If you can engineer the keel on a ball joint, you don’t need any internal ballast. You could cant in any direction!
Solves the problems the Balmain Bug enthusiasts will have too.
Hi Rusty
like the idea however rule E.2 says
E.2 Except for rudder(s), the following are prohibited: retractable and or movable hull appendages.
By the sound of what you are describing, the keel would be free to rotate in the ball joint
Rgds
AndyT
Yiu do have a problem - changes in fore and aft rake will change the cant of the hulb - and very possibly not in any direction that might be desirable. I think you would need some sort of parallelogram or Ackermann linkage to the bulb.
:devil3::graduate::graduate:
Hi,
I’m new to the Forum as I wait desperately for my Lajabless to arrive. Is there any general idea on which rigs sail better, Nigel’s own fixed frame rig, a swing rig, the McCormack or Una rigs. Which way is proving more succesful. The McCormack rig looks easier to build and I like the idea of depowering itself but the other rigs somehow look better and on a hull as beautiful as the Lajabless. Any opinions?
Ken,
Although i have never seen one used on a LaJabless, i am a big fan of the McRigs (Una rigs) such as the ones that just finished 1st and 3rd at the US NCR and 1st and 2nd at the Region 1 Regional last year. I am even working on fitting one to my Marblehead in place of its swing rig!
Scott
Thanks Scott, also they look easier to fit to the hull, and a selection of rigs should be easier to make in a range of sizes. The thickness of rod and tube used would affect the self power dumping. Therefore a small storm rig with a thicker stronger rig and a delicate light weather rig with a larger sail area would be easy to compare.
Perhaps this will help your decision.
Pictures of my Lajabless hull #1 fitted with a McRig.
It sails really well and would be my recommendation for ease of build and performance.
Thanks for those pictures. Is that a Mark1 Lajabless, it looks really good and I like the look of rig and hull colour together. What thickness of tube did you use as ‘mast’ upright?
Yes this was the very first hull commercial produced and sent to me as a test pilot.
The mast upright is a 3mm carbon tube.
The sail shown is a panelled version I made, but that is not necessary.
Just use a single panel model.
Ian
Do you think that the luff pocket should be as small as possible (to fit the mast snugly) or will it do with whatever can be reasonably constructed, like about 15mm width? Luff pockets are not easy to get right, especially in florist film. :scared:
BTW- mine is number 5 
thx
Tomo, that’s dead right, I think the sleeve should be as tight as practicably possible, like on small boats (Laser, Topper, etc) but quite how we do it at only a 3mm mast size is a problem especially if using a film and not a fabric. Also surely for the sail to form the proper wing the panel shaping is quite important.
I’ve just realised that I have strayed into the next forum down, regarding the equilibrium rig. My only question for the Lajabless and the equilibrium rig remaining is how do you best get the sheet out of the deck and up to the front of the rig, a semicicular tube from below deck would seem logical but where do you get one of those, brake pipe would seem too large although a flared end below decks would help the sheet from the servo arm, above deck a straight end to the tube would be ok since it always goes to the same point.
My suggestion is that the luff pocket can be as large as you like and almost “the bigger the better.”
The luff pocket is what helps to give you the aerofoil shape from a flat panel.
I have attached some photo`s to illustrate my contention.
The white sail is made from drafting film, the pink sail from spinnaker cloth, the black boat and sail made by Brett McCormack, (yes the man himself.)
All sails show a larger size luff pocket.
I do have other sails made with extreme depth pockets as I pushed things to the limit. They did work…?
The final photo shows a solution to the sheeting question.
IMHO, it is better to have your sheet lead-out from inside the hull, somewhere in the aft end, to avoid water intake when the nose goes under.
Here you see a fishing rod guide on the bow as a sheet guide. Added lightness and friction free, (pretty much anyway.)
It’s interesting hw Ian and kenmacdonald take a varied view on the luff pocket.
I think I would go toward the bigger side of things, believing that the slightly larger luff pocket would allow itself to form to the air pressure as it would like, and the tight luff pocket would prefer to be snug to the round mast tube, which is what you’d want to avoid, if you wanted some kind of airfoil.
I would try one about 20mm in width, using a thin strip of wood to create a straight crease, and see how it works.
thx
Ian and Tomo, I agree with both of you. Since I am brand new to RC yachts and only have experience of full size, the luff panel extending a bit onto the sail I can see the point of, although I think keeping it reasonably small might benefit lightweight sails,
On getting the sheet up to the front of the boat from below decks I think that right at the stern a small semicircular piece of tube coming from below decks up, and then obviously pointing frowards would be the best method of getting the sheet out and to the boom. Like a small piece of brake pipe with the below deck end flared to allow easier passage of the sheet.
In cycling, we used brake cable casings with Teflon liners. It was very smooth and kept the water out.
Tomo that is a brilliant idea, I could not think of a way of getting rigid tubing small enough so there was no compromise with the hull weight.
For setting up a LaJabless what do the rules actually allow.
OK, on the rig height argument we have to have a 305 rig and 1 other at a regatta but can really have as many as wanted.
Batteries, can we use any battery size or are we restricted to AA or AAA, I notice that Tomo mentioned just using a 9V in another discussion.
What packs should we use for servos, I have to assume that any servo size is allowed judging by other discussions.
Simply put, to set up a first boat what actual Rules do I have to follow, I want to build a beautiful and race legal LaJabless
I’m using a basic stayless rig right now, and it was held in the socket by friction only, with a wire tie holding the forward spar to the bow. But it’s not good enough to lift the boat by the masthead.
Are there any other ways to attach the mast to the hull?