Saturday, August 30, 2008

ultimate family daysailor

I'm very interested in comments about the concept as a boat and as a product. It is a dinghy with a small keel; it is not a sportboat. Closest to it is the Laser Stratus except that this is half the weight and the hull is much narrower. It only foils DOWNWIND, has manual controls and is built for JUMPING.
This be the ultimate two person boat/family day sailor.
LOA 16-17'
Beam 12' (easily foldable for trailering)
Hull+ rig ready to sail weight 160lb.(minus ballast)
Ballast in bulb keel-120lb(self-righting from capsize or pitchpole) only etc.
Crew weight nominal 320lb.(sliding bench seat)
Upwind SA 150 sq.
Downwind SA 300 sq.ft.
Mainfoil on keel strut(at bulb)
Rudder foil

-----------------------------------
----Idea is to provide a safe, very fast two person boat that would be designed to foil down wind: round the mark,pop the spin,deploy the wand and whoosh....
----Uses modern ideas from several different types of boat to provide a new kind of sailing experience. Could be configured in a number of ways-for instance single handed main + spin only. Four people (2 adults, 2 kids main+ jib daysailing only).
Design configuration for racing: Two people ,max 320lb (more or less).
----Sliding bench seat P&S-NO HIKING NO TRAPEZE.
---- Manually controlled 100% self righting
----Power to weight ratio off the wind better than a Moth.(W/SA=2.0)
----Small buoyancy pods on outboard of rack

Regular readers will note this is different than my other designs because the numbers are different and this one includes 100% automatic self righting with manual self riighting controls; and the buoyancy pods are smaller.

Friday, August 29, 2008

hope it is adjustable

Is the f-box adajustible when sailing or not?

A fistfight broke out today in sailing anarchy over adjusting the fbox. It was this is very interesting-what in hell was going on? One guy says yes the other guy says no??!!

Damn, its a good idea-hope it is adjustable.
* if it was designed right it would surely work well....

Saturday, August 23, 2008

eliminate the gantry

The gantry (in my opinion) is a rule induced abberation which is NOT necessary for a successfull foiler design. In fact, there are really good reasons why it should be eliminated:

1) by allowing the hull to be a bit longer the available hull buoyancy is increased so the L/beam ratio can be increased reducing resistance and allowing the boat to achieve takeoff a bit sooner.

2) In my humble opinion, it is somewhat ugly and help creates a "contraption" appearance to some onlookers.

3) When taking off without an F-box(angle of incidence control) a gantry (and transom)drags when the boat is pitched bow up.

4) The ONLY reason for a gantry is to allow the foil footprint to be better on a boat NOT DESIGNED FOR FOILS IN THE FIRST PLACE.