Matthew: My current Skapel M has radio control adjustable backstay, adjustable outhauls and adjustable jib trim. It also has an automatic jib wing on wing device. Since you are in England, I would have thought you would have seen one of Graham Bantock’s or Roger Stollery’s swing rigs that incorporate an adjustable out haul control that is operated off the sheet line. They have been around for years. In the past I have had boats that also incorporated radio control fully adjustable leech lines, travellers and downhauls. In the M class all of these features have been used (and some discarded) for a number of years. They are also allowed and used in a number of other classes just a few of which are mentioned above by Greg.
Additionally, if you look on Lester Gilbert’s excellent site you will find designs for a downhaul control that is activated whenever the main boom swings out and designs for an IOM rig where the top automatically depowers underway when hit by a gust. Again, all of these concepts have been around for quite some time.
As to your desire to see boats incorporating many of these features, I would think if you attended any of the many M, 10R or IOM races in England or any major US1M, 36/600, J, or AC races here in the United States you would see these features and more.
As to your comments on the r/c Laser you did say didn’t you that the boat is “nothing like the fullsize” laser? Further, you have just repeated this position when you said the r/c boat is unlike the full sized boat “in the way that it is sailed”. Bruce and Jon spent some time in the design of the boat to create sailing dynamics similar to the full size laser and most people who race the boat will suggest that it behaves very much like a full size laser. From your posts it would seem that your experience with the r/c laser is different.
As to my “misinterperting” your words, please know that I did nothing more than point out your posts to the designers of the r/c laser. Your words speak for themselves.
What is going on around here? I post a quite reasonable question for Roy before leaving work on Friday. I decide to check in a bit over 24 hours later and there is a huge fight going on. I can practically see Greg V pulling his hair out at his computer.
First off, Roy and Greg, thanks for your thoughtful replies. I have been hearing a lot from both sides of the debate within my class and I was beginning to loose my perspective. It is nice to hear from others who have a bit broader perspective.
Against my better judgement, I will jump into the fray on the topic of depowering…
If you look on Lesters Site for an aricle on Arm winches, you will see an arm winch sheeting arrangement that Lester and I designed. This system allows me, with a simple adjuetment of my fine tune on the sheet channel, to dump my mainsail in the puffs. The advantage of this system is that it keeps the jib in tight so that the jib helps to fight the weather helm that comes from excessive heel. This is very similar to the primary control that full sized boats use to deal with puffs.
Secondary controls like the backstay, jib tracks are generally adjusted ony after playing the traveler (or mainsheet if you prefer to vang sheet) has lost its effectiveness. Reefing is a step that is only taken after many minutes of wind that is above the conditions that the rig is able to handle. Reefing itself takes several minutes and as such, is not something you do and undo more than once or twice during a typical race.
One of the challenges that I enjoy about RC sailing is trying to devise automatic systems that can perform all the functions that I want the boat to do while sailing. My mainsheet system took several re-designs to get right. I now also have a vang system that automatically adjusts the twist of the sail as I go from close hauled to reacing to running. The offset gooseneck allows the draft of the sail to automatically adjust the draft of the sail as the boom eases out.
I have found that if you are clever in the implementation of all these things, you can make a lot of adjustments “on the water” to react to puffs.
Greg,
Which class do you sail in that allows multiple rigs but that 99% of the sailors only use one. THat is the situation outr class is in right now, and I would like to keep it that way. I would be interested to know what other class is doing that and understand why it is working.
[:-headache]Star 45. I only know of a few skippers that even have optional rigs, as far as size goes. There are a small few that have different weights though.
These boats have huge mainsails and there is an incredible amount of sail tuning that can be done with them You will see the same rigs in 1 to 20 knots of wind to where these boats are just about powering up by jib alone.
We that sail these boats consider them the ?hot rod? of rc sailboats. There kinda like a Chevy Impala with a blown hemi. [}:)]
If class rules are written to a strict one-design theory, unless the rules specifically state the sail profile MUST be the same as that offered by the manufacturer (Soling comes to mind if I am correct - if not - sorry !) Is there any rule that says the sail area CANNOT BE SMALLER?
