Although the RG 65 class has started in Argentina in the seventies, the first races in Brazil occurred in 2000. Two designs stood out in the earliest years: the Vad 65 and the Hauraki 65. The Vad 65 is a wide boat, fitted with a swing rig, designed by Antonio Carlos Vadala. The Hauraki 65 is a narrow boat, designed by Luis Antonio Gomes, and also carries a swing rig. The Vad 65 achieved a great success and several boats were built and sold. In 2004 a very successful Brazilian rc sailor called Pedro Stier won the RG 65 South American Championship sailing a Vad 65. In 2004 and 2005 most of the top RG 65 in Brazil were Vad 65. Former boats were built in fiberglass. In 2005 the Seamaster Nautimodelismo started to build and sell a carbon version of the Vad 65. The boat is still under production nowadays.
Vad 65 (left) and Hauraki 65 (right) during a race in 2002. Wide vs narrow.
Hauraki 65
Vad 65 - fiberglass hull
The Vad 65 winner of the South American Championship in 2004.
The carbon fiber Vad 65 wonderfully built by Seamaster
In 2006 a new design, denominated Little Best, ended the dominance of the Vad 65. The Little Best is designed and built by Paulo Stier, Pedro’s uncle, and is a narrow fiberglass hull fitted with a swing rig. The design won the RG 65 South American Championship in 2006 and the 1° RG 65 Brazilian Championship in 2007, both sailed by Pedro Stier. The Little Best achieved an unprecedented success in the RG 65 class in Brazil. In the 2007 Brazilian Championship, from 23 registered boats, 16 were Little Best and only 3 were Vad 65.
Little Best disassembled
Little Best sailing
Four Little Best during the Brazilian Championship in 2009.
In 2007 new designs were created to try to beat the Little Best. A company called Pro Sails developed the Pro-SR2, a very narrow (10 cm wide) swing rig boat. In Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Rezende, from Estaleiro Rio, started to build his own swing rig design called Mutante 65, while Rene de Mattos developed the Escambaset, a slight modified Offset (designed by Arne Semken, from Germany) fitted with swing rig. The three boats are commercially available, but haven’t yet achieved the best results on the race course in a national level.
Pro-SR2
Mutante 65, by Estaleiro Rio
Escambaset
Little Best (red) and Mutante 65 (orange)
Little Best (bellow) and Mutante 65 (above)
Escambaset (blue) and Mutante 65 (white)
The 2° RG 65 Brazilian Championship occurred in 2009. From 25 registered boats, 11 were Little Best, 5 were Mutante 65, 3 were Escambaset and only 1 was a Vad 65. The big news was the victory of a new design, the Vad 65 II, drew by Antonio Carlos Vadala to replace the Vad 65. The Vad 65 II is narrower than the previous design and is also fitted with a swing rig. In spite of the success in the championship, only a prototype was built and the boat is not yet under production.
The new Vad 65 II
Vad 65 II during the Brazilian Championship in 2009
2010 is a promising year for the class in Brazil. New projects are in progress. Seamaster Nautimodelismo (current builder of the Vad 65) has started to produce the Rogue, an RG 65 designed by the famous Graham Bantock. Estaleiro Rio is also building a slight modified Rogue, denominated Mutante II. Pro Sails started to produce a carbon fiber version of the Pro-SR2. Pedro Stier has designed an RG 65 for the first time, called Stinger. People who saw the Stinger sailing said it is a rocket.
Pro-SR2 - carbon fiber version, by Pro Sails
Mutante II, based on the Rogue
Mutante II, by Estaleiro Rio
The new Stinger, designed by Pedro Stier
Stinger
The 3° RG 65 Brazilian Championship is scheduled for June, 2010, and there are already 27 confirmed sailors. Preliminary data indicates that the Little Best will be the predominant design (15 boats), followed by the Mutante II (4 boats) and the Rogue (2 boats). Pedro Stier will sail the Stinger for the first time in a national championship, Antonio Carlos Vadala will be back with the Vad 65 II and Luis Antonio Gomes is going to sail again the Hauraki 65 against the high level fleet. The Brazilian championship is the biggest event before the 1° RG 65 World Championship, scheduled for August in Argentina, in which several Brazilian sailors will take part.
Thank you for the history lesson and the photos. Many here in the U.S. see older designs - but not the newer ones. They like to see the hull shapes, and also the keel and rudder shapes. Of interest is the use of the swing-rig. Several here in the U.S. have tried it - or are using it, but with mixed results. Most of us are still using the traditional rigs - because it is something we understand and know how to tune for various wind speeds.
Since many new builders are coming to our class - because it is very easy to build - how well does the JIF65 hard chine hulls do in competition? Is it too old of a design, or if sailed by a good sailor, still a competitive design?
Thank you again for sharing the information and photos.
