Sydney-Hobart: CBTF wins!(prediction)

CBTF wins!

Aw, shucks-thats hard time-no wonder NC was so disgusted...

 

Hey Doug,

Just having some fun and pointing out that rules had to be modified to allow the CBTF boats to sail.

You are quite correct that rule 86 allows both one design classes and sailing instructions to modify the rules so that movable ballast and non-manual power can be allowed.

What I find silly is that the same sailing instructions that have to modify rules to allow some boats also exclude other boats that don't need the rule modifications.

"We are going to ban some boats from racing, although they do not require any modification of the rules to do so. We are also going to modify the rules so some boats that would not otherwise be allowed to, can race."

Personally I think that rule 51 is silly. Movable ballast can certainly make a boat faster and more seaworthy.

On the other hand, my personal feeling is that Rule 52 should not be subject to modification by sailing instructions. Class rules that want to allow powered keels, water ballast pumps, winches, love dolls, or whatever are fine. They race One-Design.

The true contest of sailing design within the unmodified rules (after Rule 51 hits the trash) would be between manual powered boats, monos that require time and effort to shift ballast vs multis that don't need ballast at all.

As long as Rule 52 stands, I have no problem with recognizing sailing records.

As soon as you use an engine or some form of stored energy to sail the boat, you aren't sailing.

Rather than allow using the engine to move the ballast, why not hold true to the idea of using the wind? Drop a screw into the water to use the boat's speed (from the wind) to work the ballast pumps.

The whole idea of sail racing is to use only the wind for power. As soon as you allow energy to be added, it is not sailing. Rule 42.

If you stretch the idea of a closed system to include stored energy, you could have battery powered ballast pumps, as long as the energy stored in the batteries was from the wind. Use a water prop or windmill to charge the batteries, NOT the engine.

Now you would have a limit to how quickly the ballast can be moved (manual power or a real time wind/water powered pump) or pay a weight penalty in batteries than would offset the advantage of moving the ballast.

As soon as you allow engines to be used to "sail" the boat, you've ruined the sport.

To be fair, you take the fuel burned to move ballast, convert it to energy, apply that energy to the VPP and penalize the boats that use non-manual power by the time they would have gained if the energy was used to propel the boat.

A Laser can be "sailed" around a course in zero wind by standing on the deck, rocking the boat from side to side and using the sail as a fan to move the boat. That is not sailing, and such actions are banned under Rule 42. Since the rules clearly puts limits on adding energy to a boat to make it sail faster, I feel that powered ballast systems should be banned also.

Until now I was unaware that the boats used non-manual power to shift ballast. In my opinion they are using the engine to propel the boat, that's not sailing. That makes them moral (if not technical) rule breakers.

Yes, the same people that re-wrote the rules to allow the boats that won to sail at all have also declared them the winners. No surprise.

I think CBTF (Children's Brain Tumor Foundation, Canadian Baton Twirling Federation?) is a great concept.

Canting Ballast Twin Foil is a clever way to improve the performance of single hulled sailing vessels. Unfortunately the system requires rules modifications to be used on racing boats.

I can only voice my opinion, I think that records like the 24 hour run should not be held by engine assisted boats. Engine assisted boats should race one design, I hear that engine assisted boats routinely hit speeds over 150 MPH.

Bottom line, if you use the engine to make the boat faster, you aren't sailing.

 

Hoggwashes #1 & #2

#1-Now looky heah Randy: wasn't the modification of YOUR FAVORITE RULE carried out/permitted by another Rule in the same book? I rest my case...
#2 Bending the language to disparage a spectacular species of SAILBOAT is very unfortunate.....
I would only hope that someday you get to SAIL on one of these incredible boats!

 

Not meaning to offend anyone here... Doug, I do agree that CBTF is a pretty incredible engineering concept, and I would love to even see one in action (local harbour's too out-of-the-way and shallow). But I do share RHough's view that if fuel is being burned to facilitate the operation of the boat, it is no longer a pure sailboat. I'm a powerboater myself, having never captained a wind-driver bigger than a Sunfish. I don't think it's entirely fair to race a purely sail-powered boat against one that requires engine power to run, even though that engine power isn't being used to directly drive the boat. RHough, btw, what are the banned boats you speak of?

 

To keep some sort of perspective, a 98 footer beat the record set by a 60 footer. And it's not as hard to win any race with a newer boat designed to different rules.

The older 98s were designed to the IRC upper limit; they are very different boats to those designed strictly to an LOA limit. It's a bit like the difference between a National 12 and a 12' skiff.

