How about we race bathtubs?

Maugan, like the boat or not you would be doing yourself a dis-service by not wanting to enter the event due to the choice of boat.
If you and Trey are really built to be a cross between basketball players and football players, I`d suggest you split up for the event and both find small crew - advantage is they usually come in female form .
That way you both get to sail anyway, if as a combined crew you feel you might not fit under the boom or be too heavy to be competitive.
We sail smaller boats than F16 (no, really !) Big boats cost big money in SA. Some of our skippers are 90-108kg, and sail with their wives or kids. Have a look at the boom height on our boats, you will think the Blade has HUGE space after that.

I think I liked it better when the Alter Cup boat was kept secret until a month or two before the Championship -- or at least not announced until AFTER the qualifying events were over.

But there are pros and cons both ways.

eh, its not like we have to worry about qualifying for the event

There are sailors in our area much better than me that deserve to go before I do

Hi Mary -

I'd like to hear your "pros" on not announcing the boat until right before the event - just curious.

It should be noted that the boat was never "kept" secret, AFAIK - I think it was frequently the last minute before the committee was able to pin down a deal. I think there was a lot of stress in organizing the event when a boat and venue weren't pinned down. Gordie Isco or Jamie Diamond might be able to speak better to that - I'd say Steve Leo, too, but I don't think he visits here anymore. maybe I'll send him an e-mail.

To my mind, the pros of announcing before the ladder events:

1. Gives the "team" concept a real chance.
2. Allows someone who takes it really seriously to beg, borrow or steal the equipment if they want.
3. Draws out some sailors who might not come otherwise - folks who belong to the class selected, or that have an interest in getting a week-long test drive.

Honestly, if the way its done now isn't "better," then we should look at changing it.

hey if the F16 is too small.. why not ask the committe to look for either a C class or D class boat...
ARC 30 is almost a D.. Still undersized by 5 foot.. However two up would be interesting...
There also must be molds for a C around.. If not pulling a mold from one of the Cs would be easy...

What the crews need to make their own boat before the series!!.. molds supplied and materials.. The crews do the rest!!,... Now that would be a challenge!!

And flippin' expensive.

uhh... isn't there already a regatta that does that?

That is a good looking Mosquito Steve !

On the topic of trampoline space. I once had a Tiger bitching about my kiddies boat. How it would be good for featherweights and that its tramp was far too small for himself and his crew; not to mention that the bows were to short on a 16 foot boat. After a while I had enough and parked my boat next to his Tiger and made him check out the length of the bow and the position of the beams.

He couldn't believe that the bow section of my Taipan F16 was ONLY 50 mm (2 inches) shorter then his Tigers. Then when he checked out the space between the beams he couldn't believe that there was onlu 150 mm = 6 inches difference there. The only part that was noticeably different was the length of the sterns. The Tiger just had alot more of that, but no crew is sitting on the part of hull anyway, tillers are in the way there you see ! I see in the picture of your mosquito that it has much the same setup

With the 5 mtr length of the F16 hull the 2.5 mtr. width makes the boat looks wider than an Tiger even if in reality it isn't. The more slender hulls reinforce this aspect. So in area my F16 trampoline/deck space is 90 % of that of the Tiger; nearly all of that negligable difference is the result of the F16 being 4 inches narrow than the Tiger. The Blade F16 has more space between the beams and therefor closely resembles the deck space as found on the Hobie Tiger.

What some people forget is that while the Blade kept all the good stuff of the Taipan design, it also improved on all the less-then-excellent stuff. Boom height, boat width, jib sheeting system and trampoline space were all improved based on the Taipan 4.9 experiences. Actually removing the jib fearleads from the middle of the trampoline to the mainbeam made a huge difference in the sensation of space on the boat. Much more than the increases in width and space between the beams.

Several taller guys (6 foot 2 and over, 80 kg and over = 180 lbs) test sailed the blade F16 together and said that the trampoline space was excellent, they never felt that the space was too small during tacks, gibes, hoists and take-down. All who knew the standard Taipan mentioned the real difference in sensation of space.

Wouter

Trey, don't be giving the crack pots any more silly ideas. There is one in Austin who built something like the craft you describe. 2 hobie 16 hulls strung either side of what looked like a rowing boat, with a sun fish rig on each H16 hull, cross connected at the top by a scaffold pole with ladder access from the row boat.

