Shouldnt this class be promoted to juniors as the size of boat would be well suited. Also allow a more moderate sail area - not 13.5 sq m that would be ridiculous for a junior too handle! This class should be developed for the youth not big boys on babys toys

So the kids can furl the reacher and jib and race uni again each other. Or 2-3 kids can do some team-work and kick our butts, as they'll have 6 hands to handle 4 lines and the tiller. That's the nice thing about this class, the boats can be tamed down very quickly.

Besides, you can't be a sailor and a grown-up

Hey Andreas -

The Mystere 4.3, which fits the new box rule without modification, was designed and built as a youth trainer boat. Most of the folks that bought one got it as a second boat to sail with their kids. Two years ago, it was selected for the Multihull Youth Nationals, and the factory sent brand new boats for the event. The 4.3 carries 282 sq ft or so of sail area, and the kids had no trouble with it at all - of course, we sail in Beaufort 2-3 range for just about every event. What the adults found was that when the wind really piped up, the 4.3 (as an intentionally underpowered platform) was a lot more fun to sail than their 20-footers, so they started racing them, too.

Nobody's kids in the 4.3 fleet are getting any less time on the boat - in fact, Jamie Diamond is chartering a second 4.3 to bring to Spring Fever so that he and his wife can both compete, giving their son Joey (who got an Opti for Christmas!) the option of jumping on either boat.

It's a great kids' boat - I think the other F-14s would be just as kid-friendly. What you are seeing on this board is, as usual, a bunch of race junkies talking about the basis of a new class so we agree on the basics before we all get together and race. Maybe the sail area would be tough to handle in Oz’s better breezes, but here in NA, the platform only rarely becomes unmanageable. The boats that ISAF just finished evaluating for the future sanctioned Youth boat are all bigger (around 16 feet) and have more sail area than what’s been proposed here.

Incidentally, I got one, not because I have a kid who’s ready to learn to sail, but because at 5’4” and 130 lbs., this is the boat that fits me best.

Andreas, If you think there's a market for a 'junior' catamaran, why don't you go ahead and build one and clean up but I'll save you the heartache.
The problem with building boats (cats) for juniors is that nobody buys them. There have been any number of good 14ft and smaller boats built specifically for the younger cat sailor and the builders generally sold NONE! Not one or two or a couple of hundred, NONE! Bill N. from Wangie on Lake Macquarie did a lovely little cat he called 'The Glider', very much suited to the juniors. He made six I think and still owns them all. Jim Boyer did one and sold none and I could go on. And in any event, 13.5m sq. on a 14ft boat with sufficient beam and correct rig isn't ridiculous for a junior to handle and if it is then 14ft isn't a baby's toy then is it .

It's this 'bigger must be better' male mentality which marketers promote to sell us their bigger (more expensive) toys which keeps us poor or working our dates out trying to afford the 'right' size boat/car/house........ which always happens to be the next size up to the one you already have.
The guy on the boat in the attachment is a school boy competing in the combined schools regatta at Belmont NSW.

Bern

For years we sold the 4.3 Sundance here Andreas as a sloop rigged one on trapeze cat. we sold over 4000 in South Australia alone, and the best sailors to evolve from them were the "kids" under 14 years of age! When our cats were selling at their highest numbers, in the late 80's early 90's, at least a third of the cats competing every race day were sailed by kids under 15, and the younger they were the harder it was to beat them! They just learn so damn quickly at the early ages, they have no fear, and have never heard of the word "can't". As long as there are appropriate saftey measures for the running of the event and rescue boats on the water there is no problem. In fact the sailors who got into the most trouble seemed to be the over 30's!!!
darryl J Barrett.

Just to further demonstrate my point about size, check the attachment which is just a tad over 14ft but ain't no kiddies toy either.
Slightly heavier and a little more powerful than a 14ft cat but only a tad longer nonetheless.
I can't believe I'm arguing size doesn't matter
Bern

That is something TOTALLY different. (joke)

Wouter

There's a good point to be made here and that is, given that the 14ft cat is generally seen as a kiddies toy, and if we want to promote F14 as a serious bit of gear, I think that the boats need to be hi tech and very fast. I'm aware that if this makes them comparatively more expensive we will be competing with 16ftrs for price but I don't think price should be a consideration. There are already any number of reasonable and very cheap 14ftrs out there so adding more ordinary boats is not going make a difference as I see it. We need to develop F14 to be sensational performance wise, the Ferrari of the cat world if you like. It's really the 'ace in the hole' we have to attract serious interest.

