Hi to all
I am the Secretary/Treasurer of the Queensland R/C Multihull Owners Association. One of our members told me about this forum so I thought that I would get on and make myself available to answer any questions about the r/c multihull seen over here.
Hopefully, there are some people on here from Australia who are after contacts relating to multihull sailing.
We sail mini40’s and 2meter r/c boats, but welcome anybody who wants to sail for the fun of it.
We sail to the rules and regulations of the class as amended in 1997,(as different to the U.S. mini40 rules) which states in brief only one rig shall be used on the boat, and you are restricted to a two channel radio.
Regards
Peter Birch
Hi Peter -
Forgive me for a personal welcome to the forum. I probably should have logged out, and then back on as the F-48 “guy”. Regardless - it will be nice to have a contact from down under again. I have received some of your newsletters, and hopefully the multihull effort will continue to grow down there.
My first contact was with Collin SPence who started the website “Mad About Multihulls”. He is off learning to become a Naval Architect, so the site has been pretty dormant.
I think there are a few who “lurk” here that are into multihulls. A couple who have/are building are Ian Sammis (builder) from Kansas who is producing “short kits” and also “Hoj” (Bill Hojnacki) who currently owns the original NIGHTMARE, as well as bits and pieces of probably three more boats he purchased incomplete. Bill is in Hawaii. I’m building an F-48 based on Jean Margail’s web plans (WATER RESIST) and also I am nearly finished with a 1 Meter multihull - a MultiONE of my own design. That class is starting here to offer a smaller 1 Meter hull that uses a existing 1 Meter sail plan/rig for those trying to save money. Kris Harig is promoting that class and is in Oklahoma. Another 1 Meter is under construction up near Washington (the state - North West US) by Jack Ronda. Ian has sold several (6-8) kits around the country so hopefully we will start seeing some F-48’s appear soon too. In addition, I think there are some who might give it a try, once we get some on the water. Sort of watching and waiting.
I’ve visited your website and it looks like you have a good start on a fleet down there, and would be pleased, interested and enjoy sharing ideas with you.
Welcome again.
Dick
(sometimes known as the “acting” F-48 secretary)
I’m not sure if you are aware but Graham howard a local builder down here who has been involveed multi’s for years now started out building 1 metre multi’s then progressed on to the mini40. There are several 1 metres that sit dornment in sheds all over south east queensland. We have made efforts to get these people to bring them out and sail with us but at this stage all to now avail.
Hello Peter-welcome to the forum. I’m curious does anyone in Australia that you know of sail a rc multihull foiler in the mini 40 Class or in the 2 meter class? If so can you describe it.
I’ve built and sold four F3 foilers (56"-1.42 m LOA, 72"-1.83m beam, 1668 sq. in.- 1.07 sq. m SA) here as well as two 2 meter spinnaker equipped tri’s with more to come.
I’m really interested in the foiler scene worldwide–
Doug Lord
–High Technology Sailing/Racing
Doug
All the members in our club think that foilers are only good for speed sailing and are not suitable to course sailing. We do however have T rudders to help stability when the breeze comes in. Presently we are working on building boats that tack very quickly in low winds(under5 knots) and excellerate well after tacking.
We have decided that boats that weigh under 2kg(4pound approx) are to light for our conditions. The optimum weight here is about 3-4kg. This weight gives you good momentum in the light stuff allowing you to sail through the “holes” as well as when the breze comes in gives better stability.
We are also working on sail shape, and have found that tall narrow rigs work far better than square top rigs.
Peter
Peter, interesting information on weight, foilers and square tops. I hope I don’t bug you but details are so important here: did the square tops use full battens? Were they tested at a similar aspect ratio to the “tall narrow rigs”? My experiments with square tops not using full battens and with an adjustable upper outhaul showed significnt improvement upwind in all conditions in a series of monohull tests done years ago.Mark Gee with the US 10 Rater class has reported good results using a form of square top in that class. I’m interested in as much detail as you can provide.
I understand from what you said what the thinking is there about foilers; I’m curious though : has anyone ever built and sailed one? Again, it would help me greatly to understand the details…
In experiments with movable ballast on an F48 it seemed that the boat performed better in puffy light conditions with the Power Ballast system still on the boat(+1.2kg.) as opposed to off the boat.In light steady winds it semed better to ditch the weight… Any experiments down there with movable ballast?
On the rudder foils: are they adjustable or set at a particular angle of incidence? Any idea of area and thickness/chord ratio of the foils?
Sorry to pester you but this information is invaluable to me with the testing and research I’m doing! Thanks for the info and time.
Doug Lord
–High Technology Sailing/Racing
I believe that it is not possible to think what works on a monohull is going to work on a multihull. The main reason for this is that a multi by nature moves it’s apparent forward of it’s beam, and the faster it goes the further forward the apparent wind is. The other thing is that multi’s sail without lead bulbs, which means that they are more affected by the oversized sail area that roachy or square top sails provide. let me explain what I mean by this. The tall aspect sails allow the wind to flow across and leave the sail faster, and as we all know the quick you can get “rid” of the wind in the sails the quicker the boat will go.
One of our members spent months playing around with a foiler, it sailed perfectly on it’s foils, looked really impressive, but around a course finished towards the back of the fleet. The rudder foils are set at 7 degrees off the waterline of the boat.
Movable ballast is something none of us has experimented with as we mainly now sail tri’s and therefore movable ballast is probably only something that would be required on cat’s. We have found that tri’s are a better all round boats as they are able to carry full size rigs longer and are generally more stable and therefore easier to sail. I had the fastest cat in the club, but when everyone else learnt how to sail the tri’s with full rigs I had no chance of competing with them as the cat couldn’t carry full rigs. It was made at 830mm wide, which was as wide as you would want to go, as any wider and it just won’t tack. The tri’s we sail now tack as quick as 10r’s but excellerate out of tacks quicker. Some of our members have got involved in tacking duels with two ten raters that sail where we do, and the multi’s actually gained ground on them.
If anyone is interested want we are doing with the tri’s now is getting old Marblehead designs cutting them down to suit the mini40 rule and then fitting floats using aluminium crossbeams.
Peter
I am looking for anyone in Australia who is sailing any multihull. What I am trying to do is put together a national register so that we can take a sep closer to being recognised offically by the national governing body and hold Australian titles etc. If anybody on this forum sails multi’s in Australia or know of somebody in Australia who sails them please let me know.
The class is growing over here as we have people interested enough to build and sail these boats but it needs to be strong in all states and not just within the club i’m with.
Peter
Peter
I’ve built and sailed a few multihulls but got sick of racing alone. Thers not much activity in Sydney (that Ive seen) If you can get a register going I’ll help however I can
Troy
Troy
Thanks heaps for that. I honestly believe that in the not to distant future we can get national titles happening for the multi’s. The one thing that may really help us out here is that my club is putting forward to the organising committee of the IOM worlds 2005 to conduct a exhibitin event during the worlds. I hope we get excepted as I think the publicity would be outstanding.
Thanks again Troy and I’ll keep in touch with what is going on.
Peter
My club is conducting a series of racing this Australian winter that I hope multihull sailors on the east coast may like to get involved in. We are having three heats, June, July and August. The July event would be of most interest to Sydney and central coast sailors as the event should be staged in Ballina.
We are hoping that my travelling to this location (3-4 hours) from where we usaully sail that some others in N.S.W. will join in, and then come up to sail the Queensland Titles in September.
Peter