some questions please

Steven, just wanted to respond, that my MultiONE finally hit the water today, and it wound up with the Minneapolis (local) F3 on the same pond in Edina. Wind was fluky, but I am very pleased to say that my MultiONE WITHOUT foils, kicked the snot out of the F3 with foils!

Now how about that ?

ohhhh, gee, sorry, but we were the only two guys at the pond, and I’m sure if I gave you the owner’s name he would be too embarrassed to admit he was kicked soundly! Since I was busy with my controls and him with his boat, neither managed to get a photo - but it just goes to show that my design was faster than his, and foils didn’t play a part - and this is what it will be like reading Doug’s posts throughout this forum - … lot’s of claims - not much in the way of supporting proof of performance !

And no- the MultiONE still has some work to be done, although it was floated again - this time with rig to verify waterlines and float locations! The rest - just B.S. - but makes good reading - even if it isn’t believeable!

Your multione is finished! Congratulations!
The F3 is a fixed foil hydrofoil; in light air with the wands engaged the boat is a dog . Next time you should try racing the F3 when it is on foils! You wouldn’t have a ghost of a chance! Thats the advantage of the new X3: for light air it can be raced with the foils and wands retracted cutting out that drag. I know for a fact that the individual that owns the F3 has had problems setting it up correctly in the past and may have had problems today; I can be reached by e-mail or phone to offer any help. The F3 when in Orlando sailed against Joe Duvals F48 which is F48#1 and I’m sure he’ll verify that story which is also on video. The F3 sailed against the Flyer?, 2 meter a picture of which is on the microsail website.
Keep in mind that a properly set up F3 or X3 can foil in as little as 5 mph of wind as shown on the video at : www.microsail.com
Foilers are definitely the future of high speed rc multihulls and coupled with unbeatable stability offer extraordinary value when compared to conventional multihuls.

Dick, I reread your post: so your multiONE is not finished and you had no race; too bad.

edt:add info/lst para
Doug Lord
–High Technology Sailing/Racing

Doug
I spent some of today going back over some of the posts relating to the multihulls. I know that I am new but I can’t understand for the life of me why if a class is so young in the USA that instead of trying to promote it, all that is happening it seems it fighting. Is everybody on here grown men or school yard children?

I would have thought that a forum titled R/C Sailing would encourage new people to want to take up the sport.

I have not yet finished establishing for myself who on here is the best person to get advice from. I don’t speak or understand french so your idea of contacting that guy you said probably isn’t going to help much.

I did however see a post where it was written that the boat’s Peters’ group build and sail are the “fastest in the world”. It doesn’t explain if this was proven which is a shame because if this is true then he is the person I need to speak with.

For the moment I am not interested in design suggestions or which boat is right, I am first going to read more posts and decide for myself what way I should go.

Thanks StevenA

Steven, there is not just one way to go and different people have strongly held views on rc sailing.
You can’t go wrong by reading all that you can; you should talk to Peter and you might try Gonnet since he may speak english. Good Luck!

Doug Lord
–High Technology Sailing/Racing

Steven: Let me urge you again to go beyond the internet in your search for knowledge. Unfortunately, the net has a great mass of unfiltered information and often it can give a distorted sense of what is going on in the real world.

You might try contacting the Australian Model Yachting organization to point you toward boats being sailed and built near you. I know there are a number of clubs racing r/c sailboats throughout Australia. go visit. I know, for example, that there is a bit of a 10R revival in Australia and although a monohull these are big, fast, sophisticated boats that might grab your attention.

Roy
Thanks for your advice,but I am pretty keen on trying multihull. What I am looking for is the best information available on this forum. By that I mean that I have been reading past topics/posts from the people here that have a multihull interest. After personally filtering through the countless pages of rubbish, not relating to r/c sailing at all, I will then decide whom I will converse with on assistance with design ideas.