I think that probably the best way to go is to adopt the Intl. A class rules with maybe four changes, i.e., 18ft becomes 14ft and minimum weight becomes say 50k, sail area becomes unrestricted and width becomes say 2.5m (we need plenty of room on the start line for a lot of boats ).
This would ensure continued interest in development but without the extraordinary costs associated with open development protocols. The A's are a very interesting example of a controlled development formula, the most interesting point being that regardless of the design freedom allowed by the rules, the various models are still all very similar and stay competitive for a reasonable time and they are a very popular international class. Controlled development also insures that there are a quantity of good used boats available for entry level participation.

When you think about it, F14 is in the best position to have the most flexible formula, given that two 14ft cat hulls can never be hellishly expensive, relatively speaking.
There is a 'box rule' which determines the most efficient compromise between waterline length and weight or more correctly mass, which is in a direct relationship with displacement which is in a direct relationship with drag. These parameters control the amount of sail on a given mast height a 14ft long boat is capable of carrying and still be efficient. I have a some understanding of this because of my design experience with the 430 and when I hear people talking about boats way over 2m wide carrying massive sail plans I have a little laugh to myself because, here in Oz we've been down that road, the 16 and 18ft skiffs being classic examples. They started out with massive sailplans and lots of crew (stability) and now have much smaller but very efficient set-ups. 'C' class cats also have proved that there are limits. All this means that a 14ft controlled development cat is going to be the cheapest alternative and if we do it right it can be a significantly attractive proposition performance wise.

F18 made a big mistake IMHO. Sure it is popular but they had the opportunity to make a huge statement for catamarans, and for reasons I cannot fathom they put that insane min. weight on themselves and it wasn't to accommodate existing boats as far as I can see, as most, if not all competitive F18's are new designs. Their loss our gain I suppose.

To cap off, F14 can be;
a) the cheapest option for a super performance catamaran,
b) a size boat which can be home built in plywood with reasonable performance outcomes.
c) easier and cheaper to transport, a significant issue in daily use, but particularly if these boats are to be involved in international competition (more to a container).
d)the most manageable high performance cat both on the water and off.
e) the most sensible single handed (less weight, less cost) high performance controlled development catamaran class in the world.
f) the next Olympic class catamaran with the Tornado. (we need two)
Bern

Base a performance issue on how much room is on the starting line? How about a longer starting line based on the size of the boat and numbers present?



The weather in Oz favors smaller, more efficient sail plans. Here in NA (where the class is currently forming) the winds are generally lighter and favor larger sailplans with the ability to detune the rig as the wind picks up. You can always furl sails your are carrying, but you can't unfurl sails you're not carrying.

I would love to see the F14 become the next Olympic Class catamaran, and I would like to see it get there in a similar fashion as the Tornado: by being a home-builders class. I think there is a niche for a high-performance single-handed catamaran in the Olympics.

What we really need to get this class going is a set of plans, most preferably a set of plans that can be downloaded free off the internet or sold for the cost of printing and shipping, for a high-performance 14' platform buildable in sheet-ply.

I'm afrain that we must face facts! and the idea that a class of any cat, today can be based around a "home built" craft, just doesn't work in the real world. Tell me, how many "home built" Tornadoes has anyone seen on the water over the last 15 or more years? (let alone internationally competitive! there aren't any! How many "A" class cats (although they still try to promote the "home Build idea) have won at international standard? Although there are "home built" "A"s around they still tend to be built by "professional" builders/designers, and, if successful, have all become "production cats" built by professionals, so I would be loath to call them "home designed/built" in the sence that most refer to true "home built". Why has no one built a "home made" F18? I wouldn't exactly call the builders of the "Blade" amateurs (they may get offended at the derogatory suggestion) The idea of every second sailor going out and designing and building and succesfully competing with their own cat is a great dream, but I'm afraid that's what it is in today's world! a great dream! It requires too much expence, experience, promotion, time, and knock backs for an "amateur" (and I use that word with the greatest of respect) to have a better than a one in 10,000 chance of being even partially successful. The market for cats has changed so dramatically over the last 40 plus years. When most sailing craft were being build purely out of ply wood, it was possibly to design your own craft and have a reasonable chance of success at a quite modest investment, but as the industry has adopted more and more the exclusive use of fibre reinforced plastics, the development costs have risen to the point that to justify the tooling, mould, plant, etc costs to produce just one set of hulls, it has passed out of the financial reach of the "average" sailor to be exposed so much capital investment. (would YOU invest up to half the cost of an average suburban home into something that there are absolutely no gaurantees that you will even recoup a small part of your investment, or better still, would your wife let you?)
The future of any class/formula of cat today is totally dependent upon the "manufacture" getting fully committed and involved. If they are not fully in there (I'm sorry to say) THEN THERE IS NO CLASS.
So unlike "classes" of cats, the concept of the "formula" helps, even encourages, manufacture's to design and produce cats within the perimeters of that formula as they don't have to go out and only promote their cat and their "class", but instead they can compete against All the cats within the "formula" on an equal footing. This makes a lot of practical sense to the manufacturers. Thats why I say that the most important first step is for SOMEONE to definatively define just what the dimensions of an F14 are!
Regardless of the prevailing wind conditions in any given area, we have found, over many years of experience, that to take the beam of a 14 foot cat out past the, half the length of the hulls, ie 14' long, 7' wide, has always created a less than perfect balance, (and any one who advocates some ridiculous width of 8'6 or as I've read here even 10 or 12 feet, really doesn't know what the Hell they are talking about). To carry HUGE amounts of sail area I place in exactly the same boat (pardon the pun) as to carry the "right" amount of sail on the correctly balanced platform will always prove successful to any of the "monsters" throughout the full range of wind and water condition, whether your on inland lakes with light conditions, or if your sailing in the most extreme conditions in the north sea.
Darryl J Barrett

