Dick, the concept(reread the first post) is to produce a CK Trainer that can be inexpensively available to beginners to learn the ins ad outs of handling a canting keel boat. The consensus base line boat is laid out in the first post. At least two boats will be designed specifically to those baseline terms after a mechanism is determined so that beam can be accurately determined.
The 24" boat I’m doing is a test of a new system because I have the hull; I don’t expect it is large enough to be a good trainer so when the first F100CBTF boats have been delivered I will design a 30" boat sticking as close to the baseline idea in the first post as possible.Will and Matt are doing a boat close to the baseline and you are certainly welcome to join in and test your ideas. Only with hard and fast development experience will we be able to come up with a strict one design that fills the bill, By the way-the final boat was never intended to allow an"Open"canting mechanism-once that is determined and tested it willbe locked in just as he whole boat will --to a Strict One Design.
I believe that a CK Trainer must be as high performance as possible within the cost constraints because even though
it is a trainer it will represent canting keels to a wide audience-with any luck.
If it is a poorly designed dog it will not be a good trainer and it will not be a good representative of the new technology.
Amazingly, there are those people who would fault the TECHNOLOGY if even a small trainer wasn’t a good performing boat. Canting keel boats ARE high performance boats
and a Trainer should reflect that heritage but in a smaller package and at a lower cost than the bigger boats like the Wind Warrior, F100CBTF, and others that will surely come.
This boat is NOT a trainer in the sense of the Optimist where learning basic sailing, boat handling and rules are the object; this boat is more properly compared with the 29er which is designed to prepare Optimist grads for the skiff experience. Solings, Victorias etc are excellent rc sailing trainers -the CK Trainer is conceived of to introduce people to the high performance and challenges found in the world of the canting keel. You should expect to graduate to a higher performance level than sailing a “NORMAL” boat when getting one of these-- and whether you do or not- that higher performance and excitement level will be EXPECTED by all those that discuss the new boat on rc sailing forums!
So this is a Canting Keel Trainer and by definition a “29er” for the rc world-not an Optimist…
Thanks for the clarification. Based on these conditions, I guess I will stand aside on this project and wait to see what emerges.
I really don’t feel like working on a boat (time energy and cost) with a canting keel with the possibility it will be illegal or a non-performer in the “eventual” class. Even though the costs aren’t extremely prohibitive, the possibility exists where “none” of the test boats will be the final decision which reinforces my argument that a one design of everything should be selected FIRST - not LATER.
Doug - you couldn’t be more wrong in following this course of development. The path you are following, as I noted, (if any get built) results in no two boats being identical or alike - other than each might have a canting keel of some sort, of some weight, suspended under a hull of some length and some beam, with a sail area to be determined. Gee - maybe I’ll just enter my MultiONE in this class since “everything is open”. And I wouldn’t need to worry about a canting keel either!
Anyways - good luck. Any target dates for first on-water tests? Hate to have to ask a couple months down the road and have you take it personally. [:-fight]
Dick, in order to wind up with the best boat possible at the target dimensions or close thereto within cost constraints testing and development work is imperative. We don’t know enough about the mechanism and some other refinements of larger systems yet to lock in a boat. But this course of action will provide a huge amount of information that will be used to put a refined,well engineered CK Trainer on the water…
The idea of having a baseline boat was mine - not Doug’s. As an engineer, I always try to design relatively controlled experiements. Thus having a non-canting keel “control” boat struck me as a great way of measuring the performance of the canting keel boat.
I still think this is a worthwhile experiment and I hope the B32 is the right boat for it.
So my plan going forward is to purchase a B32 kit and build it as is. If the boat looks reasonable to put a canting keel mechanism in, I will purchase a second kit which I will modify to add the canting keel. I plan to buy a larger sailplan for the boat and keep the displacement as designed to keep it on the same waterline (I may need to cut a little weight out of the keel on the canting keel boat to make up for the extra servo and larger rig).
If the stock boat is unimpressive, I will probably stop there and give the boat to my son to play around with.
Point I was making, is that there is seldom a “trial horse” boat for Doug’s ideas, to either sail against, or test against, yet he is know for making “claims” of superior performance. THis issue of the Trainer was just another example of why I have stepped back from Doug. To use his words, he would buy and sail a Blackhawk 32 to measure and test. Then, if it looked promising, he would pull out the innards, replace them with a canting keel and proclaim the boat to be the fastest and most fun boat available. Based on his proposed design parameters, there STILL would be no on-water tests against an identical boat to see and evaluate the differences in speed around the buoys. Your boat will still be useless until a SECOND BH32 is built that has a canting keel - or if your does, then there needs to be a fixed keel BH32 to race against to actually see if the canting version is so much faster.