I looked at a random few classes, both big and small, and most class rules say a sail cannot be GREATER THAN a specific size. I know the discussion is about multiple rigs - which are mast, sails, boom, and standing rigging - to my view, but I cannot see anything that prohibits smaller sail area. If one leaves the mast, booms and standing rigging alone, and only changes the size of the sail, what rule would prohibit this downsizing? Usually rules allow change only if there is damage - but if one sails with less sail area in most classes, yes they are underpowered - compared to competition, but sometimes due to high wind, the smaller sail size may be more effective and efficient. To put this into perspective, the IOM Class allows three different rig sizes. I believe it specifically gives sail area for each rig, as I recall. Now that may have it’s own interpretation, but the part I am looking at as comparison - nothing in their rules says ALL must sail with the same sail area. Thus, depending on skipper choice, all three sizes could be on the water at the same time. We don’t usually try to legislate something like this (minimum sizes), so I would ask those in different classes to read your rules and see if there are any limitations to sailing with smaller sails. My guess is there may be some - but they can’t be all that prevalent.
Thoughts and views from others - does your class prohibit sailing with sail areas less than maximum?
First I do not live in the USA…so these class rules are NOT for me (lucky me)
[b]For the Seawind (one design class)
As for the sails…only the one the manufacturer/kit provide!..[/b]
Now, on a personal point of view:
I do not agree about it!!![:-banghead]
First, you can get cheaper sails…Walrus are cheaper than kyoshos and better quality aso…
but thats off topic…so I stop here.
As far as the Soling goes, I am assuming your are referring to the Soling 1M, there is a sail plan drawing in the rules that must be followed. This class in particular is quite strict with their thinking, but not so with execution. The class is working on this, just waiting to hear who the class secretary will be though before much more is pursued. I would like to see this class refine it?s rules to require only sails made by Victor. I, myself have a suit of Carr sails that I won the Nationals in 02 with. Since then it has been found that when these sails get wet, they expand! Now their expansion is minimal, but there are some that want this sail to become illegal. The fact is that this is a better performing sail, when broken in, then the factory sails, but only in some conditions.
In this past 03 season I built a new boat and sailed with Victor sails. It was nice to know that it just was not my Carr sails that keeps me in front. But the biggest factor for me was that I had eliminated the fact that some felt it was my sails that made me competitive, so much so that I was starting to believe it. One design classes should stick with a single sailmaker. This is certainly not an AMYA policy, in fact it goes against some of the thinking in the bylaws. But the fact is that even if the Soling sails are a single panel, low tech cloth sail, a good sailmaker can make it perform better. Not to mention that it really goes against the class thinking of being an introductory inexpensive class being that Carr sails cost just about as much as the Soling kit does.
I look at the CR914 as the very best one design class out there. There is nothing a skipper can do to better this boat under the rules besides his own tuning and sailing ability. But, they are fortunate enough to have some well cut sails included with the kit. I know that wis sails the Seawind. It is good that they have stuck with factory sails (haven?t they wis?), but the problem is that the kit sails are not so good. Is this the case with the Fairwind Will? I hate seeing a boat having to sail with poor cut sails! It?s really not fair to the skippers to have to deal with this even if they are all in the same boat. I don?t know what the answer is in a case like this, but if I were secretary I would attempt a bold move to designate a sole sailmaker for my class.
I guess, perhaps that is one of the classes that might be an exception.
No argument wanted - just a secondary question:
You’ve purchased your sail directly from the kit manufacturer as a replacement sail. (I assume they will provide replacement parts).
So now you have the “approved” sail from the kit manufacturer - what prevents “trimming” the sail to make it smaller for high winds? Your rules seem to remain “silent” on that and only state it has to be supplied by kit company?
<font face=“Times New Roman”>“12.1 Sails shall be provided in the kit, Replacement sails shall be those supplied by the kit manufacturer.” </font id=“Times New Roman”>
Greg - got your post in before mine - but if the rules require a specific sail profile to be maintained “WITHOUT MODIFICATION” then that is great and precludes a lot of bickering is someone were to show up with smaller suit during high wind days.
As noted very few include NO SMALLER or LARGER in their rules. If there is nothing about No Smaller or required profile, then it seems the rules would allow multiple sails for different wind conditions. I know, on my old Prindle 16, I tried reefing the main (allowed) and it didn’t point/perform worth a darn. Boat was designed for the original sail plan and that where it performed best. Get a heavier crew and learn to tune sails for high winds was the final answer!
<blockquote id=“quote”><font size=“1” face=“Verdana, Arial, Helvetica” id=“quote”>quote:<hr height=“1” noshade id=“quote”>Originally posted by Dick Lemke
Greg - got your post in before mine - but if the rules require a specific sail profile to be maintained “WITHOUT MODIFICATION” then that is great and precludes a lot of bickering is someone were to show up with smaller suit during high wind days.
