Steve,
>>First, to me, the really exciting thing is that it appears you ordered a 'timber' or tortured ply boat.
It is indeed a tortured ply platform, just the hulls of course. In many discussions with T-sailors they convinced me that it would be a dependable platform. Both in robustness (all in proportions of course; it is no H16 or P16, but that goes for both the ply and glass versions) and competitive life. The orginal Taipan design was in tortured ply and alot are still sailing from that time. In general old Taipans do really well in the Taipan nationals and Tortured ply platform have won these nationals as recently as 1999 or 2000 I believe. That combined with the fact that the class in Australia is very competitive convinced me that it would have a long competitive life; When build well of course. If you have two left hands that the end result will be accordingly.
Now that the hulls are finished I enjoy the Tortured ply aspect even more. It is on the beach at me club now (just brought it there) and it gets throughly checked out by the others cat sailors. However none of them realize that it is a "wooden" boat. And when I tell them that is is “timber” (Tortured ply is too much of a mouthfull) than they look at me as if I’m pulling their leg. The hulls are paited with two component poly urethane marine paint so the outside looks just like all the other boats except that the paint is a warm yellow colour. More than a few times I had to open the inspection hatches and show them the inside. Most of them still argue back the the outside of the hull is glassed as well (which it isn’t only the deck it) and that therefor looks and feels the same.
After the expoxy impregnated the ply the sides of the hull just firmed up and feel just like the glass sides of any other lightweight craft. The sides are actually stiffer than the sides of my Prindle 16 with is a full glass no core 1975 build.
I’m very satisfied with the end result and quite quickly I realized that I could bang my fist on the sides without much trouble. The high stress points are reinforced however with glass tape and resin. The sterns have an extra plate glued in to prevent my sterns being ripped out in a “rough patch of water”.
>>If this is so, who built it?
Okay I admit that I had help from others both in advice (a lot of this really) and construction. And the quality of the ens result shows this. Anybody willing to build his own set of hulls would do well to put his or her pride aside a listen carefully to others. Quite a few Australians have build these boats from ply and advances from the original plan have been made while doing so. There is actually another person overhere in the Netherlands who is building the F16 version from the Taipan plans and he has found a better way of doing the deck which simplies the construction and reduces the building time while keeping the outside shape the same. He has said he is seriously thinking about documenting it for future amateur builders. My hulls also have an intergrated trampoline track in the hulls instead of a alu trampoline track which is riveted to the hulls. I have a carbon-kevlar tube instead of the PVC tube that was suggested in James Sage comments ;
http://www.taipan.asn.au/~taipan/pages/timber_tips.htmBoth the Australians and ourselfs are trying to get as much of these tips in writing and photographs and available to the general public. At this time most is still in the heads of the builders.
At this link you also find a quote concerning the potential of building a boat of championship quality :” The end result was a boat which was visually almost indistinguishable from a glass boat and which goes just as fast. (the boats from our group have won two of the last three Nationals and placed second in the other plus numerous State Titles)”
>>Second, what modifications are you making to the stock T-4.9 besides increasing the beam to 2.5m?
I’ve recalculated the beams to account for the extra width. I arrived at the conclusion that I was better off with a different rearbeam at 2.5 mtr width and I prefered a mainbeam that was easier to source. The Taipan design uses a piece of a mastsection to act as a mainbeam (with a dolphinstriker setup of course). So I was looking to alter my mainbeam sections as well. Eventually I got lucky and an Aussie sailor heard about another sailor who had broken his mast. A good portion of the mast was still straight. Via the (homebuilder) network the section was send to me. So I eventually decided to go for the Taipan mainbeam section afterall, but I was lucky that others found a piece of a section. This wasn’t even however as my boat was still wider then the standard Taipan and we were not certain wether it would do the job well. So I altered my excel sheet with the calculations for the beam stiffness and strength. (that education in Mechanical Engineering wasn’t for nothing after all ! ) I found that I could get the stresses at the same or lower magnitude of the standard beam by lengthening the dolphinstriker strut. The stiffness in the vertical direction would be reduced to the lowest minimum value of the standard beam as well. I can only expect a little reduced rotational stiffness and horintal plane stiffness reduction. I figured that these would be corrected for by the stiffer round rearbeam. So I think the set of modified mainbeam and different rearbeam for give the net end result of the stiffnes for the wider platform when compared to the standard platform. Later when I discussed this with Greg Goodall of AHPC he indicated that the mainbeam was noticably overdimensioned and that it could take the extra width without the modifications. I still happy I modified it though, now at least I have a better stiffness in my mainbeam because of the mods even though the mods were not necessary from a load point of few.
So I lengthened the strut by a minimum of 25 mm or one inch. Now I was afraid that the striker would hit the waves a lot and hold back the boat with respect to speed. Later it turned out that this was a unfounded concern. The Aussies sailor assured me later that the striker strap “Doesn’t even notice the waves” It just cuts through it with causing noticeable drag, or so little of it that you as the skipper don’t notice it. Later I found while crewing on a standard T 4.9 that this was indeed true. Only when the mainbeam hits the waves will you notice a sharp decelleration as it is will all cats.