The monohull suggestion of yours I thank you for, but I have several one off monohulls and would now like a multihull. I must admit though the pickings on here for advice are slim.

What I have discovered so far; it seems that there are two people in multihull’s here who are going through development. Peter in a conventional way and Doug in an advanced, towards the future, outlook.
What I am trying to decide,and why I am still reading, is which way do I want to go.

Thanks StevenA

To all that are interested

Doug has via this forum has tried to convince people that his ideas are progressive.
I have been reluctant to comment on them for fear of being “personal attacked” myself.

From what I have read about them and seen(microsail video) what it seems to me is that Doug believes these ideas work.

In 1982 there was one person that believed a new, totally out of the ordinary, idea would work. In September 1983 that idea proved beyond a shadow of doubt to be far and away the most advanced piece of design genius ever witnessed in the contest for the worlds oldest sailing trophy.

Could it be that everyone on here that knocks these ideas that Doug puts forward are like they were back then: it’s different, totally new and therefore we will be sceptical or frightened of it.

Doug

On a personal note, is it a case that the boat carrying your hydrofoils needs to be designed to do so, or could I combine two boats, use Peters’ designs and fit your foilers to it in a blow?

The other thing that I can see that nobody else can is that the “Movable Ballast System” is designed to emulate the crew of full size multihull’s. The crew move around the deck on different angles of sail so that there combined weight makes a difference to how the boat sails.
I saw a picture of a boat named Slicer that has a movable ballast system.
Doug is your system similar?
I’m not really interested in using it as by the picture it is fixed to the back of the boat. For a movable ballast system to work properly it would need to move upto and at times forward of the mast. If your system has this copability however, It may be concidered.

I have not yet decided what to build tri or cat.

Thanks StevenA

Steve, many of my recent posts have all of a sudden disappeared but I’ll try to answer you:
I posted something about movable ballast the other day: it is critical that a boat that uses it is designed for it. Two pounds can double righting moment. It can be effective on a cat or tri but if used on a cat and removed in light air it helps enormously in the light air performance of any catamarn as well as making a cat potentially competitive with a normal tri in heavier air. A tri using movable ballast is probably the best bet since it can have more beam and more righting moment.
It is imperative that whichever boat you choose is DESIGNED for movable ballast or it won’t work right! It is also essential that a “Trapeze Power Ballast System” be built so that it can move fore and aft and athwhartship quickly.

A boat that is to use foils MUST be designed for it: see Foiler Design on p2 and the other foiler thread this page.
If you are going to race in a class like the mini 40or F48 you MUST plan on a retractable foil system which is extremely simple.It actually simplifies construction compared to a “normal” tri since there is no daggerboard trunk in any hull. A foiler should be a fully submerged Bradfield type because it develops its own righting moment w/o any weight at all.A trimaran configuration is superior;on a foiler the outside hulls can be substantially smaller than on a “normal” tri.The foiler is the easiest to sail of any small multihull because of it’s automatic stability system.

Doug Lord
–High Technology Sailing/Racing

Steven
I see in your last post that you mentioned Slicer. That boat was really fast in a straight line, but it took a long time to tack. The main reason behind this was the fact it was square. Building cat’s to that configuration don’t work, whether movable ballast would help that, personal I wouldn’t think so.

Asking Doug for advice on which way to go might be like flogging a dead horse, but if you have a B.S filter on your computer it will help. doug rarely if ever answers direct questions. The answer will come, but it will be so mixed up in personal advertising that you my not understand it.

Peter

Doug
I have read and understand the Bradfield foiler system. These are fixed foils that are designed to never break the waters surface, as different to surface piecing foils, which are a waste of time. I have had something to do with them before.

The retractable foil system, now this sounds interesting, foils for all weather. Please post or PM the expanded thinking here please. I fully relate to the idea, just want some clarification on some issues.

I understand what you are on about Peter, the thing is that if you don’t fathom the concepts and advanced thinking of technology, it has to be explained in a way so as those who have low intellect can understand it. Or to simplify that last remark: lack of brain power= lack of understanding.

