certainly was different on my Dragon during racing (real boat)
ClaudioD
The bow looks really nice in tank test, like the way it sheds water over top of the deck too !
I’ll take plans for one… 
This thread and the thread on Esteral are excellent. I have just completed a WICE with a reverse bow with a flair at the deck. I am waiting for the ice to melt here to try it out against my Ranger and Moonshadow models for comparison. I will post the results when the trials are complete. The Ice goes out here usually in late March or early April on the small ponds. Lake Michigan is now open but it is a bit treacherous with ice on the beach and the three to four foot waves.
Jim
Hi All,
I’m kind of new here, new to footy’s, but not really new to design or sailing. With regards to construction of my design RED TYDE I started down the path laid out by Brett, with Angus’ Moonshadow. Yet after 4 attempts the closest I got to the 10 gram hull shell weight (using 3 layers of <1oz cloth and epoxy) was an 11gram hull shell that did not pass the float test due to porosity of the shell. After wracking my brain for what seemed like an eternity and several other failed attempts I have finally settled upon a hybrid construction method. For the hull shell I am using .002mil high impact polystyrene that I am vacuum forming over a plug. This is producing a hull shell including keel box, and transom that weighs in at roughly 17.5g. The downside to this currently is that I am left with a VERY thin gunwale, to increase the load capacity of the rail, I am taking 2mm depron and laminating strips that are 7mm tall and laminating two layers to the inside of the gunwale. I am using Foam-Tac for my glue and it is working quite well to bond the depron to the HIPS. For the load bearing areas of the deck (mast step and keel tube) I place a sheet of thin carbon sheet (single layer of 6oz biax) with a few 10cm tall depron stringers laminated to the bottom of that. (see picture) The deck is a sheet of depron with a cut out for access to the battery (Lion digital camera battery). It is bonded to the gunwale again with Foam-Tac. My current hatch arrangement is sticky back Dacron. Rudder is balsa with carbon shaft. Keel is Western Red Cedar, that is painted. and the Rig a Mc Rig. For my servo tray I use Depron with Depron “structure” underneath. This seems to be very robust and incredibly light.
For me the design spiral for footy’s is one that is incredibly interesting. My day job deals with handicapping offshore race boats, using a Velocity Prediction Program. It doesn’t take too many runs through the program to figure out that righting moment is king for a boat of a given length and a displacement when sail area is virtually unlimited. I decided early that lighter is better, and I knew that lighter with a high ballast ratio is best. I settled on a total displacement of 340 grams and a target of any ballast ratio over 60%.
As I have read through this thread and others it strikes me that many of you talk about ballast ratio but nobody talks about the two figures in my mind that really make the difference in sail carrying power. VCG (vertical center of gravity) and righting moment. While all of these terms are VERY closely related, the one that is easy for all of us to figure out is the VCG, (it doesn’t take any math!) With your boat in normal sailing trim, turn it so the keel fin is parallel to level ground. using a finger or a pen or whatever you feel comfortable with find and mark the point on the keel that the boat balances. That point is the VCG. The lower towards the bottom of the keel your balance point, the greater your boats ability to withstand the heeling force of the sails. I would think that a catalog of VCG’s would be incredibly interesting! But we would have to decide on a common reference point since each design has a different canoe body depth! For all of my weight study calculations for RED TYDE I have referenced everything to the TOP of the measurement box. In the profile picture of my design attached here you will also probably notice that my design has low free-board. This is again done in an attempt to push the VCG lower in the box, as lower free board means longer fin, and theoretically deeper ballast placement from the waterline. My final design VCG is 165.8 mm Below the top of the box.
-Nathan
Thanks, Nathan, for your interesting post.
Some have credited me for figuring out that Footys could get by with less freeboard, but I’ve never taken it to the extreme you have. I’m most interested to hear your sailing experience with it…also how you like your high aspect ratio foils.
Any chance of adapting that VPP for Footy designs?
Bill
The high aspect foils are… interesting. I really like the rudder, in an initial puff downwind when the boat starts to submarine/nosedive there is no loss of control. Upwind however I seem to be stalling the keel quite a bit. Over the weekend I worked up another boat with a different keel package. Still using the same depth blade but I have increased the root chord to about 52 mm, there is a straight taper to the tip chord of ~ 15 mm. (the foil in the pictures above has a root chord of 35mm (below the leading edge fairing). Hopefully I’ll get a chance to try it at lunch some time this week.
With regards to the minimal freeboard, it seems to be OK, The real negative is the tendency to submarine downwind. I will freely admit that I was not prepared for the lack of pitch stability and this has forced my base trim to be shifted well aft. however during normal sailing, the boat appears to be trimming level. As I said before, even during a nose dive, things are well behaved with no broaching etc.
The VPP right now just isn’t calibrated to deal with boats the size of footy’s. It gets a little unpredictable for light boats that are less than 20’ in general. Not to mention the non standard things we do with our rigs. I highly doubt anybody has done a wind tunnel test to reveal the prediction of a Mc Rig!. With that said I am considering scaling things by 25 (gives me a boat around 27’ long) and see the predictions. The would be useful in determining relative differences between designs.