But hey, CBTF (just one of a long line of developments to keels and boats) is obviously bloody quick. Don't know if anyone's doubted that.

But once we start making exceptions to the rules, where do we stop? Hey, in a dead calm a Windsurfer will kick Wild Oats if the board is allowed to pump through its exemption to R 42. But we Windsurfers don't turn up to yardstick races, pump through the light spots, and claim the victory because we know it's not all that meaningful and it is unfair to our competitors.

So what do we find in R 42.1?

"Except when permitted in rule 42.3 or 45, a boat shall compete by using only the wind and water to increase, maintain or decrease her speed. Her crew may adjust the trim of sails and hull, and perform other acts of seamanship, but shall not otherwise move their bodies to propel the boat."

So dumping R 42 (under the same prescription as CBTF uses) would allow crews to compete by paddling; using oars; perhaps even using engines driving the propeller. Mac 26X as a new Hobart record holder anyone?

Surely we would agree that a relaxation of rules that allows a Mac 26X to break Goats' record is a bad thing. But as far as I can see, it is exactly as legal as allowing powered CBTF systems. Both are legal only when the rules are changed. Once you change one rule, why not allow the Mac in?

In fact, rule 86.2 means that a NA can change ANY rules. Therefore, the CYCA and Australian Yachting Federation could just allow powerboats to race in the Hobart without those pesky sails. Would that still make it a sailing race?

Would the motorsailor lovers just sit back and say "well, it's legal, no worries" or would they complain?

 

Deleted

 

Having more than one hull does not break any basic rule of sailing. Multihull boats don't "break" rules, many monohull sailors find them offensive in some way, so they don't let them race.

Sailboat speed is all about righting moment and displacement. The greater the RM the more powerful the boat for the same displacement. You can gain RM with ballast weight or with beam or with multiple hulls. If you can move the ballast, you need less of it.

Using manual power to move ballast is fine by me. Some classes have been moving ballast for over 100 years (sandbaggers), the concept is not new. They didn't use added energy to move it though, they used the crew.

Let's put the manual power question into perspective:

A human can create about 1/6 HP*. 6 crew = 1 HP
1 Crew = 165 lbs?
1 HP = 990 lbs of crew?
* 1/6 HP = about 125 watts

If we need a 10 HP engine to move ballast, that would require 60 crew. 60 crew would add 9900 pounds to the boat.

When you consider the weight of crew plus the gear and provisions for them on a ocean race each human HP would be closer to 1500-2000 pounds.

How would movable ballast boats that need a 10HP engine do if they had to add 2000 pounds of lead inside the hull for each HP?

Using a 10HP engine to move ballast instead of crew gives the powered ballast system a 15,000 - 20,000 pound advantage over a manual system.

Since HP is force over time, a 1 HP engine (6 crew) would take 10 times as long to shift the ballast.

The manual power rule is an effective limit to sail area per crew and thus crew per boat. How much advantage would movable ballast be if it had to be moved manually? On a long ocean race, taking hours instead of minutes to shift ballast would be a small concern, in an around the buoys race it wold kill you.

Lets take the average weight of crew, provisions and gear for the S-H and add penalty weight equal to 6 crew for each ballast system HP (including one 6 man liferaft) and see how fast the boats are.

I have NO problem with moving ballast. I have a big problem with allowing an engine to do the work.

If the only way that movable ballast boats can compete against fixed ballast boats is by using the engine, then it is not a fair contest. 10 HP moves a 12,000 pound boat close to hull speed, letting me run the engine turns my Catalina 30 into a light air bandit. I wish I had the $$$ to get race committees to change the rules for me. Never mind the boats that compete using only the wind, my boat is only fast if I'm allowed to use the engine to help.

Using the engine to sail the boat is just wrong (in a sailboat race).

The boats that were "beaten" by powered ballast systems have been well and truly sandbagged.

What statement is made when rules are changed so motorboats are allowed to race rather than allow egos to be bruised by losing to multihulls?

 

CBTF Wins!

You can say anything but that doesn't change the facts: Wild Oats won under the Racing Rules of Sailing. You can try to say that the Rule against power assisted movable ballast was modified as if that was unique. But the fact is the the Rule was "modified" by another Rule from the same book having just as much legitimacy as the first rule.
One thing impossible to ignore is the fact that Wild Oats and Alpha finished 1-2 under the Racing Rules of Sailing demonstrating once again that CBTF is the fastest movable ballast system yet used on sailboats.
To suggest that manual power be used to move the keel on a 98 footer is completely absurd- I thank god the rulemakers had the foresight and common sense to make these systems 100% legal. Without power assisted movable ballast it would be impossible to scale up the kind of RM possible with trapeze dinghies as Bethwaite is working on on his Maxi Skiff. Without power assisted movable ballast some able bodied and disabled sailors wouldn't be able to sail my little 18 footer using Sliding Deck Ballast ; no one could sail a Schock 40, no Volvo 70's, no open 60 mono's-it would be a short sighted short circuit of progress!

