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!