alright, what the QUALITIES of the ideal footy?
º seaworthyness - i.e. lack of nosediving, etc?
ºupwind proformance? - pointing ability, speed upwind,
ºdownwind proformance? - just a straight up rocket?
ºmanuverability? -tacks etc,?
ºall of the above?
what makes the IDEAL footy?
just to start a discussion…:rolleyes::graduate::sly:
Crossing the finishing line first.
That’s the easy, glib answer, but it’s worth bearing in mind.
The feeling of acomplishment from a good build. From mental projection, to holding the physical creation in your hand.
(From a builder’s stand point any way)
i’ll drink to that… :zbeer:
Ideal for what??
As long as a yacht will sail any point on the compass as you’d have it go, I would be happy. Any boat will float and the wind will push it around, but No control- no fun. It goes for any kind of boat.
Two Boats …
Boat A can:
[ul]
[li]be carried to the local pond fully rigged
[/li][li]4 of them can be thrown in a sail locker, or back seat with dogs and kids
[/li][li]Won’t sink
[/li][li]Balanced both upwind and down without being a pain in the ass
[/li][li]Can be sailed by a novice
[/li][li]Looks good
[/li][li]Costs 50 bucks
[/li][/ul]
(On the last point … I’m not being glib … for many of my friends, all of whom are bound with children jobs and mortgages, a footy will only ever be an impulse buy, most likely intended to fill some time … it will be a pick up / put down sort of thing … likewise for me … an example, I brought 6 cheap rc cars to christmas dinner and I swear there wasn’t an hour that went buy with out somebody challenging somebody else to a race around the table legs … it made the hostesses go quirky, but everybody else had a ball … I’d easily do the same thing with a fleet of footys … I know that by having 10 of them sitting on the lawn at the club, they would be sailed in the pool, in the lagoons and in the lake … … at 50 bucks apiece, maybe I’d open my wallet … at $100, probably not)
Boat B
The boat we’re all talking about here
Tmark’s $50 boat is hard to do. At my last count I have at least $25 in my receiver and $23 in servo’s, unless I’m really well organised the $50 boat is a bit of a push. And I live in the US where we have very low prices on RC electronics.
Ideal boat— To me it means control in all directions and balance which probably results in boat speed. Winning the race ? With respect I have to disagree with Angus, it’s great to win but for most of us competing and tweaking and learning is a long, slow process. Work out how to go in the right direction most of the time, figure out the wind shifts and the short way between marks then maybe we’ll end up in the money. Incidentally I’m nowhere near there yet. …Paul
Paul-
If you’re like many r/c sailors, you’ve got a box full of radio parts, receivers, servos, and most all the hardware you’ll need to build a Footy. Rarily, I’ll even spot an r/c car in the trash on my evening walk. 
A sheet or two of balsa wood (and don’t forget Depron which is is FREE!) cost only a few dollars, and a bottle of glue, paint, and etc. will add up to much less than $50. So occasionally you’ll need a new receiver or servo, so in the long run, you probably won’t notice the cost, until the credit card statement arrives. :shock:
thx
Incorrect thinking Tomo and dead right Trevor. It ought to be the function of he Footy to recruit new people into model yachts - and one of the best ways of doing this is impulse sales of Just Add WAter boats.
There is a company here investigating having Footys mass produced in Eastern Europe. I am not privy to their business plan, although I am being consulted on the desig of the boat.
Unfortunately, ridiculous product liability laws (and hence sky-high insurance premiums) make it highly unlikely the result will be available in the US
Angus, I wasn’t referring to the new people who are interested in Footies, but modelers building more of them to share with the kids. I plan on donating or sharing my spares with the local summer camp for kids with handicaps ( like MS or disabilities.) I get the return of all those smiles and sometimes I’m on the 6 o’clock local news or a moment, and an invite to the big burger cookout & T-shirt!
So WHEN somebody at the park asks me how much (and they always do) I’ll be telling them I have about $50 in it, and that some of it was recycled old stuff and spare balsa & ply.
If I pretended to be a non-sailor, and someone offered me an r/c boat for $50, I would be suspicious that it was a pooltoy and not something as serious as our Footies are- just for the price. Either that or I woould wonder how long such an inexpensive r-c model would last, and what the range and performance would be like. At the local electronics store (Radio Shack) they sell r/c cars, trucks and powerboats, and the few I’ve tried were nothing like my honest /c models.
