Skeptic

Well, at long last, we have a semi finished design.
I am please to finally be able to show you Skeptic.

Quick update...

There's a lot of uncertainty about the rules for the upcoming Ultimate Florida Challenge. At this point, I'm not totally sure that the boat that I'm building could negotiate some of the river sections. I'm particularly concerned about the last section of the St Marys River. I've seen some pictures and it seems as though there are sections where the river may be blocked by fallen trees and other sections where it's very shallow and very narrow. I can imagine myself balancing on the bow of the boat while sawing and hatcheting my way through a fallen tree (probably oak or rock maple)! What would be a minor inconvenience to a kayak could turn out to be an exhausting day-long ordeal for me.

The tactical question is whether or not it's possible to get far enough ahead during the open water sections to be able to go really slowly during some of the river sections. Additionally, what if there are other fast boats entering? It would be much better to be the second big boat to navigate the tight river sections than to be the first. Wouldn't it be fun to spend a day or two hacking your way through the forest only to have everybody else blast on through the hole you just made. That would absolutely happen to me!

Boat design proceeds apace with only minor detours to completely landscape the yard, install a new kitchen, ride herd on a two-year-old, long distance fathering with my college girls, and keeping everybody who's still at home happy while doing it. Yeah, it's coming along just fine.

Big news is that I've revamped the boat so that I'm now seated athwartships. The fore/aft seating made it impossible to route the running rigging. An added bonus of the new arrangement is that the steering linkage got a lot simpler.

The thought that I just had while writing this is that I'm going to stop designing this boat for the UFC and concentrate solely on the upcoming NCC and EC. By that time, the UFC rules should have shaken out and either this boat will work or it won't. If it works - fine. If not, I'll build one that will. Emma (my long-suffering wife) will not be pleased.

I have a boat that I started designing based on an International 420 or 470 which just might work if this current boat isn't able to negotiate the UFC course. It looks like a miniature centerboard version of a MiniTransat boat. Basically a skimming dish planing hull with a little cabin top. Water ballast to hold it down, with the option of using the trapeze when the weather is nice and the breeze is up. In some ways it's like a planing, centerboard version of Matt Laydon's Enigma. Not really.

When I get a minute, I'll post a drawing of that design.

Dawn?

They say that it's always darkest before the dawn. The thing that they don't tell you is how long before dawn.

I decided that the starboard hull of the A-cat was a little bit too screwed up to deal with and so I stripped the remaining hardware off of the port hull and started in on that.

First thing I did was plonk it on the bathroom scale - 45 Lbs. FORTY FIVE POUNDS!!!!

Oh my science!
Oh Bruised Purgatory!
Oh the humanity!

That pretty much put paid to any idea I might have had about using the A-cat hulls as amas. I can still salvage this by admitting that I've got to use only one of them as the vaka (where 45 lbs isn't all that bad) and building a pair of amas myself.

I was going to build a plug, pull some molds off of it, and then pull a pair of hulls from the mold. Too expensive (I think - I'm still running the numbers). Right now, I'm planning on carving a pair of blue foam amas and covering them in a light layer of carbon - not too expensive and almost as good.

The plus side of this plan is that I get to build a pair of long wave piercers. I might even move the rudder from the vaka to a pair of smaller rudders on the amas. This way, I could have a little bit more sail area and risk flying the main hull.

The initial design of the ama has about 377 lbs of flotation which is about enough to fly the main hull - if I can lay off the cookies.

More later - got to get some sleep

A New Day

A new boat.

The design of the new boat has gone through several wide ranging concepts.

The original Lightfoot was a Warren Lightcraft Littlewing 15.5 Sail with some added prototype parts. This boat was too small to compete effectively with the big dogs.

The new Lightfoot's design started out as a trimaran where the akas and amas (crossbeams and outriggers to the non-cognoscenti) were on a carriage and slid from side to side. Using that technique you can have a 11' wide boat that acts like it's 20' wide. I decided that that concept, while really cool, was too complicated for a race of 300 miles. Additionally, I wanted to use this same boat for the Ultimate Florida Challenge which requires a boat that can do a couple of hundred river miles including a 40 mile portage, along with 1000 miles of sailing.

Aside from the sliding carriage, the other design criteria for this new design was for a central enclosed cockpit. I am a firm believer in the idea that a comfortable skipper is going to make better decisions and ultimately be faster than a cold and wet one. Most of the time, to accommodate the "cabin", you need to compromise the design of the boat in terms of weight, windage, and complexity, but I think it's worth it in the long run.

The next design criteria was to have the ability to "motorsail". I think that is a critical aspect that is missing from most, if not all, of the Class 5 boats. I think huge gains can be made in this area.

Next second concept was for a Class 4 boat. I had drawn what I call a Mini-Mini-Transat boat. The idea for this boat was to start with an old 505, 470, or even an International 420. The plan was to deck it over; replace the centerboard with a daggerboard; add water balast; an inside steering station; and pedal drive. I was going to retain one set of trapeze wires (for nice days with lots of breeze) so that I could go out on the wire and helm in the traditional way. The boat looks a lot like a Mini 6.5 that I drew a couple of years ago. It's a concept I really like. Roller furling jib, screacher, and main - all controlled from inside the cabin.
That concept was abandoned for two reasons. First, I couldn't find a suitable boat at a reasonable price and second because SewSew told me that he's planning on doing the UFC. There's no way that that boat could keep up with Sizzor! In truth, I think I need a boat twice as fast as his just to be close to even ;-)

So, the current design is back to a trimaran. Conventional boat of about L 20' x W 20' which will collapse into a river-capable boat of about L 20' x W 3'.
Originally this boat was going to use a Tornado hull as the vaka and the A-cat hulls for amas. I've decided that this setup is too heavy. Tornado hull (with cabin) is about 110 lbs and the A-cat hulls are about 40 each. Add in the boards/rudder(15), mast (20), rigging (10), sails (20), akas (20), food/gear (50), and one chubby skipper (180) and the whole thing starts to crest the 500lb mark! Not good.

The boat (in it's 3rd revision) is now looking like it's going to have an A-class catamaran hull as a vaka (main hull) with some home made amas and some broken A-cat and Tornado mast tubes for akas (maybe). I'm hoping to get the whole shooting match (less chubby skipper) under 200 lbs. A-cat vaka with mods (50), Amas (35 each), boards/rudder (20), mast (20) rigging (10), sails (20), food/gear (40), one (less chubby) skipper (140). Total package - 370. Much better.
Here's the A-cat - fresh from picking it up in PA.

A few hours later and we have the hulls.

But, flip one over and - DISASTER!
The photo doesn't do it justice. This is a 30" x 10" hack-job to the bottom of this hull. It looks like someone troweled marinetex onto the bottom of the hull and let it dry. It was't even sanded at all.
So, we get out the sander and get to work - 60 grit paper didn't make a dent in it.
So, we switch to the grinder with an 80 grit flapper wheel and start to make some progress.

This is pretty ugly - but it gets worse...

This dent/hole is 20" long x 8" wide x almost 1" deep - caveat emptor.
I am so bummed :o(

Plus, to top it all off, what I thought was kevlar seems now to be fiberglass with a kevlar-colored foam core. Just keeps getting better and better.

The plan was to stretch this hull about 3 feet anyway. Initially I was going to go about 2' off the stern and 1' off the bow. Now it looks like I'll add 3' to the middle and deal with this mess then.

Are we having fun yet?
Actually we are!