Thanks StevenA

Steven, the concept of the retractabe foiler is that the foils are mounted on the cross arm such that they do not exceed the maximum beam of an F48. The system could benefit from more beam but that’s ,unfortunately, not legal in this class. Viewed from the front the deployed foil rotates toward the main hull to retract. The foil/flap is of a special design that allows the outboard side of each foil to be used as lateral resitance when the foils are retracted.(hydrofoil is then vertical) This eliminates the need for a daggerboard. A slight lite air disadvantge is that a single fin would be a bit more efficient but because the boat does not sit level the windward foil will be reduced in area.Also the rudder t-foil does not retract but coud be removed in a very light air series. Because of the lighter weight of this configuration(small amas/single cross) it should be very competitive with a normal boat in zero to 4mph of wind.
Above four hit the deploy swich when you get a gust and you can"foil" the gust and when it subsides hit the switch again and retract the foils.When the foils retract the wands also retract. The design allows the boat to be easily broken down for transport.
Be advised that only an extremely experienced builder with a basic knowledge of sailboat design should attempt to build one of these from scratch; no suitable plans are available yet.

Doug Lord
–High Technology Sailing/Racing

Steven: You raise a lot of interesting points.

Yes, it is possible that Doug Lord is the Ben Lexcen of model sailing. Ben Lexcen, however, had a long history of successful yacht designs in his portfolio and the Australia II keel was extensively developed by a strong sciencetific team. If you look at Doug’s claims, he suggests he has the most advanced rig designs, most sophisticated foils, most advanced monohulls and most advanced multihulls in the r/c sailing world. All from a man with no formal training, a web tv computer system and no track record in successful r/c race boats. As I said initially, caveat emptor.

As to a multihull, the first question you should ask is do you intend to race the boat with others? If so, your first job should be to find a class of multihulls racing somewhere near you and check into what boats are currently winning. If your plan is to just play around and not race with others your choices are much more open. A good place to look in either case would be either the Australian r/c yachting group or the British r/c multihull association.

As to the question of foilers and moving ballast systems, well, its still very open. Doug admits that he has never actually built a retracting foil multihull but he is convinced that it will work. Best of anyone’s knowledge, no one has successfully raced with a “bradfield” foiler system. Whether it will work in all wind conditions, what kind of hull needs to be designed, whether the boats can even get around a race course is very open. In the real world of r/c racing it hasn’t been done, Doug Lord, however, is certainly proflific in his claims that it will work.

Doug is also convinced that moving ballast of just about any kind is the future of model sailing. Many regular racers disagree, suggesting that a moving ballast system will not be able to effectively deal with the small duration shifts often encountered in r/c sailing. To date, the only one throughly convinced that moving ballast is faster is Doug Lord.

Certainly, if price is no object to you and you don’t plan to race, trying out Doug’s products might be a way to go. Certainly, like many here I would be interested to hear how these ideas perform in the real world. Otherwise some of the unlimited multihulls available and being manufactured in Europe might be the way or you could start with one of the boat’s in Peter’s club and incoporate your own ideas.

In all events, good luck.

Actually, he F3 on which the new boat is based was extensively tested over a 6 month+ time period around triangular and windward leeaward courses. As well as racing both larger and smaller multihulls and monohulls. It’s performance on foils around a course is nothing less than breathtaking -tacking as quickly as any monohull with an incomparable upwind vmg and startling of wind speed all with incredible stability unavailble on other types of rc multihulls.

Doug Lord
–High Technology Sailing/Racing

Thanks for another unsupported promo for your products, Doug.

The point remains you haven’t even built a retracting foiler and you haven’t gone out and even participated in a sanctioned race with one of your products, let alone won. You can’t claim “breakthroughs” if you never leave home.