Does any one really think that any designer worth their salt will post, or allow to be posted on the internet, free without charge or royalties, a design of theirs, that they have invested a big part of their lives on? If such a thing WAS to happen without thier permission there would be quite substantial legal ramifications which would cost the person who posted to suffer the full force and costs, of the law!
Haven't you ever heard "you only get what you pay for" and that the less you pay the less you get?
Darryl J Barrett

The 2.5m width max. I proposed is arbitrary and accompanied by a and in any event, I don't think anyone with any understanding of sailing catamaran design would seriously contemplate a beam width of more than 2.5m on a 14ft boat, regardless of the transportation issues such a boat would present nationally and internationally. If you think I'm wrong convert a Hobie 14 and put a H16 rig on it see what happens. It's been done and it failed miserably because a H14 leeward hull needs more buoyancy to support the additional pressure that a bigger rig exerts on it and bigger hulls means heavier which means more displacement which means more drag which = slow. (box rule)
Incidentally, the optimal design wind speed for my 430 is 15knts with a 75kilo crew and it is designed to de-power itself to a degree as wind strength increases. It currently carries 5ft sq. less sail than an A class and will soon have a kite so I'm not sure exactly what you mean by;




Just what is the average wind strength in NA and what sail area would you consider to be optimum for a high performance 14ft cat, and are you suggesting that the design rules should suit one area?

Bern

When you've got it right with "boats" Berny you know, and until other people experience just how "their" ideas work (or don't) There will always be the "armchair" experts who will try to take a rise out of you, with out ever putting in the required effort to actually test their own "theories". There is a saying that "the sea is an element that tolerates no compromise" If it works it's fun, if it's wrong then you suffer the risk of death.
Darryl J Barrett

I don't think the situation for homebuilt boats is as grim as you are suggesting Darryl. I'm sure as a sailor in South Australia you've raced against Darren Peters on his homebuilt Taipan and against the other homebuilt Taipans that have been built in that State. I even bought a Timber Taipan myself out of the fleet in SA. As you've probably noticed these boats are no slower than the glass ones.

While I'm assume you are correct about the Tornado and A-class not having any successful homebuilt boats I'm sure there is probably no good reason that they couldn't as long as they have a good design.

It has worked in the Taipan class and home built boats are beginning to be seen in the F16 class as well. These home built boats are no slower than glass factory builts boats. Glenn Ashby in fact won last years Australian Taipan 4.9 Cat rigged championship on a Timber boat (in fact Darren Peter's boat) and this particular championship has been won more times by a timber boat than by a glass boat.

I concede that designing your own boat then building it at home is unlikely to produce a winning boat as there is a huge amount of development that goes into a boat.

The plans for the Taipan are not free but the price of them is quite small in the overall cost of the boat. Less probably than the cost of a ratchet block. If there is a successful F14 design, such as the Blade F14 may well be if it eventuates, and the designer made the plans available for a similar cost to the Taipan plans, I see no reason why there couldn't also be a successful homebuilt F14. Phil Brander is I believe making his Blade F16 plans available for a home build and I think already has had a few requests for them.

If the hulls are a successful design it won't matter whether are made out of timber or glass, they will be perform equally well. There is even a claim amongst some timber Taipan sailors that the timber platform is stiffer than the glass.