 

Progress

Actually, Doug, the sailboat racing community would do just fine without the canting keels. The pursuit of progress, as you describe it, would just take another route in development and at some point in time, the new path would equal and then pass the existing canting technology if banned.

Progress is a fluid behavior and it works very much like water in that it will always find a way around existing limitations.

Besides, who says that progress in this regard is actually beneficial? Take a small moment to review the progress of design and technology in the automotive environment. Perhaps the huge vehicles of the fifties with their giant fins, massive acres of chrome and ridiculous road weights could be considered progress? Detroit marketed it as such and to this day I can't find the substance behind the claims.

Yes, car makers also invented foam dash boards to absorb flying heads that weren't strapped-down via seat belts, Yes, they developed new and interesting methods for forming glass windshields. But where did the understanding of design moderation go while they ran, pell-mell down the highway of self-indulgence?

Remember these were consumer based vehicles.

I'm not entirely against canting keels in racing boats as that's the environment in which I think they belong. But, I don't think that this is a technology that you will see filtering down to a consumer level product for a number of reasons. It's too fiddly, prone to damage, simple system failures can lead to catastrophic end results and the average sailor won't be able to engage the system dependably without risking serious harm to himself and crew. And it costs too damn much.

Sure, let them race in their own class. Let the rich guys claim their line honors and ego puffing. Next year their boats will be junk anyway and canting keels will find their way into the pages of history as a curious footnote.

In 1976, F1 team owner Ken Tyrell introduced the first successful six wheeled racing car to compete on the circuit. In a very short time, the design vanished into racing history, where it now sits as but a curiosity in the on-going development of the F1 racing machine.
http://www.project34.co.uk/ if you care to read the whole story.

I see canting keels in the same light and the decisions to abandon the technology will come from the owners and not the organizing bodies. The end will come from a single, big dollar mishap in a hugelt public racing event with a canted keel being smashed-off against a semi-submerged container and subsequently sinking a multi-million dollar yacht will end the run.

Humiliation and losses of large amounts of money are not what make the personalities of these owners.

Just one guy's opinion. Yours may be different.

Chris Ostlind

 

Doug, you have a fixation complex on CBTF composition. I have nothing against canting keels, nor against CBTF but you are exaggerating.

Personally I feel that a number of members are clearly thinking the same way - look in the SA posts and you will meet the same attitude. If those keels brake or not, is unimportant. The whole issue is that the sailing sport as such is gravely violated and for what?

Fact is that you don't see the grave and negative impact the canting keel has on the sailing sport. Of course, the canting keel can make fool proof, that is not the issue: the issue is that a running engine is required to move the keel from starboard to port and vice versa. By electric motors, some 8 minutes are required to do the job, with engine power boosting the oilpump, a mere minute.

What will be next?

Rules are made to avoid illegal and unsportive modifications.

What happened to the Single Handed Trans Atlantic?

It became OSTAR

Fair enough

And then?

That was a purist's race before the French started to be spoil sports.

The Whitbread ARTW was for a long time a sincere business - look what it is now.

The Sidney-Hobart; a race to admire. It is now dregaded just by changing some rules in favour of a handful of companies that wants to show wat?
In any case nothing that has to do with serious sailing.

Look at Sharpi's lates post, I think he is dead right!

As long as peopl start to bend rules in favour of a few - ignoring the original number of sailors who do not have the financial means of the few giant moneywasters, are now thrown in the dustbin, because the maxis will rule the world, unimportant if they have just single cantingkeels or CBTF keels.
Your sunfish-pulverisator just being a second away.

Doug, it won't be for long and all those people that see that just normal competition is wrought out od their hands will make their own rules and just banning those costly affairs. And then?

 

Doug,

I LIKE the CBTF system! I also like trapeze dinghies and Wylie Wabbits.

If suggesting that sailors sail and trim the boat without power assist is "completely absurd", can I look forward to Olympic Class boats trialing diesel exhaust around the course?

If progress to you means having to have an engine to go faster, fine. Just don't call it sailing. I call it motoring.

Let's take this a bit further.

I can't run a 100m dash in 9 seconds on my own. I could in a powered wheelchair. Would you think that the rulemakers had foresight and common sense if I was allowed to hold a world record for the 100m in my powered wheelchair?

