half and One Raters, to the German "Free Renjollen" dinghy classes, to the 100 (or 75) square metres. Designers simply created longer, lighter boats which went faster but fell apart in a year or two. So just about all such classes died or they introduced either minimum weights (10 square metre Canoes), scantling requirements (Renjollen), or girth measurements that meant the boats had to be heavier and were stronger (square metre classes).

One problem with unrestricted length is that the boats end up being expensive for their speed - some 22 square metres were (IIRC) 39' long - longer than the earlier 30 squares. So a winning 22 was still slower than an older 30, but it cost much more than an earlier 22 OR an earlier 30. The extreme boats had less speed per dollar.

Length is a key to all-round speed, so while square metre classes produce great boats they will basically always develop into long boats. The classes that restrict length but don't restrict sail area (or allow very big rigs) also end up being expensive for their speed (all else being equal).

So while the "no restrictions" route seems great, it has a lot of problems in reality.

In dinghies, the classes that created many of the innovations were Int. Canoes, International 14s (pre 1953 and modern), Merlin Rockets, Renjollen, Cherubs, National 12s, NS14s, R Class, Moths, and maybe 18' skiffs. Almost all of them were restricted in both rig AND hull dimensions, and they normally had fairly small rigs so the emphasis was on efficiency rather than brute force.

I like many of your ideas, but even in monohulls the fastest boat to your rule will not look anything like the "standard" sort of boat as it seemed you wanted it to.

 

[sharpii2]

One problem with unrestricted length is that the boats end up being expensive for their speed - some 22 square metres were (IIRC) 39' long - longer than the earlier 30 squares. So a winning 22 was still slower than an older 30, but it cost much more than an earlier 22 OR an earlier 30. The extreme boats had less speed per dollar.

Length is a key to all-round speed, so while square metre classes produce great boats they will basically always develop into long boats. The classes that restrict length but don't restrict sail area (or allow very big rigs) also end up being expensive for their speed (all else being equal).

So while the "no restrictions" route seems great, it has a lot of problems in reality.

I like many of your ideas, but even in monohulls the fastest boat to your rule will not look anything like the "standard" sort of boat as it seemed you wanted it to.

Thank you CT.

You are right, of course, That without Scantling or length limits, the boats will become very long and fragile.

To combat this, I decided to go with the minimum surface weight approach.
Every sm of the 1x19's hull and deck area must weigh at least 7.8kg.
This way, the only way you can make the boat longer is by either making it narrower or heavier.

Added to this, are the requirements that the boats should be able to cross an ocean and carry a 452kg payload.

I will consider adding a length limit only in desperation and only after I become convinced that mere minimum surface area wieghts won't do the job.
I know it could come to this. 9m is the number that comes to my mind incase it does. It must be rememberd that the sm classes were invented before surfing and even (under ideal conditions) planing keel boats came on the scene (mostly after WW2, by my understanding), so length is not neccessarily the best way to go for speed today as it was back then.

I have already decided to revise the rule some. Min cabin ht., min freeboard, and min cabin dimensions (and I mean very minimum) will be added as well as some cockpit dimension and placement rules. the old stuff will stay the same, but new stuff will be added.

I had hoped that I could come up with a viable class that could fit on one page. Now it looks like around three. Two to define the class and one to suggest what to do if the newer boats out perform the older ones by too much.

When I get this done, I will post it as an attatchment in an old Word format (I can't afford adobe).

Thanks everbody for your comments and suggestions.

Bob

 

[CT 249]

Interesting idea about skin/weight rule.

Even in planing boats like skiffs, for all-round performance longer is faster. The 18s are not troubled by the 16s, the 12s have much more rig and about a third of the weight of the 14s but are probably slower apart from in light winds (it's hard to say since modern 14s rarely race modern 12s). I've asked some of the top 18' skiff designers and they reckon a 20' skiff would be faster than an 18.

Same in small cats - the Formula 16HP weighs 104kg compared to the F18s's 180kg, yet the F16HP is only about the same speed because it's shorter (and has a smaller rig).

These are not meant to be destructive criticisms, I think the idea of a sail-area restricted class is much better than the LOA restricted classes which tend to be expensive and fat for their LOA and speed.

 

[sharpii2]

Interesting idea about skin/weight rule.

Even in planing boats like skiffs, for all-round performance longer is faster. The 18s are not troubled by the 16s, the 12s have much more rig and about a third of the weight of the 14s but are probably slower apart from in light winds (it's hard to say since modern 14s rarely race modern 12s). I've asked some of the top 18' skiff designers and they reckon a 20' skiff would be faster than an 18.

Same in small cats - the Formula 16HP weighs 104kg compared to the F18s's 180kg, yet the F16HP is only about the same speed because it's shorter (and has a smaller rig).

