I remembered hearing becjm (former owner of my boat) mention that it is a heavy weight boat, so its got me thinking, just how heavy is my boat. Whats are some methods of weighing hull/platform weight. Ben when you owned it, did you ever have it weighed? And are there any possible methods of reducing the weight without compromising structural integrity.

I tried weighing each hull one while the boat is on the trailer by lifting a hull up and sliding a bathroom scales under the hull and where it rests on the trailer. The weight came in at around 35-36kg per hull, though there is still some water in the hulls from sunday and im not entirely sure about the accuracy of weighing the hulls this way due to potential inaccuracies due to rotational force moments potentially induced due to the difference in heights between the hull being weighed (higher) and the hull still resting on the trailer (lower)

I ask as my sailing has gotten a lot better over the last couple months and yet i find i can only just beat maricats (they are good sailors mind u though) upwind when its windy enough for me to trapeze, i tend to just stay with them when its anything less, and i usually get flogged by them downwind when they go square. With the few times ive raced with the spinnaker though i find i can beat them fairly well downwind now though my spinnaker skills are still very underdeveloped. However they tear me apart on yardstick. I am a heavy crew coming in at 96kg and after seeing bens comment about the boat being heavy weight, im wondering just how much im being disadvantaged by all this extra weight, just how much does extra weight slow you down by? And apart from hitting the gym, is there anything else i can do to rectify this without having to buy new hulls. Id love to be able to sail my boat to or even close to its yardstick.

Thank you.
Michael.

the boats are generally weighed by suspending them from roof beam with spring balance. from memory the rudder system comes off completely as well as anything that is attached by a shackle also all ropes. you can however do it with bathroom scales under one side at a time. the most accurate, as you point out is to have the platform as level as possible. a ten degree angle may make 500 - 1000grams difference. but if its that heavy 35 kg per side i doubt whether you could do much more than pray for wind like i do. i am also 95 kg and unlikely to weigh 75 in the near forseeable future, unless they make iced coffee illegal, and pies and chocolate donuts..........mmmmmm donuts

Thanks brian, id forgotten to take the rudders off, im currently using hobie 16 epo rudders as my wooden mossie rudders broke a couple months back, and the hobie rudders do weigh quite a bit (i just weighed one and it came in at close to 4kg!, the old wooden rudders weigh something like 600g each), so i may need to get some good rudders and boards (the boards are big and heavy as well 12 inches wide, 43inches long with circular bottoms, old design, and weigh 3kgs each, though they werent on the hulls when i weighed them).

Hi Michael,

You'll get some advice in here from more experienced Mozzie sailors than me but hopefully I can cheer you up.

I am the same weight as you and I'm only in my second full season on a Mozzie after not sailing for over 15 years and that was on mono- marans.

My boat is timber, built to minimum weight, but as it is now 13 years old and had a repair or 2 it would be somewhat heavier. With regards to reducing weight I have removed all Mk11 gear and anything that was redundant. (old boats seem to have lots of stuff on them) I have replaced my timber dagger boards with the current glass/composite ones from JK fiberglass. Smaller, lighter and stronger, and am intending to do the same with the rudders soon. Whilst I consider lightening the boat where possible to be a good thing I'm sure these efforts have had little effect on my results compared to time spent on the water and the helpful advice from fellow sailors.

I don't get to sail every weekend due to family arrangements but treat every defeat as a lesson, and just enjoy the fact that I'm out on the water. I sail against a bunch of Paper Tigers and during my first season, I was regularly beaten over the line by ALL of them which was pretty embarrassing on Yardstick. These days I can often beat most of them over the line and occasionally all but the very quickest of them on Yardstick. (the quick ones are very good sailors on very good boats I have to say in my defence ).I sometimes go over to Somers where there are lots of Mozzies and in the early days was the last Mozzie in by more than a leg. Lately I'm not so far behind and I think on my last visit I was not the last one home

As for weighing.... bathroom scales, wide plank, balance the boat on the plank with the scales under it. I saw that method on here somewhere. Makes sense. I have never bothered as I'm yet to be a good enough sailor that 10kg of boat weight would make the slightest bit of difference.

Re the water... at a kg for each litre., stopping the water getting in would be a good thing!

Hope there's something in all that to help.

Enjoy your sailing!

Cheers

if you are worried about weight, you can go through and downsize all of your fittings ropes etc. piss the hobie rudders off, i had a set of them on my old glass mossie 1342 which weighed in at 85 kg at the christies beach nationals. i think they laid the old girl up with a chopper gun.
however if you have to buy all new fittings it will probably work out cheaper to buy a set of hulls on weight or just buy a full set up and sell the one youve got to another beginner. as i am finding out ( i expect simon is also) at 95 kg anything under 10 knots sux @rse. stay in the club drink beer and wait for the breeze

i forgott. dont spend too much money on an old heavy boat unless you have too much spare time and spare cash.
remember ( read below)

Hey Michael
That boat was a good sloop I think it was built a little over weight. But I cant remember.
I raced that boat 1547 at the 07 (I think) vic states and came 2nd last in light conditions and a little better when it started to blow.
It is a good solid boat but when I purchaced top gun it was a LOT faster I went from being beaten by all the h16s (that,s all they sail at my club)to 1st on light days.
My advice is Have fun & learn as much as you can on 1547 then if you want to get serious look for one set up.
I wouldent spend to much on it.
I Have used bathroom scales with the boat ballancing on a board. it works.