<hr height=“1” noshade id=“quote”></blockquote id=“quote”></font id=“quote”>
I absolutly agree Dick.
I would subscribe to the full-size-rig/storm-rig school of thought, I guess. When the wind is stupid, we get out our Lasers with C rigs, Fairwinds or Stars. Tighten up the Fairwind’s rig (more like boards than sails) and it’ll sail, though we’ve sailed in winds that have blown the boats sideways even after being laid down. I’m not gonna go look, being too lazy, but I think the Star 45 rules say something like “to the following maximum dimensions” without specifying B- and C-rig dimensions like the EC12 class. I’ve got 2 rigs for my Star - the original Dumas, which is quite a bit smaller than the full-size rig and is stout (and heavy) as hell; and a much-lighter full-sized rig. When the wind’s up, I’ll use the Dumas rig and can usually outsail the full-size ones. By “wind’s up” I mean that it’s stay-snapping strong…too much fun!
There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Kenneth Graeme, Wind in the Willows.
I now have 2 suits of Carr Sails as well as the original Kit sails for my Fairwind.
My original carr sails were cut to a botched set of class rules where the sail size was based on a measurement of one set of sails. It turned out that those sails, for some reason, were significantly smaller than the typical kit sails. We measured about 25 sets of kit sails and found that there was a great deal of variability in size (one mid-girth station varied by about 1.5 inches from the smallest to the largest sail) . Aparently the sail supplier to Kyosho has fairly poor quality control…
Anyway, the point I am getting to is that I have my race suit (call it an “A” rig), my old sails which are about 8% less sail area (which might be a “B” suit) and a set of kit sails. I have contemplated taking my old Carr sails and trimming them down a bit in size to make them truely a storm suit, or even taking the kit sails and trimming them down to use as a storm suit. I have not done it yet. I have found that by blading out my sails (lots of outhaul and mast bend to take out most of the camber) and easing my vang a bit to add some extra twist and sheeting out the main, my Fairwind will sail quite nicely in 20 knots of breeze.
If I were racing in a local club race with that much wind, I would switch to my old Carr sails, just because the sails take quite a beating in those sorts of winds and I wouldn’t want to beat up my new sails that much. But if I were at a regatta, I’m not sure if I would switch to my old sails or use my best sails.
I would also like to try trimming my kit sails (I have not used them as a drop cloth yet…) to see if a set of storm sails would really be worth having.
As of now, our class rules only set a maximum sail size. So far no-one has showed up to any class events with anything other that full sized sails. But I get the sense from taling to some folks that there may be some experimenting going on out there…
I avoiding going out to my cold shop to work, so I?m here stalling?
Will, I would think that the Fairwind would be an introductory class? Might be wring here, so please let me know. If that is so, I would think that being class secretary that you would want to avoid having this class becoming one that a skipper feels that he an A, B, C, AND D rig to compete. <blockquote id=“quote”><font size=“1” face=“Verdana, Arial, Helvetica” id=“quote”>quote:<hr height=“1” noshade id=“quote”>Originally posted by wgorgen
… have found that by blading out my sails (lots of outhaul and mast bend to take out most of the camber) and easing my vang a bit to add some extra twist and sheeting out the main, my Fairwind will sail quite nicely in 20 knots of breeze.
…
As of now, our class rules only set a maximum sail size. So far no-one has showed up to any class events with anything other that full sized sails. But I get the sense from taling to some folks that there may be some experimenting going on out there…
Will
Will Gorgen
<hr height=“1” noshade id=“quote”></blockquote id=“quote”></font id=“quote”>
This is a very very good point. Most boats like this can be tuned using a single rig to handle most any condition. I would think that this might be a better thing to stress then owning three or four rigs.
Just a thought…
You are correct that the Fairwind is an entry level class. But then again, so is the Victoria and that boat has shown that it has a lot of room for top flight sailors. I would like to think that our class offers a similar level of competitiveness and opportunity to upgrade the boats.
The first class regatta was held last year in Edina in 25 to 30 mph winds (the Minneapolis Airport a few miles away reported wind gusts upwards of 40 mph that day). Quite a few boats had troubles in those winds with over half dropping out by lunchtime. After that regatta, I got a bunch of questions ranging from “are bilgepumps legal” to “where do I find a new mast to replace the one I broke”. Surprisingly, no one asked about storm sails. But in the year since then, the subject has come up more often.