Rob.

for a good insight into boat build and how various issues such as hull design and platform stiffness I suggest you have a look at this thread from the Australian F18 BB, sure the weight of these boats is a drawback, but there are other more important issues to deal with. http://www.f18.org.au/bb/viewtopic.php?t=75

Don't get me wrong ROB. I Know that there will ALWAYS be a place for well designed, well built "home" constructed ply boats, and that place will vary dramatically in numbers throughout the different formula/class's of cats/boats, I know that there are a good percentage of ply hulled, home constructed cats sailing in the Taipans, and very succesfully. The same applies to the mosquitoes, the cobras, the paper tigers, the arrows, the arafura cadet, the stingray, even going back to the yvonne and a plethora of Cunningham designs, but these were all - even the Taipan (which sort of slid in when ply was still more in demand for home builders) - were concieved and developed when the only way to be really light and go fast was to build with ply. I remember quite physical arguments in the early 80's between sailors of ply boats adamant that "glass" boats were to heavy, to slow, to weak, and to expensive. Times do change though. It's not that I believe that ply is condemed to history, I don't. There will always be a good place for home construction in ply, but I do believe that in todays market, if a formula/class doesn't have the ready availability of commercial manufactured, competitive boats, and instead has to rely on the numbers of "home made boats, it cannot grow fast enough or large enough to sustain itself. That's what I mean when I say that it is a dream to think that a class/formula today can BASE itself on home made designs.
Darryl J Barrett

I love ply! I was brought up on ply! I am of an age that I can still remember fights between sailors when the light weight sharpie was introduced to take over from the "solid timbered" heavy weight sharpie. The light weight guys said that their's was the way of the future, and the heavy weight guys said that the light weight ply boats were nothing but a passing fad and that they weren't "real" boats any way. The same sort of thing happened when some one had the termerity to make a hull using the "tortured ply, stitch and glue" method. The non compount curved guys said that they would spring apart like a rubber band and that they were so "stretched" that if they were hit on the water they would explode. It is still a fact that one of the most structurally strong, per weight/mass materials that has ever been applied to the construction of "boats" is marine ply, and now by using ply and incorporation the "west system' of inpregnation of epoxy resin, the strength and usable life of the product is right up there with the highest of the high tech' materials available on the market today. One area where it cannot match "cold moulding" though, is in the incorporation of some of the shapes that are obtainable with "glass" for the incorporation of better hydrodynamics. some of these direction changes are just to acute to make in ply, but nothing that other compromises in the design can't overcome. The one big area that makes it unsuitable in "production" today is that it is "time consuming" in it's application, (time is money etc), so although it rules itself out for use as a "mass" production material, it is, and will be for many years to come, an ideal material for home construction, where "time" is not a relevent cost factor.
Darryl J Barrett

Darryl, here's a history lesson for you: About Clark Mills Read the entire article before responding with respect to the part of your statement I've quoted.

What is the cost for original Tornado plans?

A good design does not need to be a new design. It can be an adaptation of an old design that is still perfectly suitable. I could very well build a 14' Tornado, or Condor or Unicorn, etc.... With the bulk of the F14 class being made up of H14s, Mysteres, Waves, and similar (boardless) boats primarily designed for recreation -not racing, though the line is getting a bit fuzzy- it wouldn't take the latest and greatest design of our time to be competitive.

It is for that reason you may very well find me racing a Richard Woods Quattro in another year (if I can't find any Blade F14 plans to buy). I feel it would be perfectly competitive against the majority of current F14 boats.
I may very well come up with my own design, using features from current and past boats as guidelines and avoiding the use of any extreme deviations in design features to get a boat I feel would perform "good enough". If it sails well and at least keeps the pace with the Mysteres I would be pleased to put all the information on the internet. It would satisfy me enough just to see other people sailing something I'd created.

Brian your completely entitled to your opinion, as am I, but surely if you were to "copy" plans of another cat BUT "reduce" it in size to suit, are you actually copying it or are you creating an entirely different design? To get the working plans for a Tornado you have to pay the association a not so small, collective price. Besides if you believe that it is a simple matter to take a successful larger design and simply scale it down I can assure you that it doesn't work quite like that, by scaling down with out making the appropriate compromise adustments to various areas of the design you end up with something resembling more a pig than the design that you started with. but being the designer that you hint that you are I am sure that I am telling you some thing that you already are well aware of?

Brian what's the point (history lesson) that you are trying to make using Clark Mills as an example? I would have thought that Clark Mills would have made the point that I stated even more so?
Look Brian, I admire your enthusiasm, and the last thing that I would want to do, would be to discourage some one from "getting out there" and testing their own ideas. If you feel that you can make an impact with your own cat/s, go for it at 100 miles an hour, and don't let any one tell you otherwise.
Darryl J Barrett

Darryl,

I enjoyed reading your excellent response to my post and must admit that I did miss the fact that you were referring to BASING the class on homebuilt boats. I suspect that you are right about the unlikelyhood of this if for no other reason than there are not enough sailors with the time to build boats.

