with regard to footy hull designs, has anyone tried designs modeled after the old 12 meter boats with the full flat keel?
they have been considered, and debated, and actually, there was a design a little while back (i don’t know if it was ever built but it had a full length keel…) but as you have probably noticed most footys incorporate a much more “modern” fin keel, mainly i think because it is easier to build. also, they are lower drag… correct me if i’m wrong you guys! and then put the lead further down from the bottom of the boat, thus lengthening the righting arm.:graduate:
I’m one of the ones that’s still thinking about it. I’m going to make a mini EC12. It may not be fast but it’ll be fun to try sometime.
I think the closest to being built was the Phin. Angus would probably know if it ever sailed.
(see http://footy.rcsailing.net/images/2006_CD_award_designs_2.jpg)
i encourage you to build it. i thing that would look very smart, seeing a wee one of those sail by.
I’ve been working on a couple of designs, heres one that I just finished the wooden skeleton framing for:
I forgot to take pictures of the skeleton frame last night/this morning, but its basically a hard-chined 12meter design. I don’t expect it to sail very well, mostly because it doesn’t have that much keel in the water to help it track in the right direction, but with a shorter mast than typical, it might prove to work just fine, although slower than most like someone suggested, due to higher drag and less power. I will probably skin it with some thin cardboard from a cereal or 6-pack box and then seal the cardboard with primer or some sort of paint.
I was also checking out the america’s cup website for the BMW-Oracle boat, I would recommend looking at the “virtual yacht” page, pretty interesting to see some of the loads that the boat carries. I might try building a scale footy to that boat, with a 6:1 L to W ratio, and most of the weight being in the bulb keel.
what do you guys think of this design? Modeled at 0.5in : 1m ratio to what I depicted the BMW/Oracle America’s cup boat to look like. Even though it is scaled accurately, I feel like the keel might still be a tad too short, although the scale would make the keel weight to hull weight ratio 19:2 !
Looks narrow. Are you sure it will float with 4AA batteries and gear? Where are you going to have room for the sail servo arm? Maybe you’re better at squeezing things into tight places than I am. Have you seen the Akela threads? It’s a very narrow design that seems to have promise.
I like your classic 12m idea better. Then you can stash the batteries down in the keel to help displacement/ballast ratios. I look forward to seeing your projects on the water.
the batteries in the keel is a great idea, I don’t think it is wide enough for them to fit though 
I should be able to finish the 12m sometime this weekend. Where do you recommend getting servos and radio gear from? I have built a couple of working models, just never applied the R/C feature to them ( I still have a US1M hull sitting on the floor waiting to be rigged!)
Widen the keel a tad more then. I’m thinking of a 4 pack all side by side too, not the usual 2 by 2 carriers. You’ll still need some lead but every little bit lighter might help.
Servocity.com is good or towerhobbies.com I went with a cheapo Futaba Tx/Rx and added a HS-55 servo for my Footys. The standard servos that came with the Tx are ok for sails.
Ummm, sorry to rain on your parade, but if you want this to remain a legal Footy, the rules are pretty specific about the batteries being placed in the hull:
“C.2 Batteries are restricted to 4 no. AA size batteries placed within the hull.”
Look at Phinn in the last Chris Dicks Design award. Not just the joke it looks to be at first sight!
On a full keel boat any void above the ballast would normally be considered part of the bilges, which I would have thought are a component of the hull, however narrow they might be. An ATTACHED fin keel is of course a a different story, so wouldn’t it depend on the way the lower part of the hull is designed.
Yep, we’ve had this discussion before. Full keel designs are all hull. What we haven’t done is build one and see if it’s faster/slower/seaworthy at Footy size. Hopefully, go4broke44 will fill that gap.
Back to Phinn!
mmmmm plank on edge all over again.
Not so silly in the Footy rating rule methinks.