From a technical standpoint, the Fairwind is a rather heavy boat (8 lb min for a 34 inch boat), so it does pretty well in the higher winds. The Sail area is not massive, so it does not get overpowered until the winds get quite strong. It is yet unproven that the Fairwind would even benefit from a Storm Suit in overpowered conditions.
At this point, I am loathe to add more restrictions than are needed. As class measurer, anything that is in the rules needs to be measured before all events. But I do not want to see our classing turning into a class where you need multiple rigs to be competitive.
One thing we have tried is to limit the rigs you can measure in for an event to just one. You have to use that rig and that rig only for that event. You would have to be pretty confident that you were going to have blow-the-treetops-off conditions for the whole event before you would measure in a storm suit.
But really, I am looking further out into the future. The class rules currently allow people to experiment and there is a risk that they will find that multiple suits are needed. Then we would have to decide if that is what we want for the class. I’m guessing that we will end up where you guys have fore the Star 45 which is to only specify the maximum sail size and 99% of the guys will use those “A” rig sails for all the events. And maybe a few skippers will take their original kit sails and cut them down to a suitable storm sail size for those days where we should probably not be racing but are too stubborn to pack it in…
Wis,
In reading the class rules, I would be surprised if anything other then the sails included in the kit, or replacement sails from the manufacturer would not be allowable. I would say that altering these sails in any way would also not be allowed. Seems pretty straightforward to me. It will be interesting to hear what is said.
Greg
the first I heard about these class rules…i got so angry…i felt like: you can race your Seawind but dont touch anything!!!
It was hard to allow an other hatch…as the one provided by the manufacturer is not really waterproof!
As for the sails i guess we could need a lawyer[:-angel] anyway i really think that nothing can be done on the Seawind…add nothing and change nothing…then you can class race[:-banghead]
anyway I ll post about the sails…really impatient…for sure I ll be called (again) the gizmo guy[}}:-|>>]
I don’t see that smaller sails are Fairwind class legal. Look over below and let me hear your thinking on this. I think it’s interesting. [:-boggled] Aren?t rules fun!
1.1 General, The class specification is defined by these class rules, the manufacturer’s kit instructions at the time the kit was assembled, and any applicable rules of the AMYA, in that order of precedence. All dimensions shown on the manufacturer’s plans are to be adhered to unless specifically overridden by these rules.
1.2 Definitions. In these rules the word “shall” means mandatory while the word “may” is permissive.
6.0 SAILS (2003). All unmodified sails supplied with the kit or as replacement parts from the kit manufacturer shall be considered legal and shall not need to conform to the measurements listed in Appendix #2. All other sails <u>shall</u> conform to the diagram and measurements listed in Appendix #2.
Then the rules go on to say;
6.5 Measurement Sails, when measured, may be measured on or off the spar. Boltropes (if included on the sail) will not count as in the measurement of the sail. Foot and leach curves shall be defined by the measurement points and faired with a constant section batten connecting corners of the sail through the intervening measurement points, with no bending in the batten induced beyond the corners of the sail. The maximum dimensions of the sails are defined in Appendix #2. There are no minimum dimensions.
I don?t feel that the phrase; There are no minimum dimensions. would tell me that I could actually make smaller sails.
I would argue that it has already been made clear that it is mandatory the aftermarket sails conform to the diagram and measurements listed in Appendix 2. It would seem to me that the phrase There are no minimum dimensions. would pertain to the fact that only the factory sails ?? not need to conform to the measurements listed in Appendix #2.? since they are in fact smaller.
In this case it clearly says that I can not make my sails smaller then the diagram and measurements listed in Appendix #2, since it also states that factory sails may not be modified.
(geeze, I only had to edit this like 10 times! Make sure you read it over)
[:D]Wis, nothing wrong with being the gizmo guy!
I am know for my rule pushing in most all of the classes that I compete in. I have taken my verbal punishment for it many times, but in the long run it’s fun.
Nothing wrong with the Seawind rules though, but for the sails. Only because you are forced to race with poorly cut sails. It also seems that that forward line on the main fairlead ring would not be legal either. Oh well…[:-headache]
Well, this is rules for ya. I guess in reading the Fairwind rules over again and again, I can see the ability to argue, if even needed to, that there is only a maximum requirement. Confusing though, as these rules seem to fight each other. Will?
Greg
you are so right…
we should meet…if I come to the States[:-angel]
we are on the same wave about class rules…especially the Seawind’s…the kit sails just !"#$ !!