Here is a report from Glen Ashby from the 2007 A Class Europeans Los Alcazares, Spain. Notice all of the Flyer 2's in the top spots! Our current container should clear in a few days, so you'll be seeing a few more Flyer 2's on the water here in the states shortly.

Day 2 Racing
Light day of racing 3 to 8knts

Two Races
Race 1

Race 1 had two attempts to commence racing with unsettled winds causing the committee to re set the course. On the third attempt a clear start was made by the fleet.

100metres out from start saw the whole fleet tacking on to port to lay to the top mark in a big left hand shift. Three quarters of the way up the leg the breeze filled from the right after a rain cloud passed and the right then payed as the guys from the left struggled there way through the middle of the course to get to the new breeze. The new breeze from the right caused a few headaches for a number of the top sailors who were on the left of the course. However there were to be plenty of shifts to follow which allowed for some big gains and losses to be made both up and down wind.
First to the top mark was Glenn Ashby (AUS) followed closely by Arno Terra (NED) overlapped and Scott Anderson (AUS), with a tight bunch of sailors not far behind.
Murray Philpot (NZL) “ My highlight was battling the race out with Piet Saaberg throughout the course”
Bands of shifty pressure continued through out the remainder of the race and the light conditions tested all.
After sailing some good shifts both up and down wind Glenn Ashby broke away to have a good win followed by Scott Anderson (AUS) who passed Arno Terra (NED) on the last downwind leg to the finish. Paolo Penco (ITA) and Manolo Calavia) sailed well to finish in the top 5.
Race 2
A clear start again saw the fleet get away in 8kts with an oscillating breeze of about 12degrees. Glenn Ashby starting at the committee boat had a good start and managed to take the first shift going through the favored middle. However it was Scott Anderson who came from the pin end and crossed Ashby by a boat length 2/3 the way up the first work. With a fantastic lay first to the top mark Scott Anderson (AUS), Glenn Ashby (AUS) and David Brewer (AUS) with a good lead on the next group.
Palo Penco (ITA) moved through the fleet to go round the top mark in fifth.
Stevie Brewin had a fantastic downwind and made a move on the top leaders by going from seventh to first round the bottom mark with buoy room on the rounding.
The remainder of the race was battled out for first place between the three Australians of Ashby, Brewin and Anderson. On the last beat Ashby pasted Brewin to have a slender lead at the top mark though Brewin managed to overtake Ashby on the finish line and won by a length.
Sjoerd Hoekstra (NED) “ Very difficult day if you over stood it was very extremely hard to get good speed. I have tried very hard to not have any premature starts within the last six races”
Forecast for tomorrow is for 15kts and 30degrees which should make for some exciting racing without the drysuit!

1 AUS 1 GLENN ASHBY (Ashby Sails / Gel-Tek)
2 AUS 902 SCOTT ANDERSON (Ashby Sails)
3 ESP 11 MANUEL CALAVIA (Ashby Sails / Gel-Tek)
4 AUS 767 STEVEN BREWIN
5 NED 3 HOEKSTRA SJOERD (Ashby Sails)
6 ITA 3 PAOLO PENCO
7 ITA 2 EUGENIO CALABRIA
8 AUS 908 DAVID BREWER (Ashby Sails/Gel-Tek)
9 ESP 42 MARIANO MARTINEZ PINA (Ashby Sails)
10 NED 95 ROELAND WENTHOLT
11 ESP 13 ANTONIO GADEA SERRA (Ashby Sails/Gel-Tek)

Any of you U.S. guys that want a Flyer 2 for the Worlds in Florida. Let me know ASAP. We can have another container here by the middle August. We need 5 more boats to fill the container, It's all or nothing so talk to your friends about a group order.

http://www.surfcitycatamarans.com/GeltekFlyer2.html

Curious, what is the price of the Flyer 2?

Craig, email me again please, I have tried to reply to yours but it keep getting bounced back. tbohan -at- earthlink dot net. Thanks.

Oh, and most of the new A cats are above $20,000... <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

Complete Ready to Sail Package
$25,599
Add Shipping, Duty, Tax and Registration.

Ouch! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

BTW, I just read an article about the run up in Carbon fiber prices, seems Boeing and Airbus are creating a shortage, the price of carbon has supposedly doubled in the past two years...and gone up 4 fold in the past 4 years.

Any timeline for new production plants? With the increase in demand there have to be new facilities coming online, or?

Is anybody using basalt fiber? Or are the aerospace/defense industries sucking up all that stuff too?

