Thankyou Bill for that, I agree that it should be posted permanently and prominently both hereabouts and at the Footy Class web page.
I must admit that my hair bristled just as much as that of my friend Angus at the apparent AMYA corruption of the international rule description. As a durned foriegner in the usa I have my opinions!
“In the case of the AMYA, that would mean our USA members continuing to vote in favor of adoption of the international rules whenever a change is proposed through the AMYA process I described”
That worries me and I believe for the future of this class needs to be addressed. Hoping for a local majority to leave the decision to an outside force (the IFCA) does not seem to quite fit the mindset of too many of my (real world) american friends. If it works for other classes though then I stand to be corrected.
So, as I have joined the AMYA and then paid them to register a Footy am I also registered with the Footy Class Association? Could I (for example) have registered with the Footy Class Ass. without joining the AMYA? Where is the divider I am wondering. Also, is sail number allocation controlled by the IFCA (Int. Footy Class Ass) to avoid number duplication… how is that handled by the IOM?
Graham, we just have to rely on the good sense of AMYA Footy owners regarding future direction. So far, that seems successful with the IOM, 10R, and M classes. I hope that USA Footy owners who want to propose rule changes will do it with the Class Association. Then the international Footy owners get to vote as a whole. If it is accepted by the majority of class association members and becomes a new rule, then I expect it would be accepted by the AMYA sub-group. As insurance, we could ask the AMYA Footy owners to state the rules like the 10R guys have. Their rule says they follow the international rule “as amended” so changes are automatically adopted. I will continue to encourage that approach.
Since I am the registration point for both the class association and the AMYA, when you joined AMYA you automatically were registered into the class association. Yes, you could have (as a few have) registered as a class association member without joining AMYA. But don’t ask for a refund…it’s a good organization and worth the membership fee. Besides, you’ll want to attend regattas next season!
Sail numbers are controlled by each country registrar. So there could be dupes internationally. That’s why the ISAF has country designations on sails as well as sail numbers. It would be great if that became a big enough problem for us to worry about!
“As insurance, we could ask the AMYA Footy owners to state the rules like the 10R guys have. Their rule says they follow the international rule “as amended” so changes are automatically adopted. I will continue to encourage that approach.”
That sounds like a sound approach Bill, and if it has proven not to be necessary in other classes then all the better. No I would not ask for a refund, I like the magazine and as you say it is an organisation worth having in place. Thankyou for the explanation re. registration.
As such an easy class to transport compared to the larger boats I hope that we do come up against international competition sooner rather than later. The Footy is small enough to mail safely so proxy racing could take place as we see in slot car racing for instance. Proxy designs could even be ‘time trialed’ on the same internet style course. Which defeats the object totally of course
Take three external circlips that are a rattling good fit on the mast (6 mm does nicely on a 5 mm spar). Slide them up the mast to the gooseneck height and glue the upper and lower ones to the mast. Put the eye end of a suitably sized (in this case 1.2 mm) S/S split pin through the ‘opening’ part if the middle circlip to make a universal joint. Push fit into the boom end plug. Glue a piece of anything you like within reason across the openining in the crclip, just in case.
If you put the open side of the fixed circlips forward or to one side, they can become cleats with only a little ingenuity. I hate bowsies!
Thank you Angus, for the circlip and cotter-pin suggestion. I have struggled, but I can only come up with a vague idea of how this would work: are you handy enough with a pencil to make a drawing, or provide a photograph?
R
Sorry Robert. Forgot. I drew it by hand (much faster than CAD) and forgot to give it to my mate with the muti-resolution scanner system when he came round tonight. Hopefully tomorrow!
If you like nifty gizmos, look at the Whipstaff Steering thread. If I hadn’t hard a nasty accident (rudder stock indissolubly cyanoed to the trunk/bearing tube) it would all have been done this weekend. Bah! It’s so neat though.
Just another thoughts on the actual goosenecks that started this thread,
If the kicking strap (vang to you Americans) is attached to the mast in the normal way, the effect of a ‘mast-centred’ gooseneck will be tighten it as the main is eased. If the kicker attachment is made in the same way as the gooseneck, there is no such effect. An interesting possibility might be to allow limited movement of the kisker attachment so that the kicker started to tighten at a certain point.
Anyone think of a similar way of easing the main downhaul/Cunningham automatically as the mainsheet is eased?
Actually, you can go much further than that. If you make the kicker/vang fitting in a similar way to the gooseneck but at an angle to the mast (i.e. sloping as seen from the side), you can make the kicker tighten or slack off as the main eases - the greater the slope, the greater the adjustment.
Tightening it as the main is eased probably makes general sense. Footy rigs like a lot of twist because the difference in windspeed for every inch you go up the mast is high. Fot fairly obvious reasons of geometry this effect is less on a reach or run so automatic tightening of the kicker should be good.
You can use a third pivot to drive and automatic main downhaul or Cunningham hole tensioner. The only problem here is making sure it turns (much less force at that point). The answer would appear to have pins or jaws to couple the Cunningham adjuster to either the gooseneck or the kicker.
And for my next impossible trick a main outhaul adjuster!
Angus,
Yes, you have some great ideas here that I can bring to realities. What I lack in knowledge of boat design (other than passion), I certainly can offer in my abilities in machining. This Sunday will mark the three year anniversary of the burning of everything that I owned in the California forest fires and it has been an uphill climb to replace tools, (no insurance, I was a renter).
BUT, this past week, I was able to purchase a great deal of the things that I need to produce stuff like this. I plan on ordering materials this week, since I lack so much of the raw materials.
Your gooseneck design here could easily be made to incorporate a small ball bearing race for it’s pivot point. Or, at the very least to incorporate materials such as Rulon, which is a non-metalic bearing material. I hope that in the very near future that I will be able to offer this sort of stuff to our community here.
Bob
That’s great to hear Bob… must feel good to be getting back on track after such an awful event. I for one am looking forward to seeing what you come up with in footy fittings.
All ‘Kittiwake’ kits come with a rudder shaft assembly made by Bob so I can vouch for his workmanship and ability to deliver.
:zbeer: cheers mate…
Hey Angus, maybe you could buzz in Graham Bantock’s ear…his website announced plans for offering Footy fittings, but we haven’t seen anything yet. Any inside info??
Anybody know where you can get metric circlips in the US in quantities smaller than thousands? The Imperial ones readily available have too big a gap between sizes. I assume you can get the metric ones in 1 mm increments.
I was looking today at a picture of a new Footy that uses mast hoops and vang and gooseneck pivots vertically in line with one another aft of the mast. At first sight this is not a terribly sensible arrangement: the sail is pivoting about the mast and the boom about a point aft of it.
However, it then dawned on me (the designer had probably already worked it out) that the effect of this arrangement is to ease the main outhaul as the boom is eased out. The maximum effect is the distance between the aft side of the mast and the gooseneck pivot at a boom angle of 90 degrees.
This brings me to think that my previous suggestions on angled vang attachments may not be the best solution, even at Footy size. Better to have a vang attachment point offset from the mast by the right amount.
Bob - an adjustable offset vang attachment?
Note that this will not work with a rotating mast.
