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.
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If you end up doing something with a trap - you're going to need to be in much better shape than if you had a boat with non-trap. It will also complicate tacks and the like so you'll need to compensate for that if you plan (and I assume you do) on doing this solo.
ReplyDeleteAnywhooo, enough procrastinating for me - back to analysis!
Love,
One of the college girls