These are not meant to be destructive criticisms, I think the idea of a sail-area restricted class is much better than the LOA restricted classes which tend to be expensive and fat for their LOA and speed.

Thank you again CT.

What you just said brings up an interesting question: would the f18 be faster than the F16HP if it had to wear the F16HP's smaller rig.

That is in effect what it would have to do under the proposed 1x19 class.

It is very possible that it could, at least in high winds where righting moment is more important than sail area. I suspect, however, that under average conditons, the smaller, lighter cat would have a slight abvantage.

The question becomes whether the high wind avantage of the larger, heavier cat would be so much greater than the light wind advantage of the smaller, lighter cat that the larger cat would almost always win.

One of the big payoffs I imagine from this proposed class (if it ever did get off and running), would be the enormous data it could avail. It could cetainly answer the above question amongst many others about optimum average boat speed under very limited power.

Even in keel monohulls, boats that can plane and /or surf regularily can have bursts of speed that are much higher than their non planing sisters. even if the non planing boat is much longer. I would not be surprised to see a contestant go to that strategy.

That being said, I would not be surprised to see it fail more than it succeeded either. But it would succeed at least sometimes. And maybe that's the point. This could be a low power boat speed laboratory where risks are (relatively) low cost and knowledge gained could be applied to much larger craft.

In veiw of what you have said, I realize, that it would be prudent to put my thumb on the scale a bit to prevent real monsters from being born.

I have decided to limit the length to 9m.

A 9m long boat (whose draft is also restricted) with a 19sm rig would look in profile very undercanvased. Kind of like scaled up sailing kayak or canoe .

I think it would look cool. How about you?

Bob

 

[sharpii2]

Hi everybody.

I have just revised my proposed class rule that is known as the 1x19 or 19x1.

Due to warnings and suggestions by Ct and others, I have decided to limit the length to 9m.

Other changes include:

minimum freeboard, some minimum cabin dimensions, maximum cockpit dimensions as well as some (I hope) sensible cockpit placement rules, minimum keel strength requirements, and a breif suggestion of what to do if older boats get out classed by newer ones or if newer boats are introduced that are slower but have 'compelling virtues' that make them otherwise desireable for some members of the fleet who may not join otherwise.

I hope that all of you who have accessed this thread will be able to open this attatchment. If, for some reason, you can't, please let me know by email or by posted message.

Hope you all enjoy.

Bob

P.S Oops. It looks like I need to reformat my attatchment.

 

[griffinb]

Building new boats is never as cheap as buying used boats. If you want cheap racing, in seaworthy boats, buy a used boat. Race One-Design, or PHRF.

If you really want to invent a whole new class of boat, start with the class goals, not measurements. Is your goal to have a class of affordable racing sailboats, with a design you admire? That sounds exactly like a one-design class. Get started on designing a boat that will be compelling enough for others to join you!

In NASCAR, all the cars look the same, but have very minor design differences? If that's the goal, then the class should have LOTS of restrictions, but not actually be one-design. Sounds like America's Cup, which is the opposite of affordable.

Is the real goal to create an affordable development class? I'm not sure those 2 things go together... The only real build limitations are: time, money, rules. Most classes focus only the rules, and as expected, people overspend on the time and money. If you want affordable class limit the time and/or money directly. As pointed-out by Raggi_Thor, some tcar racing classes have a rule that any competitor can buy your car for $700 after the race. THAT is a real limitation on the money being spent in a racing class. A limitation on time might look like "everyone show up friday afternoon, we all build our boats by sunday evening, go home for the week while the epoxy cures, and come back to race them the following weekend". The boats would be crude, but it would be a cheap way to have a wildly experimental development class. I've done this for a kayak race, and everyone started with the same two 4x8ft sheets of 1/4" plywood.

Maybe you just want to affordably race with a bunch of normal looking boats, but feel like the race was won by design instead of seamenship? How about picking a one-design class with a large tuning range, or high tuning sensitivity? So your decisions about boat setup before the race will win/lose, instead of you just always losing to "that guy who sailed in college"?

 

[Will Gilmore]

the world's average salary is $1,480 (£928) a month, which is just less than $18,000 (£11,291) a year. But these dollars are not normal US dollars. The economists use specially adjusted exchange rates - the average salary is calculated in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) dollars.

Where are you on the global pay scale? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17512040.amp

Perhaps the three rules should be:
1. Vessel must be sail powered.
2. Vessel must be MORC certified or equivalent.
3. Vessel must be valued at no more than the average global annual income at the time of entry.

Design, build or buy anything you think can win an ocean sailing race against others spending the same modest amount. Each year, the cost/value may change, but the relative value to the average World earnings would remain the same.

