Everybody read the whole post as I'll answer several our your questions in one go. So this post in more then a reply to Mary.
I would love one for myself....but I don't think I would put my grandchildren on it. Kids run into concrete walls and rocks and pilings and docks, and maybe even into people when going to and from the beach. Kids are more interested in "playing" on a boat, capsizing it and righting it, using it for a swim platform to jump off, etc. They don't always pay attention to where they are going and what is in front of them.
If the boat is actually FAST, they are just more in danger of hurting themselves or others and damaging the boat itself.
If they actually sail it, I can just visualize them disappearing rapidly over the horizon, while I don't have a powerboat to catch them and make sure they can get back. How would I explain this to my daughter?
If kids don't keep themselfs to the area limits then even on a Wave they can get lost over the horizon before you have time to recognize it and catch up with them. The only solution that would COME some way in addressing this is to give your grandchildren smaller sails to sail with. Adjusting the mast for thing is really not difficult nor at all expensive. I refer to the mast building plans given earlier in these discussions. Making yourself a more flexible mast tip for a smaller (kiddies) sail will cost maybe 2 hours of time and some 50 bucks in material. Most of the time is spend on getting the standard alu tubing from your local hardware store. The components are just standard alu tubing, packing tape and a handfull of stainless screws or monel blind rivets.
The only real cost is purchasing a smaller sail, but you should be able to do that first time round when getting the boat.
The F12 sounds great -- for the adults and for more experienced youth sailors.
This is for which the fully blown F12 is geared towards. Although it will not carry the family. Max Two persons at the time. It will float well of course with more then but performance is completely out of the door.
For the really young kids it is intended to have two of them on board. This will make them less frightened as well in my own experience because as they feel supported by eachother. Smaller sails specially made for truly young children are also a serious option. Again this is a formula class and in such a setup you may always sail with less sail area then maximally allowed.
Again, some of us are wondering exactly what the goal is for this new boat, what is the target market? If it is for youth sailors, what age range are we looking at? What ability level? Is a relatively high-performance boat the right boat for teaching young kids who have never sailed before?
The design can't really be designed well unless we gear the proces totally to crew weights instead of age groups / experience levels. These latter points are simple to vague to design a boat too. Additionally because of its small size the F12 is relative sensitive to small design changes.
Therefor we really have to specify a weight range for which this design is made.
Currently I've personally identified the range 55 kg to 75 kg as the main target range with good performance. In this range 65 kg will be the design crew weight meaning it has been completely optimized for that. Sailing lighter is never really a problem, sailing heavier is and so 75 kg is closer to 65 kg then 55 kg is.
From my personal experience European teenagers are right in this weight range from going from 12 to 18 years of age. As such it is a youth boat.
When used as a kids boat, below 12 years, it really should be sailed by a crew of 2 persons. I think this fits in nicely with the "playing with other kids" attitude as described by other posters.
Two small kids will easily combine to 55 kg weight or higher. Using the medical overweight-underweight rule I find that a kids of 1.25 mtr length (4 feet) will already weight 30 kg's. Making a crew of 2 such kids already 60 kg's and very close to optimal weight.
Note that there is no rule on how many may sail this F12 ! So two small kids can indeed race against a single adult and have a pretty fair race.
The design is intended to still give reasonable experienced crews a thrill. For truly inexperienced persons the boat allows a more experienced adult to come along and thus work up skills but even more importantly confidence. The boat is indeed really simple and most be compared to the Wave in simplicity. It will however have a few smart tricks to make it significantly faster. Of is these things is a traveller system that allows proper sail trim. This traveller costs, and I'm really not kidding, 5 bucks and you can't hurt yourself on it.
Of course you don't HAVE to use the traveller system So it will be fine for novice sailors who only have to steer and sheet and get forget about everything else. It will be a better platform for novice sailors then a monohull as it is much more stable and more predictable. I think it will be excellent in this role. You certainly can't death role the F12.
The nice thing about the boat is that even if there is only a relatively small window of time where it works for kids, and only a certain category of kids, the adults who build it can continue to play with it forever.
This is one reason why the F12 is made performant and carry up to 75 kg of weight well (in a racing sense). Once they get bored with just crusing about then they can work on getting max speed out of it and maybe even try to beat mom or dad around a few harbour markers. The F12 is more then a kiddies boat and as such will not easily be outgrow by aging youths. Pretty much the only real aspects on which they can outgrow the boat is by gethering alot of body weight. The boat will be able to carry up to 100 kg without a fuss but it will not be as performant anymore.
Like I said, I would LOVE to have one myself
As do I myself !
Goody! Now I just have to find somebody to build my F12 for me. I figure since it is going to be so fast, I can use it as a chase boat for my grandchildren on the Wave. That will be perfect! I'm very serious!
In all honesty, you can build it yourself. The only REAL effort will be the hulls. But I'm sure a building group like the one around flatlander (john) can pop out 2 more hulls that you can finish out into a full boat. I trust you are handy with a sewing machine ? If so then you can just make your own sails and safe a bundle. The rudders come off the wave and the mast and trampoline you can easily make yourself as well. It appears that you could be getting one like this for less then 1000 US$. The sail and rudder, if new, are halve the cost. Now you don't have these costs it can be really inexpensive.
Gareth,
I'm extremely interested in the camber inducers. The design will progress without these, but I want to have them as a fall back option if getting sufficient draft proves difficult.
Are you willing to help us out in this respect ?
Wouter
