but furthermore I really discovered that the outside screws of the aftbeam started to untight themselves... which is a little scaring... and of cours a reason for much more movement of the platform. how hard do you tighten them?
Loose bolts will certainly make the platform flex alot. I noticed this on my own platform. I now keep the bolt really tight and have good stiffness now. Pretty much as tight as you can get them with a ring wrench (?name) without risking damaging the head. Now I don't notice any flexing at all when on the water.
Wehn you do the measurements on flexing the way you suggested than the Standard Taipan should flex less than the A Tiger of Nacra F18, but just a little more then a Tornado and very stiff platforms like the Cirrus F18's. Both Stealth F16 and Blade F16's are stiffer than all others except the Cirrus F18 and Blade F18. The Blade Blade F18 is of course the stiffest boat that was measured this way (25 mm flexing).
In principle the Taipan is certainly not the stiffest boat but a still in the middle of its competitors. If it is noticeable less stiff then this then something is causing this. Maybe excessive sealant kit between the beams and hulls ? Or as you yourself noticed, loose bolts.
while it looked that he was using the same mast setup as me, sunday I measured his rake again and it became obvious that it was much to less (10 cm BEFORE the aft beam instead of 10 cm behind!). when changing this crucial setup for sailing on sunday (we had less wind in the gusts)already we could feel a much better balanced boat with much less nosediving tendencies.
Actually, now that I'm always sailing with a spinnaker I've reraked my mast back to 10 cm in front of the rearbeam ! As I'm now depending on other techniques to keep the boat under control. I think I like the current setup, but indeed you will have to pull the kite in big winds, not pulling it is not really an option unless you accept sailing really deep with mediocre speed.
Wouter