Hi Dick,
Many RG 65 sailors in Brazil were former Marblehead sailors, used to swing rigs. Very few boats use conventional rigs here and all designs commercially available in Brazil nowadays use swing rigs.
We don’t have any Jif65 competing in Brazil. Though, I’ve been looking the results of the 2009 IDM (German National Championship) and the fourth place was a Jif65 (GER 12), so I believe it could be competitive if sailed well. I don’t know if the hull, keel and rudder are original or modified, but you can see in the pictures taken during the championship that the deck is not flat like the original one, it is raised in front of the mast. http://rg-65.de/galerien/galerie_3/img_0108.htm http://rg-65.de/galerien/galerie_3/img_0004.htm http://rg-65.de/galerien/galerie_3/img_0007.htm
Maybe the German guys could tell you more…
Cheers,
Fernando
Thanks for the observations/post Achim…
I will continue to suggest/recommend the JIF65 to folks who want to try their hand at building. Once they get one on the water and see it’s performance, there will be a desire to build another, and then perhaps to build with a round bilge/hull. I think they need to see and experience building success for their first effort, and they will continue to build to other designs and sizes.
You may also propose the “Palo de Agua” and the “Apsara a bouchains”.
Having 5 planks and a flat bottom does make them more difficult to build than the 4-plank JIF.
Hi fdcampello! Thanks for the Brazilian RG roundup! As Dick mentioned photos of hull body shapes (and keels and rudders) would be very useful and informative. Weights for these boats would also give us Yanks an idea of current displacements for us to design to here.
Remember that in august,15 we have the 1st. World championship of the RG65 Class.
The web of the championship is: http://www.yca.org.ar/Section.aspx?Id=1215
There will be the best boats of the world!!!
The original tendency was for lighter boats, under 1000 grms., but lately the best result comes from over a kilo boats. i understand that brazileans use around 800 grms. only in the bulb. so the boat, narrow, got a lot of speed and inertia to sucess over a no-wind spot.
If the area where you will sail has usually weak winds, the you should go for lighter boats.
good to hear from you once again. Hope all is well from the past earthquake damage. How are you doing? I’ve been away from building (again) as wife wanted a remodeled bathroom, and granddaughter has a christening coming up… so time seems to slip away. Many say it will be even worse if I retire.
Regards, stay well and good to hear/see your post.
I will be in the Brazilian Championship in June and will take new pictures of the boats to post here. Since the boats shown in my post are commercially produced, the drawings are not available and unfortunately I don’t have them.
Yes, there is a tendency in Brazil for narrow boats and of increasing the bulb weight. Some guys are using 800 g, up to 900 g bulbs, so although the hulls are light, the overall weight of the boats are usually over 1 Kg.
Fernando
This really is a very informative thread you’ve started. It is fascinating to see how the designs have developed over the years.
A quick question on your last post…how long are the fins / keels that these boats are using with bulbs of 800g + ?
Dick
From my observations at a few regattas in SW Germany and NW Switzerland, I would thoroughly recommend an interested first time builder to try a SeaBug, for which the plans of this chined hull are freely available from the French plans database site ( http://rg65.free.fr/start.php ). Rainer Blank has been winning plenty of regattas with his design and has already won at least one regatta with his new SeaBug Mk II, which I hope to see this weekend’s ‘Freundschaftsregatta am Baggersee’.
Regards
Phil
SUI 42 / GBR 42
Used to sail a slightly modified Laerke
Now sailing a seriously modified Laerke
Desperately trying to finish fitting out a Carbon/kevlar Newnip
No one design can be the optimum for all conditions. Here if it’s windy, it’s normally too much for sailing and so lightweight narrow boats are better for the usual light breezes. From the photos I’ve seen, the Brazilians often sail in storm rig conditions.
It’s good to hear that fins are of about 30 cm in Brazil too. I tried a 35 cm fin at the weekend and it was very slow in lighter wind BUT when powered up it seemed to point well and carry a powered up sail better. I tried a 28 cm fin with a lighter bulb for some of the light wind races and that seemed a quick combination. However, be warned as i’ve been caught out with a light bulb when the wind blows stronger and that is very very slow and difficult to control the boat.
Here’s some pictures of the Seabug which I mentioned in an earlier post as a good boat for a first time builder that also has very good performance. The Mk I has yellow sails and Mk II has the black sails. They are both fast and although it’s difficult to see much difference in the pictures the Mk II has slightly more volume in the bow. An interesting feature of the Mk II boat shown in the picture is the depron deck which helps make it even quicker to build a light weight hull.
during your race weekends - would you mind taking some measurements of two critical dimensions that I would like to get? From the bow toward the stern - it would be interesting to know the distances …
Bow to leading edge of keel
Bow to swing-rig mast location
These two seem to govern how well the RG size boats handle, and knowing the diffferences among different designs would help when building - especially here in the U.S. where swing-rigs are not that common.
Many thanks for your assistance if you can provide for various designs. They will help with a starting point for building.