The ballast on a 98 footer could most certainly be moved manually. 1000's of square feet of sail got trimmed manually on J-Class boats. Going from fully powered on one tack to fully powered on the other tack might take 2 hours instead of 2 minutes, but it could be done.

In cruising mode, many boats have power winches. This allows smaller, less able crews to sail the boat, no problem. When those boats RACE they don't use the power winches, they use crew muscle.

It would be a simple matter to have a feathering prop to run the ballast pumps. At 15-20 knots you would trade some boat speed for ballast shifting power, once the ballast was moved, you feather the prop. At low speeds the ballast does not need to be moved as far and the manual system would be fine. There is no need for an engine.

The same prop could be used to charge batteries. The whole deal about sailboat racing is not using anthing but the wind and sea to get around the course. There is no reason that movable ballast systems "need" an engine other than it was easier to get the rules changed than to engineer systems that use other power sources.

World class sail races don't have to cater to less than able bodied sailors any more than a track and field event has to cater to less than able bodied runners.

If someone designs a new Formula 1 car that only needs to have a couple of rules modified to race, any bets that they would be allowed to race?

When will we see a IACC boat that needs only 6 crew to sail with a deisel powered winch and ballast system? That's not progress, that's motorboating.

Try asking a non-sailor if they think it should be allowed that boats can use their engines during a sailing race and see what answers you get. "Sailing" implies that no engine power is used.

Why do you suppose the term sandbagger means:

Noun 1. sandbagger - someone who deceives you about his true nature or intent in order to take advantage of you [beguiler, cheater, deceiver, trickster, slicker, cheat] - someone who leads you to believe something that is not true.

It comes from using bags of sand to shift ballast on racing sailboats. Hence Rule 51.

You are quite correct that Rule 86 allows some rules to be changed. You are also correct that since the rules allow those changes the results of the S-H will stand. So will the 24 hour mono records set by the VO70's.

I can only speak for myself, I think that allowing power assited anything to change the trim of sails or hull is wrong. There is not one thing I can do about it, but I don't have to like it. I can gleefully point out that the holders of the 24hr run, the Trans-pac, S-H etc. raced under different rules than the boats whose records they surpassed raced under. When asked what rules are different, I'll reply "They were allowed to use their engines".

The basic question is:

Should boats be allowed to use engine power to sail faster during a sailing race?

I say NO.

 

The point is Doug, that lots of people have an inborn feel of justice. Your point is none.
We assume that the most critical sailors - at the same time opportunistic - are crowding Sailing Anarchy.
There, on that forum, people feel just the same like Sharpi, RHough, Chris Ostlind, Marshmat, CT249 are feeling.

The victory of Wild Oats is no increase-of-value for the sailing sport: rather the opposite.
Next time I invent a gasturbine that blows cold air in the sails when in a lull....
simultaniously powering the pump of the canting keel.

Ba, Ba, black sheep.........

 

What about using the grinders to generate electricity to charge the batteries?

 

No problem.

1 human = 125 watt = .1676 HP

Assume it takes 10 HP to swing the ballast from one side to the other in 2 minutes.

One human grinding for about 60 hours could store enough energy to make one tack in 2 minutes.

Two grinders 1 tack per 30 hours

Four grinders 1 tack per 15 hours

Eight grinders 1 tack per 7.5 hours ....

I'm sure that 8 guys would love to grind for 7.5 hours so the boat could tack ...

Hey, with 20 grinders you could tack every 3 hours!

or ... you could take 4 minutes to tack the ballast every 1.5 hours (with 20 grinders)

Any bets on how many races would be won by a boat that needed 20 grinders and could only tack every 90 minutes?

 

CBTF Technology/Movable Ballast Technology

Luckily for the world you guys have NO PRAYER to stop CBTF/ canting keel technology! About a third of the CBTF boats built so far have been cruising boats . The technology is fast, safe and easy to use. It is a proven technology in hundreds of thousands of ocean miles and will only get better as time goes by.
New forms of the technology like sliding deck ballast(SDB) are being experimented with by a number of people from small boats on up-whether these forms of movable ballast will prove out is anybodies guess. But canting keels(esp CBTF) HAS PROVEN itself to be a very fast safe, technology for increasing monohull speed. Versions of canting keel monohulls using a trim tab on the strut to increase RM while decreasing required ballast are in the works now as are foil assist and full flying canting keel monos.
Face it or not: the genie will never be put back in the bottle and power assisted movable ballast technology is here to stay.