However by this time I had committed myself of placing the lowest part of the strap and strut no lower than where it is in the standard setup. This required my mainbeam to be placed higher on the hulls. This has an extra beneficiary side effect of placing the mainbeam higher above the water surface where by it is less likely it will hit the waves at speed. From an aestic point of view the best way to do this will to fill up the beamlanding with a solid block of filler with epoxy and move the beamlanding up by halve the mast section width. This is some 30 – 32 mm. Normally the forward deck is almost flush with the top of the mainbeam. On my boat and soon on several others too the mainbeam is halve recessed in the forward deck and the top halve is above the main deck. With the fairing and the shape of the beam (mastsection !) it looks and feels smooth and I’m quite happy with the result.
My rear beam is simply 80 X 2 mm round tube with spacers. It is my opinion that this looks more proportional to the platform than the alternatives. The best part about the rearbeam is that it is stiffer and less loaded up while it is lighter and longer than the standard beam. Only some 150 grams but still a win-win-win situation.
>>Also, is the mast height (with or without crane?) 8.5m or 9m?
AHPC and Pieter Saarberg had shipped me a 9,15 mtr mast section as I was planning to place a 9 mtr mast on the platform but the F16 rules were changed last november and it limits the masts to 8,5 mtr ex mastfoot ex crane. In the draft rules which we evaluated over the first year the rule allowed a spread in mastlengths. After the evaluation periode it was decided by class vote that this limit in combination with others should be altered to improof on the goals. I must admit that even though I have to cut down my own mast that the new limit is a good one. My mast will be very compareble to the standard Taipan 4.9 mast with the exception that I’ve changed the mastrotation setup and that I’m using proctor arm for my diamonds. I also don’t run my diamond wires of the mast plate but off brackets placed on the mast near the mastplate. Small mods really; nothing major.
>>Your posting on quality/ price/ availability of parts was right on, but I'm unclear on the boards, rudders and rudder equipment for your boat. Did you order gear separately from the boat itself?
Yes, I had a long hard thought about homebuilding the boards and ruddersblades but many gave me the advice to just buy these parts of some supplier like AHPC and save myself a whole of headaches and trouble. Many added that the price that AHPC asks for these parts makes homebuilding very uneconomical and the attractiveness of homebuilding these is really only the satisfaction of homebuilding. Buying them, is easier, faster, more dependable and only slightly more expensive. I decided that I did this for the sake of having a boat to sail and so decided to take the easy route.
I purchased directly :
Rudderstocks (AHPC)
Rudderblade (AHPC)
Daggerboards (AHPC)
Trampoline (Redhead sails)
Mainsail (Redhead sails
Spinnaker (Goodall Yacht sails)
Mast section (AHPC)
Crossbar (between tillers) laminate (I think carbon-glass or carbon Kevlar (AHPC)
Joystick (This feels as light as carbon but is more impact proof so it much be a mix with kevalr or glass or something) (AHPC; it was only some 85 Aus = 48 Euro’s or 50 USD and I’m not homebuilding when stuff comes that cheap)
Little stuff like wiring – terminals – spreaders from various suppliers like vidana, harken, ronstan, etc.
Yes I did order everything seperately. Some parts I ordered as a package; other came seperately; I did however combine shipments. So the mainbeam (from the broken mast) and my mainsail came in together in one crate; thanks to the help I received from a Australian Taipan enthousiast, that and of several others. Many thanks to all. A benefit of this approach was that I got pay the expenses of this boats in parts. It didn’t require any loans that way.
Luckily I can reply the kindness by doing the same thing to another homebuilder. Just two weeks ago an F18 sailor with a compatible mast section (for the beam that is) flipped his boat in a big surf and broke his mast while leaving the bottom part straight. The guy just kindly allowed me to go and pick up the part and take it with me for free so the other Dutchy can use it as a beam on his boat.
>>Please, when you are able, tell the whole story, and when you will have it on the water.
I will tell as much as I can write down in my lunchbreak ! About getting it in the water; I was suppost to sail the boat our clubs big REM race (110 cats from all over NL) but customs and other officials made life difficult for me so I received several important parts only recently. I’m all set with the exeption of the mast. I have the hounds and mastplate now But my season ends in two weeks. On the lakes the seacon continues for some 6 weeks but I’m not sure wether I want to finish the boat quickly to sail maybe 2 or 3 times before the season ends. The weather is turning ugly now. Late september and October sees in general geyish skies and strong winds; it is generally chilly too. I’m not sure I want to get to know my new boat in that. However on the other side there is one last race this season that would be a good promotion for the class. And with Three F16’s in NL and willing to come to the event it can be a good promotion too. I haven’t decided yet what I will do. With the expenses of the last packages I’m not actually sitting on a pile of green anymore. So how much is it worth to have a chance of sailing 2-3 times on my new boat ? I say a chance because the weather can go foul and not let me sail at all. But early next season I’m there.
I hope this answers your questions, steve
Ohh if you go to
http://www.geocities.com/f16hpclass/F16HP_class_NL_association.html and look for the yellow hulls than you see a pic of my platform. Without the black trampoline as I didn't have that one at the time the picture was taken. You can just see the line that is the integrated trampoline track on the inner side of the starboard hull
With kind regards,
Wouter