I would hate for him to knock out another 10 of these and end up as the Alter cup boat supplier...

Steve,
Could you post a close up picture that shows the boom connection/downhaul, and mast rotator?

In your picture it looks like the downhaul is 4 to 1? Is that enough? And does the mast rotator connect to the front beam? I've been working on the whole downhaul/mast rotator placement on my A cat and I'm interested in seeing new ideas.

What do you think about the rotator not having a relationship to the boom? The reason I ask, is that if the rotation is connected to something other than the boom, when you adjust the travelor, you change the rotation.

If the rotation is connected to the boom, the relationship is fixed to the boom and traveling in or out doesnt impact the rotation.

Boom mounted rotation seems to be the most popular, the only other exception I've seen is on a Flyer A cat. Its connected to the tramp. See attached.

Wouter any comments?

And is that a beam in the middle of the tramp running aft? If so that must be a real knee basher.

Bill

John, I thought it was policy to not announce the Alter Cup boat until after the qualifiers were over, but you may be right that it was out of necessity rather than intent.

1. I don’t know what you mean by “team” concept, but as to your other two points, I just look at them from the flip side.

2. If they don’t know far in advance what type of boat the event is going to be on, they don’t have to worry about begging, borrowing, buying or stealing a boat to practice on, because nobody else will know, either.

3. Also keeps people away from the qualifiers who might come otherwise. So that is probably a wash.

HOWEVER, because the number of people sailing in the Alter Cup has been doubled, and because there is a pretty major division between the spinnaker and non-spinnaker folks, I think the way you are doing it now is probably the ONLY practical way – announcing the boat in advance of the qualifiers.

If the Alter Cup boat is going to be a spinnaker boat, you are probably going to get mostly spinnaker people at the qualifiers and in the finals. If it is a non-spinnaker boat, you would get both spinnaker and non-spinnaker people at the qualifiers and finals (and also by petition), which would be more inclusive of our whole beach-cat community.

It is too bad that the boat chosen for the Alter Cup has to influence whether or not people even want to sail in the event. Maybe it would be better to have it always sailed on the same type of boat, something generic enough, main and jib, that everybody can handle it. That would certainly level the playing field and make it more like what is done for the US Sailing monohull championships. You don’t see their championships being sailed one year on a Rebel and the next year on a 49er.

IMHO, the Alter Cup needs a permanent, common-denominator boat.

Meanwhile, this early announcement about the 2007 boat is going to be great publicity for the Blade F16 and for Vector Works Marine.

really? Dont think so..

Not where only the skipper and crew does the building....
The LAC are built by teams...

New boats cost big money not big boats really what is to be gained by lamenting over who should be in the Holier than thou Alter Cup if this is the reaction then ditch the race because the publicity is negative. Mystere 6.0 1993 Alter Cup big yip . This crap is so that each builder gets there 15 minutes of fame..... Weeeee! !Most of these boats look the same anyway.....
We sail smaller boats than F16 (no, really !) Big boats cost big money in SA. Some of our skippers are 90-108kg, and sail with their wives or kids. Have a look at the boom height on our boats, you will think the Blade has HUGE space after that.

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You guys are starting to drown the whole point of the Alter Cup with all this boat talk and are totally missing the point. You're bringing me down. Sure, the boat is part of the pie...but it's not the largest or most important piece. The experience of participating in an Alter Cup is a memorable one - just getting there is a very serious accomplishment.

How many of you finish a regatta weekend and think about how you would reconfigure or change something on your boat for the next regatta? Or perhaps you blame a tired old sail for not finishing as well as you would like. Sound familiar? I did it for years. A few times, when I made a monumental leap and purchased a set of sails, I found that I really didn't gain as much performance that I thought I would. That recognition alone set off a chain reaction of investigation and discovery and I would find some really obvious stupid stuff I was doing all the while. I couldn't see it because I had the 'old tired sails' in my mind. Enough of that...clear the chalk board. Take away the "my sail cut is different", "my gear older", "my mast has a funny bend", "my boards really need to be faired", "my hull bottoms are really in bad shape", "my diamond wires were too tight", my....{I think you get the point}.

