So, the moral is :- stick close to Bill - he sails fast and get all the best girls.
Cheers,
firstfooty
In case Sheila reads this forum…I married the best girl!
I certainly didn’t sail fast this weekend when the wind picked up…I’ll use the well-documented-by-the-photos excuse that I was distracted by things around the pond ;):zbeer::zbeer::zbeer::zbeer::zbeer::zbeer:
Christy was there all weekend to serve Footy skippers…
Beer and food, guys…geeze, what a bunch of dirty old men :devil3:
I think it’s unfair to be unkind to dirty old men. Until quite recently they were dirty youg men. Just because they’re not as good at as they were …!
:devil3::devil3::devil3:
I’m reminded of that old American rhyme,
“I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good, once, as I ever was!” 
Or the three ages of man.
Tri-weekly
Try weekly
Try weakly
:devil3::devil3::devil3::graduate:
I satellite images must be old, since I didn’t see any bus, bar, or much else.
What’s a Cobra 3? The latest version? The only one I know of is the Mk I on the Footy site.
thx
I suspect the “half life” (my physics background) of a Footy is a couple of months, as I just started sailing my third version since June of 08 and already thinking of the next one. The Footy building process is extremely enjoyable. They are quick and cheap, so those that have not joined in the process are missing the boat, so to speak.It will be a sad day when 1 design rules.
I suspect the same is true for Bill H. It is the evolution driven by the need for continious improvement in many areas, especially speed.
Maybe best for Bill to respond with some details.
The Google map picture is at least two years old, the venue was opened about a year ago. We have excellent pics in the photo gallery under Event Venue which includes the bus, and Footy NCR 09 albums at www.sundaysloopers.com . Enjoy
Tom, Cobra3 is, as you surmise, the latest version. I built it for the NCR event, and since the water is awfully hard and thick up here, Scott Spacie started testing it for me a few months ago.
I called it Cobra3 because it is a development of the same basic idea as the published version. For this one, I squeezed it on the sides and it popped out on the ends 
Scott’s testing was promising, but I didn’t want to publish it until I knew for sure that it was worthy. Now that we know it performs well, I’ll work up the panel diagrams and put it on the web. It will be a very basic plan like the ones I’ve published in the past, and rely on the builder to decide foil shapes and sizes, radio placement, rig preference, etc. I’m working for the next couple weeks, though, so it’ll be a few weeks before I get this done.
Scott’s version is typical of his preferences for foils, with a 250g bulb. I decided to make a lead sled, so the bulb on mine is 450g. We both use the same unarigs and sails made by Scott. Both boats work well (as long as you pick the right sail 
) There’s some pics of mine (neon green and white) on the thread about boats going to the NCR, and some pics of Scott’s on the Footy USA site. I suspect they showed up in some of the regatta pics on the SundaySloopers site, too.
Bill H
P.S. as Frank guessed, the half life of my boats is pretty short…Cobra4 is designed and waiting for me to get building again!
A satellite image is available on the microsoft terraserver at:
The Red Canopy at the South and East Corners of the building covers the bar area that has been shown in some photos. I looks like the Red Bus has a white roof and is parked with front facing East. The active sailing area was immediately south of this corner of the building.
When will Google catch up? Our 3 year old home in Tanglewood does not show on google either, but does show on Terraserver. And our new Garmin cannot find our address.
I just completed a quick count of rigs and it appears that there are about an equal number of McRigs and Sloop Rigs. Placing for both does not seem to show any strong trends.
Bill.
Cobra 3, 4, 5, It doesn’t matter how many you bring to the Euro Grand Prix, I will have a “Mongoose” here waiting for breakfast. Looking forward to some close racing again. :devil3:
Bill’s Cobra comes with a big block, so you may do better with a Viper V-10.
De Tomaso Mangusta (= Mongoose in Italian) was named as a result of a stand up row between Carrol Shelbj and Alejandro De Tomasso - probably with Ford involved somewhere.