A couple of years ago that seemed like the next big thing - stronger than fiberglass and a lot cheaper than carbon fiber.

Rolf, the article did say there are more carbon production plants coming on line but gave no specifics on when, how much, etc...

We have a Chemtex plant down the road and they just made a multi-billion dollar expansion to up their carbon fiber production - I'm sure they're not alone. The news that carbon prices are up is old. The real pain is that to amateur, like myself, many carbon weaves and qualities have been totally unobtainable. We are just about to the peak of that...carbon is beginning to become accessible again and although the prices aren't dropping yet, I think we'll see that in the next couple of years.

any reason (other than self promotion) the makes of the other a-cats aren't listed next to the names of the other boats?

I can tell you that both Paolo Penco and Arno Terra are sailing a BIMARE XJ, a competitive design which is on sale in the USA (built by VectorworksMarine) at USD 18,000 i.e. some USD 10,000 LESS than the Geltek Flyer MK2
I don't think that the extra speed is worth the extra money!

You know as well as anyone, you can not buy speed. Glen is going to be at the top on any platform he gets on. Gel Tek puts together a great package no doubt, but unless they have changed for these boats, they are all made out of Kevlar, so you are not even paying for the cost/stiffness advantages of carbon.

The all composite aircraft and other transportation vehicles are not yet in full production. The composite mods to reduce weight in existing models are underway and accelerating.

From what I can gather the carbon fiber plants that are under construction or just finished will almost meet the increased demand for the next 2-3 years. Many of those plants were built to supply already signed contracts.

There will be some surplus in a year or so when companies start dumping cloth (weights, weaves, blends, etc) that didn't work in preproduction.

If you want to help the small builders, don't buy any carbon junk (cell phone covers, etc). I heard a story from facilities guy a couple of months ago, "5 years ago we almost had to give surplus carbon and kevlar away and pay extra to have cutting scraps hauled away. Now people are making offers on our entire surplus and the recycle company is paying us by the pound for scraps" Consumer junk is eating what the experimenters used to use. On ebay you competing with idiots who plan to glue the carbon to the hood of their civic for a carbon fiber look.

The old carbon-carbon process (burning rayon in a vacuum) is beginning to look attractive. If I just had a big vacuum oven I could build an AClass from surplus dress fabric and the boat would have a flower patten etched into the hull.

Todays bargins are exotic aluminums, titantium, specta fabrics, mono-crystal fabrics and fibers, and clear red western ceder. Except for the ceder these thing are hard to find because they are in the hands of surplus dealers that don't know what they have and can't even spell their real names. These things are not in populer literature and you are going to have to work hard to figure out how to use it but an monocystaline iron mast for your 5.2 would be a marvel.


Finally to be serous, now is the time to play with epoxy wood.

The article I read said it's not just about airplanes, it said Carbon is becoming the material of choice for lots of other stuff too, from bicycles to car parts to cell phones, etc.

What's going on with the marine ply prices, now that lots of custom builders are switching to carbon? Are the prices coming down at all? For the home builder, seems good old wood and epoxy are hard to beat for hulls. I wonder what Hall Spars is getting for their new A cat masts these days?

Producing high quality ply is not sexy enough for most producers and the production of it has declined considerably. For the low quality ply chinese firms are competing all others out of the market. Sadly this stuff is too undependable to make high performance boats from.

With respect to exotic Alu, indeed ! Alu masts and beams have never been more inexpensive to produce as now.

Wouter

The state of the ply market is another reason to use strip planking in hulls <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Carbon is driving a lot of the component prices up.
Examples - Carbon tiller extensions just went from $189 to $289, and Nacra 20 masts just went from $3,900 to $5,400

$5,400 for an I20 Mast??? YeeOuch...

So who makes a suitable aluminum wing mast replacement fot it?? What does the Capricorn wing mast cost?

Tim,
I think the Capricorn aluminium mast is around $1300 AUD.
$1079 USD.

How much does a I 20 blank carbon mast weigh?

I think you should be able to extrude an aluminium wing mast 9.2m (approx 30ft)long for around 16 to 18kg.ie 36 to 40lbs.

Interested to find out how much weight they save by using carbon.

Regards,
Phill

Like every other industry on the planet, the further that carbon goes up in price, the more chance that greed will kick in as manufacturers build more and more capacity to take advantage of those higher prices till eventually there is an over-supply and the pendulum swings the other way. T

he virtual explosion of it's use in the aircraft industry will in the longer term be good for everybody as new and better techniques and materials will be developed. The upshoot is a better overall product that will most probably be cheaper to produce.

Tiger Mike