 

[griffinb]

Where are you on the global pay scale? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17512040.amp

Perhaps the three rules should be:
1. Vessel must be sail powered.
2. Vessel must be MORC certified or equivalent.
3. Vessel must be valued at no more than the average global annual income at the time of entry.

Design, build or buy anything you think can win an ocean sailing race against others spending the same modest amount. Each year, the cost/value may change, but the relative value to the average World earnings would remain the same.

Nice idea to index the price limit to some sort of constantly-adjusted global standard.
The answer to your criteria is this: (assuming you can talk the down from $20k to $18k)
1989 Wiggers Custom Yachts Andrews 30 MORC Custom sailboat for sale in New York https://www.sailboatlistings.com/view/91084

The only way to really enforce the cost limit is to force people to offer their boats for sale to other competitors after the race. But then the whole challenge is finding the fastest qualifying used boat for each new race, because the winning boats will always be purchased-away by other competitors.

 

[Will Gilmore]

The only way to really enforce the cost limit is to force people to offer their boats for sale to other competitors after the race. But then the whole challenge is finding the fastest qualifying used boat for each new race, because the winning boats will always be purchased-away by other competitors.

I was thinking of simply having the boat surveyed, but your point about the boat, like a prise race horse, becoming more valuable after it wins, is an accurate observation. Someone may have an AC class boat built and then sell her to a friend for 18k. However, if the survey were limited to cost of material construction, that is, how much would a builder need to spend to build the boat, perhaps the design or the history wouldn't effect the value, and the next year, others would simply build a boat of the same design as last season's winner, at cost to compete. Of course, to win, the design would have to be improved upon.

Also, if $18,000 was an impractical amount to build a small ocean racer, any consist and set multiple of the economic standard could work.

That MORC racer you posted looks like a great deal.

 

[sharpii2]

I have just thought of a way to keep the lengths of the boats within reason without a hard, fast length restriction. And I think it would make the game more interesting.

The idea is to impose a sum limit on rig height + hull length. The taller the rig, the shorter the boat.

I'm thinking of a tough limit
of maybe 12 m. Rig hight would be measured from the base of the lowest sail to the peak of the highest sail.

This way, if one wanted a really long boat, one would have to go with multiple masts to get the 19 sm of sail area.

I imagine that the shorter boats would be better to windward, and. the longer ones would be better, off the wind.

Imagine, schooners having a chance to be race winners.

But, more likely, the longer boats would have a very compact main and a broad jib.

But I doubt we would see anything anywhere near 9 m long. We might see something 7 or mabe even 8 m long. But my guess is that everyone would be closer to 6 - to 6 + m long.
5 m seems to be just too short.

Anyway, a fleet of shorter boats with taller rigs, racing against one of longer boats and shorter rigs, all with the same sail area, may go a long way towards supporting or dispelling the notion that tall rigs are always better.

Another thing to think about is limiting the external ballast materials. I would go with concrete and steel. These materials should put some real automatic constraints on keel design.

Limiting spar material to wood or aluminum would also likely go far in cost containment.

 

[seasquirt]

Hi sharpii2, I too have thought about a new class, much smaller than yours, to race home built versions of the Elusion and similar overpriced single handed micro yachts, inshore only, all abilities. While possibly irrelevant, I'll post my thoughts on rules and regulations I came up with for the class. I gave up on the idea myself, but if someone wanted to take it up, they're welcome to. It was all about development, and cheap fun. I am a novice, not a class rules lawyer, so it is crude and clunky, but may give you something else to consider in your proposed class definition or rules.

The DOOR 750
So named because it will fit through a standard household door frame wider than 750 m
One or two person racing sail boat. Beam maximum 750 mm
A developmental class with few restrictions, and simple rules, so as to make inexpensive but safe sailable models of variable design, and have fun. Fit two DOORS on a trailer, side by side.

The boat can be built indoors, in a normal house with a standard door frame exit, in most cases; unless you are married or have a landlord.
Built strong enough to withstand at least 1m swell + 1 m seas + 30 Kn wind, and self righting in knockdowns in those conditions.
Hull shape and design is to be made public if the hull places in the top 5 finishes in any recognised race.

Dimensions
Length Over All is 6 m maximum
Generally as long a hull as you can get from 2 sheets of pywood end on end, scarfed or butted, plus some leftovers.
Prefer 5 m to 4 m long, since not many people have huge spare rooms, but unwieldy extravagance is ok if it's strong enough.
It can be long and sharp, or a more manageable practical length.
It can be a low and sleek, high aspect design, or it can be high sided with a cabin and flybridge, if you can work it.