Now, go out on the water with all of that out of your mind because you are piloting one of ten identical boats. They're brand new, with the same cut on the sails, the same foils, the same hulls, etc. All of the sudden, you find yourself on the starting line with only a few thoughts in your mind; the start sequence, your strategy, the water, the wind, and how you are going to get in front of 9 of the best sailing teams this country has to offer. Forget the boat, forget the boom, forget who promotes what class or what nutty freakin prejudice you have against one assembly of fiberglass, aluminum, and plastic over another - you have the same things to deal with as everyone else on the water. That's what the Alter Cup is about. It's as pure as it gets.

I think this choice between boom-sheeted rotation limiter and trampoline-sheeted rotation limiter comes down fully on wether you mostly sail with a spinnaker sail or not.

Personally I have the trampoline-sheeted system on my own boat (F16). I sail nearly always with a spinnaker, both 2-up and 1-up. I'm finding that mastrotation control on a spi boat is pretty much on or off. Before the racing starts you'll fine tune the optimal upwind rotation and lock it there in place. Several crew use a seperate cleat for this; to lock this setting into place. Then after rounding the upwind mark you fully free the rotation only to fully pull the rotation in to the preset optimal trim for upwind when rounding C-mark. During the spi leg you never touch the rotation control and during the upwind leg you hardly ever adjust it. And you do then nearly always you increase rotation in order to get more power. However my experience is that even a suboptimal trim upwind can be acceptable unless the leg is really long. The reaching legs are often short anyway and mostly you are busy preparing for the hoist anyway. We (I) as good as always keep our upwind rotation on these small legs. In light winds you can get away with keeping your upwind rotation trim when sailing with a spi. Mostly because the spi induced such a big skewing to the flow experienced by the spi. After all on a spi boat you never travel out more than 1 foot from the centre of the rear beam. This means that the angle between the boom and mast stays pretty much the same anyway even when using a rotation limiter that is sheeted relative to the trampoline.

With the above explained usage, it is far cheaper to sheet the rotation of the trampoline and it allows a very simple setup that can be adjusted from the trapeze. An extra advantage is that you don't have a rotation limiter poking your eyes out when you are near the mast hoisting or doucing the spi. I also clears up the boom and generally looks tidier.

On my Taipan I have an extra advantage with respect to the trampoline bases rotation limiter in comparison to the boom-sheeted version. As explained in my other post, the superwing wingmast is more flexible in the sideways plane. This means that at a certain combination of rotation angle and leech tension angle the top of my mast will fall away to lee taking the whole head of my mainsail with it. The effect is that the top of the rig is quickly and fully depowered. I'm partly using this behaviour to control my boats heeling during gusts and while under spinnaker. I can influence the magnitude of this behaviour by adjusting my mast rotation control. It works like this. Under spinnaker in trying conditions, many wind with big wind speed fluctuation, I let out my mast rotation but not all the way as I would in really strong winds. I lock my rotation in place in such a position that when I sheet my maintraveller near to the centre of the rearbeam the rig is fully powered up with exactly the right amount of draft and twist in my mainsail. My mast rake it set up so that in this trim the boat is well balanced, with only a slight leehelm. I then head up to get the boat fully powered up and my crew works continiously to keep the spi always at maximum drive. When a large gusts hits us my crew keeps the spi drive at maximum while I do two actions simultaniously. I mildly steer down and I let out my main traveller. Both proportionally to the magnitude of the gust. The effect is that by letting the traveller out I

-1- reduce the angle of attack of my mainsail
-2- reduce the draft of my mainsail as my mast stays in the same position with boom moving more in line with this mast.
-3- the leech tension is moved relatively to the sideways plane of my mast resulting in the top falling away to lee depowering the top of my mainsail and increasing the twist profile of my leech in addition to the first initial and automatic response of my squaretop.

The net result is that I increase lee helm on my boat which really helps bear the boat down. I need noticeably less rudder angle (= less drag) to quickly turn the boat. It's prevent the boat from heeling, the bows are pressed down less and the boat seems to accellerate rather then heel. Also we have to bear down less, meaning that when the gust falls away we can maintain maximum power by pulling in the main traveller, bring back in the masttop and squaretop and increase draft, while only having the gentle head up a small amount to get back at the new optimal course which was the same as before the gust.