Suppose you do build a BH32, and install a canting keel. If Doug decides the 24 inch boat is the proper hull, how are you going to test sail a 32 inch boat against a 24 inch boat and come up with meaningful data?
You are comparing Apples and Oranges (Doug’s favorite method) since in the end, you simply proclaim … “It’s a one-design!” “It isn’t supposed to be faster than a similar boat of that size.” (reference: America One and Spinnaker 50 when he was asked about on-water performance vs. an “M” Class boat. And also, remember, his boats had the added spinnaker sail area making them faster)
Good luck on your efforts. Maybe you (as an engineer) can explain testing facts and controlled comparions to Doug - I tried and it was viewed as a “personal attack”.
The CK Trainer has great performance potential against other boats its size because contrary to the weight increase of a spinnaker boat compared to a non spinnaker boat a canting keel boat can be expected to have less weight and/or more sail area.
Will specifically mentions that IF the B32 looks promising he will build a second B32 with the canting keel in it to compare with the first. I stated and Matt has stated that we will build 30" hulls to evaluate; I’m outfitting a 24 " hull with a new very inexpensive system for testing of the mechanics and sealing system NOT necessarily as a CK Trainer. By doing the 24 we’ll be able to compare costs ,and mechanical requirements with the thirty and B32.
I’ve mentioned several ideas regarding the point when we have two or three potential CK Trainers complete. We can get together and race and evaluate them; we can ship the boats to those participating in evaluation- always arranging it so that two different boats will be able to be raced against each other.
There are solutions to the development of this boat that can combine the expertise of a number of people into the final outcome.You’re welcome to join in if you want to…
I mentioned this in the preamble(first post) to this discussion and I want to reiterate it now in the interest of clarity.
I believe that,in the interest of providing the widest access possible for the CK TRAINER that any builder who wants to build the boat and meets class standards should be “licensed” to build the boat. And be able to purchase tooling at a fair price determined by arbitration if necesary. No builder should have a monopoly on building and selling the CK Trainer. This is already in the “Preamble” and is important for potential Class growth in my opinion.
Hey look, the only way to sort this is to build some boats and run a comparitive trial, on the water and on other aspects such as cost, reliability etc. At the moment it it looks like we shall have two or three new designs and the conversion. Test them together with a wide range of sailors and may the best boat win. Then we talk about who’s gonna build them and all the legal crap after that. Sound fair?
Matt - problem is that I see the ground rules keep changing. Now all of a sudden - in an effort to provide “clarity” we are licensing builders???
Where did that come from? Sure wasn’t in the original proposal for this “class” - nor in any post until Doug made the change! I guess if you don’t mind playing in a class where there are no standards, and someone has to be licensed, - have at it! Enjoy.
“Licensed to any builder” was in the original post and was not added or edited in any way.
It was just the best language I could think of to try and insure that no one builder would have a monopoly on the boat in order to make it as equitable and fair as possible.
Progress is being made and a course of action determined. Rather than talk the concept to death several people have volunteered to build actual boats so that costs can be compared and ideas tried and systems sailed in the real world. This is all part of a development process that has great potential to come up with a terrific boat that meets its purpose perfectly.
<blockquote id=“quote”><font size=“1” face=“Verdana, Arial, Helvetica” id=“quote”>quote:<hr height=“1” noshade id=“quote”>“Rather than talk the concept to death several people have volunteered to build actual boats so that costs can be compared and ideas tried and systems sailed in the real world. This is all part of a development process…”<hr height=“1” noshade id=“quote”></blockquote id=“quote”></font id=“quote”>
Holy Crap - did you really type this? Seems like it’s OK for you to say it but not the rest of us?
WOW ! of course it is noted that YOU are getting the technology for free from someone else’s work and effort. Good idea!
Actually, no technology was handed to me for free; what I know about canting keels and CBTF I had to work hard to learn including spending several thousand dollars on previous canting keel prototypes, long distance phone calls with experts, books and an awfull lot of hard work.
The subject material is not easy for many to grasp; it didn’t come easy and by no means free to me but I’ve stuck with it and believe in it completely especially in its application to models.
It is a new way to sail,a new way to race and a new way to have fun…
There is no substitute when trying to develop something new for hands on work and tests-and the net result is likely to be first class…
Go back and read your quote and my post again, so that you understand what I wrote…
You say “volunteers” are building boats so costs can be compared.