Since you have some notable r/c people working on the mass-marketing idea, I’ll be expecting some very good things for about US$50 ( 25-30 quid?) If the idea works on your side of the pond, then I would bet on it coming to this side, but not in the same form.
thx
Clearly, the ideal Footy is different strokes for different folks. I’m with Brett on this. If I ever learn enough about Footy performance, I think I’ll have a boat for time trials, and a few for fleet racing in different wind or course conditions…One maximized for windward/leeward, another for reaching courses, in light air or heavy wind, etc.
If only I knew how to maximize performance! But the learning is fun, and who wants to have just one boat, anyway?
Bill H
Location has it’s effects too of course. I doubt that I will ever put a ‘B’ rig on a footy here in the mid-west (USA). My avatar shows the proto ‘Siren’ in the strongest wind on a sailing day last summer… estimated 15mph solid with gusts. As I have had no ‘over canvassed’ comments (re. kits) from around the USA I presume this is typical of conditions here… light to moderate.
Certainly Brett gives the impression that he is on a ‘B’ rig quite often? True Brett? Yorkshire, UK was typically windier than here, how is your neck of the woods Angus?
Racing Course wise my preference is for triangular courses to test all points of sailing and as such I suspect that does influence my design goals.
So further confusing or perhaps broadenning the question of what is a good footy. For me it is about being simple to sail. That means holding a course pretty well in a steady wind above all, giving the skipper time to think his way around the course and the fleet.
Accelleration wise… medium to light displacement should be good it seems… if we can hit hull speed (?) often, in a reasonable wind, then the deciding factor could become how quickly do we hit hull speed. My gut feeling is that a very light boat will have more problems tacking as the wind comes up. Tacking means having to get through the ‘dead spot’ with sails a-flapping and all sorts of drag inducement going on. That has to take a certain amount of inertia doesn’t it?
I shall choose to paraphrase Richard Bach now and in future…
“Everything in this post may be wrong.”
Graham
Can you even get anything 19 inches or less to get up to hull speed? Maybe it would help to find out the smallest hull that can get up to hull speed ( a control hull), and then start shortening it.
thx
Hi Gang…
As mentioned by many, the ideal Footy will mean many things to many different people... To me, an "Ideal" boat is one which is honest... By that I mean, a boat that is fairly well balanced on all points of sail and is predictable ... So long as I can count on predictable behavior from my vessel, then it is my job to extract the maximum performance each race... So long as I compete with the same class vessel then the outcome will be more based on skill rather than luck...
On the Hull Speed issue that Tomo raises, I believe we have already shown with the limited entries in the Internet Comp that the Footy is already working at that speed if we accept the classic definition of hull speed versus LWL for displacement hulls... I doubt anyone would want to think that we have reached the maximum a Footy is capable of... So, if we are clocking roughly 500' in 6 minutes, you do the math... Pretty darn close to theoretical already...
Oh, did I mention FUN... The Ideal Boat is FUN !!! As for me and my house, I find the Footy to be one heck of a lot of fun for the buck !!!
Keep-em-Floating…
Bruce… 
I’m totally convinced that the boats have to be easy to sail - vane-sailing levels of balance.
Surely the fact of never having to use a B-rig indicates that the hull is over-heavy/over stable. All the associated drag is being merrily trundled around against the odd day when a buffalo breaks wind.
Angus, are we talking ‘Water Buffalo’ or ‘Bison’? I’m told there’s a big difference in velocity.
gotta be careful with bison…
I was talking about wind levels. Designing a more tender hull which needs to switch down in our common conditions would seem counter productive would it not?
As I think you know, the hulls I am using are not over heavy, rather ‘typical to light’ in fact. Not ‘super light’ but we don’t have the on the water data that super light is good yet do we. And if stable is an accusation… I’ll take it! First time I saw stable as a problem.
Anyway… important things… FUN, yes I agree completely Bruce.
Graham
Hmm, gotta watch out for that stability. Next thing ya know we’ll be trying to control quality. Can’t have too much of that around.