Hull
Very simple shapes without torturing the plywood into compound curves.
Slab sides, and bottom, made of any plywood like, flat, flexible, similar behaving material.
Flat bottomed abeam front to back, with rocker and bottom contours fore and aft, made from 1 + 1 sheets of plywood end on end, with almost no bottom V angle, or slightly curved from flat, but warped un-cut plywood.
Sides with small angle to vertical, outward, or tumblehome, hard single chine < r 50 mm.
Sealed buoyancy tanks must be able to support a water filled yacht in an upright attitude, still with 8 inches of freeboard, to allow effective bailing out of water in rough conditions.
Steel centreboards can rotate to lift; or fixed shoal draft keels; or twin keels, may be used, all for easy trailering and storage, and fun in shallow waters. No 'deep keels'.
Any shape of monohull which can be produced from flat bendable panels.
Brackets for motors are allowed, and internal outboard motor wells.
A thick bottom thickness to take groundings at speed, and give stiffness (say 8 mm min); minimum 5mm thick ply or substitute of equal strength, everywhere else.

Mass
There will be a minimum weight eventually, based on the weight of an average plywood and metal build; but any materials can be used anywhere, if it is safe and durable.
Heavy ballast may be used, in any manner, within the rules, as long as still buoyant when swamped.
Water ballast may be used, but no side ballast tank pumping allowed. Keeping it simple.

Rig
Any that you have on hand, whichever works, is versatile and reliable, and copes with more than 30 Kn wind and knockdowns.
Whatever you have from other yachts that you can use, or adapt, or weave a crabclaw, or invent something - no shape is specified.
Un-stayed, or stays, or other, no mast restrictions, to support any design of fabric sails.
Only fabric type sails allowed, no metals, wings, rotors, or other contrivances.
Try to make it look a bit like some sort of big yacht, from a distance.

Rowable, or able to be paddled effectively and usefully for safety, like a canoe.
Simple light weight stitch and glue, or framed construction; framing in any material.
Cockpits can be placed anywhere, and two people are allowed, one behind the other, kayak style, or side by side if extremely emaciated. Gimballed seating is allowed, to sit upright.
Steering can be via foot pedals or wheel or levers or tiller, to inboard or stern mounted rudders.
Motors must be removed or stowed if / when racing; batteries can remain in place.

Or (My favourite) a Door 750 on wheels, to hand launch when I'm old and can't drive cars anymore.

ROLLER DOOR 750
Twin keels with steel, or water filled wheels, so it can be manoevred on land by hand.
Thinking weighted plane landing wheels, tough, broad, smooth, possibly roll on sand.

Steel frame holds keels, internal legs, and axles; sets chine width; can extend keels fore and aft.
Slab sides - 2 deg more angle than eg. a Heron
freeboard 1 - 2 inch more than eg. a Heron
long raked bow or square.

My idea didn't get much attention, and I didn't think too hard about it, but I thought restricting materials to hardware store marine ply and polyester resin, and flat panels with limited compound curves, would keep a 'level playing field' as far as folks with an unlimited budget goes. Reminding me of the 'hardware store sail boat' thread somewhere here.

Good luck with your class, a fleet of affordable pocket global racers that can also possibly be cruisers, sounds great. Maybe even small enough to trailer.

 

[griffinb]

It seems like we are kicking around several ideas here.

With so many sailboats, it is hard to get a new class off the ground.

All sailing classes end up being a combination of the following things (let me know what I missed):
1. A sailing competition. One-design boats, theoretically.
1B. A body size/shape + sailing competition. One-design boats, at least in the Olympic dinghy classes...
2. A design competition. Development classes, theoretically.
2B. A spending competition. Development classes, realistically.
3. A used boat shopping competition (Will Gilmore's proposed class)
4. A whining-about-rating competition. PHRF.

So, whenever proposing a class, we should have in mind what kind of competition we are trying to create.

 

[Skyak]

My input to Sharpii2 is that your rules are a far short of defining a performance envelope. If a good velocity prediction program is V(l,w,h,m,....) then a good rule is fixing a couple variables and setting the whole thing equal to a reasonably high constant.

I too would like to see a class like the 2.4M but much much cheaper and easier to deploy and campaign. Replace the hundreds of pounds of lead in the fat keel with a bulb on a deep dagger and make the rig a main up with a symmetric spinnaker down.

The "hardware store" thread is New low-cost "hardware store" racing class; input on proposed rules | Boat Design Net
We really covered about everything possible for dingies.
Some good ideas that didn't get used:
-standardize parts that use uncommon manufacture and are unlikely to display major positive innovation. A laser rig and training (uncert) sail is cheap and hard to beat.
-rotate which parts are standard to open innovation in alternate seasons
-gain versatility by having a diverse season of competition -windward leeward, triangle or other shape, point to point, carry extra crew, start race with boats still strapped to roof of car 50m from the beach, race out to find a MOB dummy with only last known coordinates....