The build this weekend came out with a ballast ratio of 66% using the method described above with some refinements. My total weight came out to 330g, meaning that I have about 10 additional grams to place somewhere, if I decide, although putting 10 more grams in the bulb would push me to 67%… I’m tempted. I’ll grab some pictures this evening and get them up here soon.
-Nathan
I have completed 3 Footys. My first was a Moonshadow based upon Angus Richardson’s plans available on the US Footy web page. The material I used was the plentiful Wisconsin canoe building wood of white cedar. It allowed me to try out my building technique of strip building as used building canoes and models. The model looked great but was a bit heavy (492g with a ballast of 240g giving a ballast ratio of 49%). I also installed the keel as shown on the web site raked back about 6 degrees and used the rudder provided on the plans. The rudder and keel are also cedar. I almost immediately replaced the rudder with one about 75% larger. The original was too small to complete a tack in the larger waves on Lake Michigan without stalling. The boat now handles well but does submarine a bit down wind when over powered, broaching at times as a result. I think part of the problem with tacking is the raked keel. See the second build of Moonshadow below.
The second Footy attempt was Bill Hagerup’s Ranger 3D design also using white cedar. This tape and glue building technique was easy and produced a boat quickly. The interesting resulting shorter keel appeared to have a minimal affect on the performance. This boat was also a bit heavy at 438g displacement and keel at 250g. The ballast ration here was a more respectable 57%. I had a bit of a mishap with this boat. During a windy day in August of last year due to an ill fitting deck cover I sank her and she spent about a week on the bottom of Lake Michigan before I was able to find and retrieve her. After drying the electronic gear, all of which recovered, she sailed well through the remainder of the year.
The third try is a wooden, balsa, version of the ICE of Roger Stollery. These plans were available on the UK Footy web site. This boat was strip planked with a solid balsa deck. Due to the very wide design (lots more wood for a 152mm beam) the displacement was 547g. I installed a bulb weighing 275g to get the ballast ratio to 51%. I have yet to sail her since the water conditions here in Wisconsin are a bit solid. But, she sure looks neat.
Finally, I am taking another attempt at Moonshadow trying to build her as light as possible using balsa and strip building. The 1/16" x 4" x 36" sheet of balsa for the planks weighed in at 15g. The keel (cedar) on this boat will have no rake and I have used a high aspect ratio rudder (cedar), not quite as extreme as Nathan’s. At present I have an overall weight of 408g with a ballast of 240g. Here the ballast ratio is about 59%. The foredeck is clear plastic. The after deck is also clear plastic with a foam board base comprising a cassette electronics and servo package. The hull may turn out a few grams heavier due to an additional coat of thinned West System epoxy. I am also looking forward to trying this boat out as soon as the ice melts. The WICE versus the Moonshadow and Ranger on the water will be interesting. The first two will have identical sail plans based upon Graham McAllister’s OPUS sail design. The sail plan for Ranger is the Mc Rig suggested by Bill in his plans.
To open a discussion on VCG these are the data for my four Footys. Note the table did not transfer well.
VCG from
Box Top. Water Line
Cedar Moonshadow. 145mm. 85mm
Balsa ICE. 165mm. 113mm
Cedar Ranger. 180mm*. 87mm
Balsa Moonshadow. **
- Ranger is a 3D model, therefore measuring from the box top is a bit problematic in that the hull is dropped into the box to take advantage of the increased waterline length while reducing the length of the keel.
** Still under construction but expected to be in the 165mm range.
- Jim
I’ll chip in here, if i may.
I have briefly set up a excel tab looking at Length to displacement ratio mainly, as well as the extra hull speed.
If i can get to 250g, with 60%+ ballast ratio. then going ultra long (not quite to the max of 18 inches!) in the box, i can get a L/D ratio of nearly 6, which is close to planing (supposedly)
I like the lighter end of the scale, my Depron Ranger (thanks Bill) is 315g all up, 215 in the bulb, 3mm depron (with minor 6mm reinforecment round the keel to hull joint (internal). I then seal the depron, with tissue and WBPU varnish (model plane technology) which makes things a lot more robust,…
Still want to go lighter, and i have plans: 5g rx, 6g rudder servo, 9g sail servo, 6v battery (12g) plus a few wires…
Hull should be under 20g (depron, 2D OR 3D), Hull and rig, under 100g, add 150g ballast - 60% … maybe better
I’m thinking, long, thin, with defined chines (Like the current IOMs) faired raised bow, aiming to spill the wind, and either lightweight McRig, or wing sail 
Scott, our regatta in Wolfeboro will be June 14 this year…so start planning your return trip
The big challenges with extreme diagonal boats, of course, are getting keel depth and figuring out a rig that clears the box to allow full motion. Chris Steiger did it on his 14 inch Poolshark by putting the rig on the bow, but the boat is tricky to sail for many people.
It seems to me that the wing might offer the best possibility…there might be potential for a high aspect ratio actually being able to have full motion within the box. Maybe I’ll have to do some sketching to fool around with the idea. If that is promising, though, there’s still the difficulty of making a wing both light and strong.
I have to say that Roger’s suggestion to use a box rule has turned out to be brilliant…every opportunity presents an interesting challenge.
Bill