I believe a philosopher once said “I think, therefore I am”. In the case of Doug Lord, it appears that his philosophy is “I think, therefore it is.”

To blow by own trumpet for a while here.
I know that I said that I have designed and built several boats. By character if i’m going to do something I get into it completely therefore:
I have completed several courses in sail boat design as well as extensive building and testing of hulls designed by me.
I have studied,learnt how and built a test tank of my own to be sure the designs I come with are perfect.
I also have a wind tunnel that allows be to test boat hulls and sails up to 4 metre long. The tunnel is 6 metres high.
I have boats that have vortex generators fitted as well as innovative sail design that after testing showed incredible power performance.

Regardless of the boat designed, the hull shape must be able to cut the wind and the deflected wind should never interfere with the flow across the sails. By adding this thought to hull design the resulting boat tested in tanks and tunnels shows incredible efficiency through the air as well through the water.

Most people when designing a new hull for a r/c boat never consider the positioning of the electronics inside, and what it is going to do to the hull performance. By adding this weight when testing and moving it around slightly the hull design on the program can be perfectly matched on the actual boat.

I’m sure that these things are seriously considered and implemented when Doug puts a boat on the water. He is the face behind Microsail, and therefore can’t afford to go off half hearted and make ludicrous claims about his boats and designs as suggested many times on several topics here.

Thanks StevenA

Hi StevenA

Don’t care about Doug, he’s a little [:-ghost], but…
You’re on the good way. If you want to, you may look for different classes rules around the net, in order to design a legal rule and compare your developes.

About the movable ballast, i’m thinking about it [:-headache], and once it will be finished i will share (not for money [:-tophat]), because i don’t konw if it will works, by now (still on it). One of the problems of this sistem is the weight: if you put it on a boat, you’ve to remove from other place, because you need to put in another servo.

Aaaallways look on theee briiiight siiiide of liifeeeee

Steven
You are so far off the mark where doug is concerned. He is bragging about boats that he designs in his head (brain explosion).He then convinces the less fortunate souls around here to build one of these un-tested, un-proven brain waves and then tells them when it doesn’t work they did something wrong, or better still tells them they will have to come up with the design because he is to busy to draw the plans.

I think at the last count Doug had 18(?) designs he sprouted about. I think of that 4 have hit the water, with pictures to say they do exist.

Several are waiting for him to stop playing with himself(sorry complete the tooling) and get a boat finished. These people have actually ordered boats from him. In the time it has taken to get some of his technologically advanced designs in the water these people could have started and finished an apprenticeship in boat building and done the job themselves.

So please Steven, read very carefully the posts on here and the subsequent replies and you will see for yourself that waiting for Doug to give you anything of benefit will be a waste of time.

You could go out blind and build your own mini40, before Doug get’s anything resembling one even close to the water.

Peter

You know it’s a shame that even after I sugested twice that Steven talk to you that you have to engage in such unfounded,inaccurate personally offensive conduct. Do you think that helps the cause of rc mutihulls?
So many times I’ve seen people who don’t understand or who cannot discuss the technical details of an idea resort to this kind of personal attack.
I’ve shared design and construction details of foils and movable ballast to help those who are interested in these idea’s be able to experiment with them without having to buy ready to sail boats.
I’m trully amazed Peter.

Doug Lord
–High Technology Sailing/Racing

Interesting that many people find the “looks” of a catamaran configuration rather ugly when the electronics are housed in a “pod” in the middle of what would be the trampoline area, yet seem unaffected by the sight of two train tracks and a piece of lead that moves back and forth over the deck.

Take a look at the photo Doug has used for the Melges model. He has taken a perfectly nice looking boat with great lines and visual appeal and added this sliding rack which sticks out on both sides of the boat. It changed the character and the looks (for the worse) and back when I inquired about the concept and possible use for trial was told there were too many problems with it and he didn’t want to continue on that road. So here we are today.