I found this mechanism to be so powerful and the Taipan mast to be rather resistant to failing under a spinnaker that I also use this trick to keep flying the spi on the last leg to the finish line. By letting out the main traveller I can often maintain a slightly higher course then the other spinnaker boats without slowing down or heeling to much. That is in relatively strong winds. In light winds everybody can do it as heeling is not a problem then.

This whole behaviour is not really important on a spinnakerless boat. Here your mainsail trim is alot more sensitive, their is no jib or spinnaker to just force flow over the mainsail even if the trim is slightly off. So in the case of A-cats and sorts I feel that a boom-sheeted rotation control is advantagious. Also because you guys let out a lot more main traveller then the spi boats do. Circular traveller tracks on a spi boat are just a dumb idea. You really don't need it as you never travel out more than 1 foot anyway. That is in a permanent way, you do of course temporarily to depower the rig in a gust but a circular track (maintaining draft and angle of attack) will then do the opposite of what you want.

Actually the addition of the spinnaker has allowed designers to simplify certain aspects on the boats. Mast rotation and traveller tracks are one of those things. The selftacking jib system is also alot more attractive on spi boats as the jib hardly needs to be travelled out when flying a spi. When push comes to shoove, you can even maintain your complete upwind trim of both the mainsail and jib on the downwind legs under spinnaker and not loose much ground at all. In crowded fleets this is a huge benefit. But I'm getting of track.

Main point is that on a spi boat I prefer the simple, out of the way, cheap trampoline-sheeted rotation control. On a spi-less boat the rotation control sheeted of the boom is advanagious.

Wouter

After seeing Jake compete in an Alter Cup, I knew he would be a good stewart for the Championship and an advocate for sportsmanship.

Hi Bill, this pic is the best I could find on the downhaul fixing method that most of us use (we are allowed to do anything with most of our rigging, I think the Mosquito is probably one of the most open one-design boats around - the rule on rudders allow you to build or buy any rudders of any shape or length that you think will work. Generally it isn`t the rudders that win the race. In fact these open-minded class rules disprove many of the popular myths in sailing, our boats are all set up differently to a certain extent, yet the fast guys always win, and the lightest boat isn`t always the fastest (and it`s mine ) Even our hull shapes differ from one another within the building tolerances to a small degree. Of course all the epoxy boats are the same, but the woodies differ a bit.
We attach the bottom triple-block of the downhaul directly to the gooseneck with a shackle, simple and easy. My Gooseneck fitting is a little bent after 5 years of use, and the loads on our boats are quite small as you can see 5:1 or 6:1 downhaul is good enough.
These pics are both of Kevin`s boats, our National champ. the black & white boat is an epoxy, his 2nd boat, and he has streamlined all his systems to the minimum. His first boat had so much string on it the crew took up knitting.
Sorry no pic of mast rotator as he hadn`t fitted it when pics were taken. We connect to boom and seldom adjust unless the wind is very inconsistent, and I seldom let it off downwind with the kite up.

Forgot to mention, I use 8:1 downhaul (not as heavy as Kevin ).

Totally agree with Jake, the boat shouldn`t make a difference, the event is what matters, in fact count yourselves lucky that such an event happens for you guys. I think those who do sail will find out just how well the chosen boat handles both heavy and lightweight crews. If you practice and qualify for the event on ANY spinnaker boat you will probably make the switch to the Blade quite quickly, and the advantage of having chosen this boat is that there will be very few sailors with a true advantage since it is a very new class, if the Hobie 16 or Inter 20 were chosen you`d expect the National champ in those classes to have the edge, there are still only a few Blade owners and they have not mastered their boats in a way that will make them far faster than the others.
Just an unbiased outside opinion - I`d love to sail an I-20, Blade F16, Capricorn, F18HT and an Eagle 20 (maybe a Volvo Extreme 40 too ), and would also happily crew on a Hobie 16 in a Hobie-only event, but only with one skipper.

"And is that a beam in the middle of the tramp running aft? If so that must be a real knee basher.

Bill "

It is a centrepole running from front to rear beam.
If you bash your knees on it you`re taking too long to tack .
Actually the trampoline should be quite tightly stretched across it so you don`t really notice it. It`s there to stabilise the front and rear beams, they are small box-section aluminium. With the addition of the spinnaker pole it helps to support the loads the pole transfers to the front beam as well. Some of the Auzzies have removed them with no ill-effect, but they sail solo and haven`t added kites, I would put the centrepole back if adding the kite if I were them.