Rob.

His Optimist and Windmill designs were both free of charge, and are some of the most successful sailboat designs ever.



Thanks Darryl, I really enjoyed your posts concerning homebuilt plywood construction. That is sort of where I was going with my post about having available free plans for a cat that would be competitive with what's currently racing. I think there are a lot of kids out there with a lot more time than money who would be willing and able to spend a summer stitching together a boat, and retrofitting the rig from something else onto it.

The part that gets me, are the sails. There should be a cheaper method to go about getting a decent set of sails. Some sort of pattern that could be posted so people could cut and sew their own Dacron and have some sails that perform well enough.

Brian, there is no real "black art" to designing and making sails, I know a lot of sailors that have successfully made (and some still make) their own sails, it just seems that the majority of sailors either "can't be bothered and will pay the price" or think that it is all just to hard. If you purchase one of the books by C.A.Marchaj "sailing theory and practice, in it you will find all the reasons how and why a sail performs and once there is an understanding of that, it's then quite a simple matter of applying those principals to the relative size/shape of the sail plan that you need and draw out. Once youv'e done that, any man/woman who can use a sewing machine is more than capable of stitching a one off sail together (even on an electric "home" sewing machine). From actually doing it quite a few times personally, I can tell you that, it is a LOT cheaper than a sail maker, and that the hardest part of it was actually convincing myself to start the first cut. After the first one, the rest are easy.
You know that before the introduction of Mylor and Kevlar etc, into sail making, many top sailors in class's around the world would either make their own sails or make then in a sail loft with the help of a "professional" who would be only to pleased to assist them as the professional would use that cut for the "class" if it was successul. Most sail makers realise the the people who know their class sail performence best are the top sailors in that class and use their knowledge instead of visa versa.
Darryl J Barrett

Darryl- thanks for the post. I'll pick up a copy of that book and do some more reading. I would really like to see the F14 class be the cheapest way to get in some real great racing. As you've mentioned, it's the the planning and designing stages that put most people off. I'd like to get all the planning and designing done and make the results free to everyone- to make the class that much more attractive. Take the sails for instance: if I came up with a set of sails that performed well enough to race with, I could make all the measurements public, and provide plans for the sails, for the cost of printing and shipping. Basically- I want to take all the guesswork out of this sort of thing.

The Paper Tiger class is a popular class on boats that are only marginal performers by todays standards. I want to design a modern "Paper Tiger". A better compromise between performance, cost and "easy-construction". I'm not out to make the fastest boat in the fleet, just the best value in Fun-per-Dollar terms.

Brian, don't sell the Paper Tiger short, you could do a lot worse. They really are a great little boat and have been developed to perform as well as most uni-rigged 14ftrs and I'm sure they could easily carry a kite as they have quite bouyant bows. Their 'yardstick' number here is #92 as opposed to the H14 which is #93.

The boat can quite easily be built in ply which was the basis for it's design and because they are raced in Oz, NZ and Africa they have the basis of an international class which could be an added advantage to owning one ie, they could be raced with the kite as F14 and as a PT without the kite. Could be interesting.

http://users.fishinternet.com.au/~nswptca/clubs/KoBSC/
Bern
p.s. another link; http://www.papertigercatamaran.org/

Hi Brian, I used to read boat building articles in Popular Science magazine many years ago when I had a subscription so I do not know if they still publish those.... but when they did, they had plans available including for the sails that were made out of plastic tarpaulins for a very low cost; so check that source out. Another source for do-it-yourself sailmaking is Sail Rite at: http://www.sailrite.com/ and their sail kits at: http://www.sailrite.com/sailkitpricing.htm

Good luck!

Mike

Brian,
I made my own sails for around 20 years.
It's no big deal. Horizontal cut dacron sails are the easiest.
The radial cuts are usually designed and plotted with computer although this is not essential. They can be lofted by hand but there is more work involved.
When I first started I modified a domestic machine and drove it with two motors in series while I located an affordable industrial machine.

Once you get a good understanding of how the dynamics of the sail works it is a lot of fun. Designing, making and modifying and seeing the results.
This is just another aspect of what can be a really diverse
sport.
I must admit that I've finally given way to the pressures of time and no longer make my own sails. A good sailmaker can free up time to explore other aspects of the sport.

Regards,
Phill

Anyone keen on obtaining a set of building plans for the Paper Tiger should be aware that contact details can be obtained from www.papertigercatamaran.org. Price is aprox $80Aus.
Bern