Overall, I think we’d prefer a laarge-clock Ferrari V12 !
:graduate::devil3::zbeer:
I will have to say, Gary, that since last year you beat Cobra with a Duck, Mongoose sounds dangerous, indeed!
I should have some time to refine the boat I sailed last weekend. I was hoping that the extra weight would allow the bigger sail, and found out it’s not that simple. Still, when the wind was right, she proved to be very fast. So that does challenge some of the beliefs about the need for light weight.
That said, I’ll probably go back to 500-600g and see how it goes…Scott certainly did well with the lighter version.
Looking forward to some racing and an evening at the pub.
Bill H
Angus,
Wasn’t the “Mangusta” the predecessor to the “Pantera”, a similar mid-engined car that was marketed for several years in the US by the Mercury Division of Ford Motor Company? I seem to recall it suffered from having to have a model change in order to comply with the US bumper restrictions, that resulted in a similar uglification to what happened to the MGB (and the Triumph Spitfire). The original version of the Pantera was a really good looking car, almost as good as the Ford GT, and much less so with the later complying bumpers. Unfortunately, at 6’6" and approaching 300 pounds, neither were a car I could have any hopes of sitting in, irregardless of the price or the bumpers. I was painfully reminded of this again when Ford released the limited production 2005 GT40. God, how I wish I could fit in that car!
Regards,
Bill Nielsen
Oakland Park, FL USA
Chances are if one can buy the new gt40, once can afford to have either the car or them selves “modified” to fit…:):zbeer:
http://news-images.caradisiac.com/IMG/jpg/6/6/9/4/0/Ford-GT-crash-1.jpg this will bring a tear to your eye Bill
I also saw a few swing rigs…or did you count them as “sloops”
fwiw I’m going back to the sloop rig and loosing the swing. I may dabble with the McRig this summer some…
Hi Marc,
You’re right, that’s a sad picture indeed! As for modifications to fit into the car, Ford had a similar but not quite as challenging problem with Dan Gurney, one of their team drivers, who was also too tall to fit into the car. Their solution was to lower the seat and move it back as much as possible, and then build a sort of “bubble” into the roof and top of the door for a bit of added headroom. I believe he was only 6’2” (short lil’ guy, actually). For the at least 4 extra inches I would require, it would mean a major redo of the windshield & roof (sort of a chopped top in reverse) which would wreck the looks of the car. Also, once modified, I’m not sure it could even still be called a GT40, since the “40” part of the name referred to the height of the car from the ground. These things were really LOW. I came across one parked in a parking lot the “Fantasy of Flight Aviation Museum” in Lakeland a couple of years ago, and was reminded of just how low 40” really is . Also, when I was approaching 300 pounds, was about the time when Ford was racing these cars in the mid to late 60’s, I have since exceeded that benchmark by about 20#. At about 150K, they really weren’t that expensive, consider their historical significance. In today’s dollars, that would be equivalent (or less) to the Pantera which was about 10K. In the late 60’s a corvette was less than 5K.
I think we need to break the rig description into at least 4 categories when we discuss Footys: conventional Mast/Boom, McRig (or UniRig), Swing Rig, and “other”. Maybe we will need to go farther, depending on what develops. For instance, your Hoyt rig is technically a swing rig too, but I think that if they were to proliferate, they are just different enough from a swing rig to need another category.
Regards,
Bill Nielsen
Oakland Park, FL USA
Footy #835
“Technically” the McRig swings about a pivot point as well. The swing rig moniker is typically applied to a jib and mainsail both rotating about, or rotating on, the mast. The modified “Hoyt” rig is a single sail so it shares more similarities to the McRig in that you have half the controls and less complicated tuning. Multiple choice rig designations would be a good thing to include in a race registration form so that footydom can track trends in rigging advances.
But I think my 507 needs a beefier keel…a bit more chord… and thats easier to do than chopping sails on the large hoyt rig… I thin my large hoyt has too much sail area aft…