*This indicates “THEY” aren’t being paid for their time or for their efforts.
*This indicates “THEY” are the ones spending time and money to develop and perfect “THEIR” ideas.
This indicates that “YOU” - (since you indicated, have no plans to build a prototype of your own), will have FREE ACCESS to all of their work and ideas AFTER they have done the testing and modifications. There will be no cost to you and yet you obtain all of their information for free, which can then be incorporated (possibly) into your F-100 or a “licensed builder’s CK TRAINER boat” for which you can sell and make a profit.
As I wrote - if I were in your place - it sounds like a GREAT IDEA! I’m sure there are other companies around the world that would love to have this type of situation handed to them… “You guys build something, we’ll decide if we like your idea, and if we do, we will license it to others to build it for us and just take our small profit!” - COOL - Problem with the whole scenario, is determining where Doug Lord (the individual) interests ends, and Microsail (the company) interests begin.
Doug went to the owners of the patent on canting keel technology - CBTF Inc. - and negotiated a licensing agreement with them to allow him to mass market canting keel boats in the RC size range. So by law, anyone else that wants to mass market this system for the CK trainer would need to license that from doug (as a sub license from CBTF Inc.). This is basic patent law stuff…
Doug has offered (both publicly on this board as well as privately to me) to pay for the B32 kit that I will be building. So, although I have volunteered to build it, Doug has volunteered to pay for it. So he is not leaching off of the rest of us but is contributing finacially to the effort. He is not getting the technology for free unless I decide not to accept his money.
Sorry to come down on you so hard, but I think you have wrongly assessed Doug’s motives here.
Will
UPDATE: In reviewing the technical specs for this boat, it has not been settled that the design falls into the patented domain of the CBTF patent (i.e. forward rudder or gybing daggerboard). However, I have heard from Doug that the license will make available whatever patents that may be involved with the CK Trainer for free to every manufacturer or kit buider.
Just odd that a guy with all that canting keel knowledge and technology that he tells about, cannot come up with his own, inexpensive design - but must buy/obtain from it others. I keep reading (his posts) about how he knows “everything”, and still we sit and wait. [:-boring]
… ummm, and I think I do understand Doug’s motives.
Carefull - I, also, was a "believer once upon a time!
Look Dick, Infact I was the one who put this idea to Doug in the first place. I want to build a up a fleet of cheap, high performance models to replace or be a more exciting alternative to the 10+ year old tacktics that are sailed at my local sailing club during the winter. I have access to a composites workshop, the owner of which more than likely woulden’t mind helping me knock out X number of boats if he likes the design. He (the workshop owner) is even giving me a suitible hull to play with the canting keel system and the rig for the thing. I would like to build a number of my own design but if another is built and appears better than mine, and the designer of that boat is happy for me to do it, Ill build that design. Doug or whoever else will be welcome to build my design, provided I get all due credit for the design and maby few quid out of the profits!
Hint - try to buy a tested and working canting keel system directly from Doug with delivery in 30 days or less! And keep in mind, he has been on the canting keel ideas for almost two years now! Yet nary one in sight! Again - he’ll probably give you drawings - but no product.
I’m still waiting (to see) for the F-48 multihull he was building and selling three years ago!
Enough said - good luck on your design. I hope you pick the right size and specs - or you will never know. As a suggestion, build to same size as the WInd Warrior, at least you will have a tested model from which to test “you” ideas. If you do build to this class, my guess is that we will all actually see a prototype of your ideas!
As I’ve said before the idea is to develop as much practical information as possible to be able to make the CK Trainer a reality. It is imperative that the tests being done by myself, Matt ,Will and maybe others be carried out so that we have facts to use to design/choose the final boat…
Doug - one more time, and posted so even an 8th grader can understand.
How can you make an effective comparison, if both boats are NOT EQUAL?
Test a 36/600 against a Marblehead. Which one will be faster around the course - and WHY?
I again post my question that you seem to dodge so easily… HOW can you compare and analyze the performances of a 24 inch long boat against a 32 inch long boat?
You keep posting “…develop as much practical information as possible …” How can you do that if there is such a varied difference in size, sail area, weight, or length? It’s like trying to compare the 36 vs a 50 inch long boat!
Matthew - perhaps you can explain to Doug what it is I am asking? - or - explain to me what I am failing to understand about my question and Doug’s evasive or non-responses?