Regardless whether the boat is mono or multi hulled, the rack will extend to either side in order for the weight to move to windward. LIke the racks on skiff - or on the Worrell multihulls, what happens when the boat heels and the leeward side of the rack makes contact with the water surface? Wouldn’t that slow the boat down?

Part two of the moving ballast scenario, is that the entire rack could move - independant of the hull, and the rack can be shifted to windward to assure clearance to leeward. This now means instead of one servo to just move the weight, two servos (winches) are needed to move the track AND the weight independently!

To add in Part three of the scenario, Doug has often proposed that the track also be able to move forward and backward on the deck as well. This does need to be available, but now we had added servo (winch) number three.

To recap …

1 Winch to move the weight ON the track
2 Winch to move the track sideways to prevent leeward drag in water when heeled
3 Winch to move the track forward or backwards on deck
4 Winch to control sheeting of the sail
5 Servo to control rudder
6 (alternative) second winch to control jib separate from main!

Let’s see that is a minimum of five (5) winches - along with batteries and receiver and a five channel radio. Now the radio must have proportional switchs - not just on/off - in order to place the weight and track where desired. Is there such a radio with five channel proportional control and what is the cost if available?

All of this, plus the necessary blocks, mounting pads and eyes for rigging the needed lines to move all this stuff!

Somehow this example just doesn’t come across as an entry level, beginner’s boat to me. I could be wrong. Again, perhaps just a “GEE WHIZ” feature - and still not proven in competition. Keep in mind some classes have specific beam, or items cannot extend beyond dimensions. Perhaps I’m not seeing the full picture… all this effort and all this money to have something no one else has - and on a boat platform that still doesn’t exist or is available? Remember Doug’s caveat … the boat has to be designed for these types of applications. So the design/build isn’t being done by anyone else, and Doug can’t seem to put any of his ideas into a working/racing/winning design … yet we (except me a few others) still sit and listen to the self-proclaimed prophet tell us how this concept will improve our sailing. I became tired of these self-directed declarations last fall, and it will be interesting to see how many of you continue to follow - because there is no pot of gold at the other end.

Many complain about runaway costs for the r/c boats, yet you sit and hang on every word Doug posts. Using a reasonable cost of $80 for a winch - the above hardware in winches alone has added an additional cost of over $400 to this boat - and that isn’t including the cost of receiver and radio! Ask yourself if you are willing to pay that much for an unproven boat? And when I say unproven - I acknowledge the ballast can be made to move, but will it be able to be effective in multiple boat (not just two) racing conditions? How long to take off or put on depending on wind strength? What about tuning the system for travel, speed and movement? All unanswered by Doug! Once again, I merely say … “Don’t tell us - Show us” !

Actually, my sources tellme that a movable ballast boat did win a major European championship.! Oter points:

  1. The PBS on the Melges model was difficult to sail with because it was a monohull-ther were no problems with tePBS itself.
  2. It is not true that it takes three winches to move a rack +cart type PBS. The two basc types are a 48" rack that when mounted on a cat overhangs the sides or the better system using a smaller rack: the winch is connected directly to the rack,not to the cart. The cart is connected to the centerline of the boat via a block on the end of each side of the rack. Therefore as the rack moves the cart moves and nothing overhangs the lee side; this is the best system on a cat. On a tri the rack can be 48" and the winch hooked directly to the cart. The difference between the two is that the one that moves the rack too uses a small amount more power.
    A PBS uses only TWO winches and systems can be devised where the mainsheet winch moves the unit fore and aft (aft as the main is eased). But the best is a totally enclosed two winch system.
    You definitely have to have a boat designed for the extra weight(see the movable ballast topic just posted).
    Aside from my work and the guy in France there are a number of people experimenting with movable ballast on rc multis including Ian Sammis here in the states-it is legal under every rule.
    But there is another way to develop this kind of RM-without adding weight at all and much less expensive.

Doug Lord
–High Technology Sailing/Racing