We are talking about two different things here!!!!!!!

THE GUY
Fosset, he is a really cool guy and don't think anyone in the world can match him right know if you count records and other stuff. The number of different things he has done is outstanding, but if you just take the sailing part and remove the rest then it is NOT outstanding.

THE BOAT
Come on, what was the ground breaking things with play station? It was a bit bigger than the 80 feet French cats that used to rule the ocean. The really ground breaking thing right now is the foiling Moth!

/håkan

Give me a break, this is a global world!!

How much is from USA on playstation???
Design, Morelli/Melvin in US
Boat was built by Cookson Boats in New Zeeland.
Spars from soithern spars, New Zeeland.
Deck Hardware from Lewmar in UK
Sails from US
The boat became a bit longer in UK

By the way, I'm typing this on an ACER PC, with INTEL micro, microsoft OS and explorer browser, and I think several other guys outside US have something similar...

/håkan

A lot of arm chair critics that know [email]f@#K[/email] all...... And I am not going to pretend I am anything but on this subject, however......

Fosset is a guy with some coin who uses it to get what he wants. Then he goes out and does it himself and not pays others to do it for him. This is a big $$$ game and you must have coin to play unless you are a rock star and somebody will pay you to do it.

Fosset is a man who does not hide behind his desk but looks forward to staring death and adventure stright in the eyes..... He is more of a man than a lot of people on this forum.



LOL...... Did not undergo sea trials, tune, iron out bugs.... They crossed fuckin oceans before the race.... Learnt how to sail and how had to push this new breed of cat. From this they leant that they needed to extend the bows. She had the best prep out of any of the boats in the Race....LOL. Some people should study up before dribling from the mouth.

Groundbreaking..... Playstation was the first of the Super Maxis... Exploring the limits of what can be manualy handled (no power winches) as per The Race rules. Boats of this size had not been built before, therefore loads and sailing characteristics were unknown. Yes they could get a bit of an idea from crunching figures and computer tests, but real life sea trials is where you find out if you have built it to heavy or too fragile or too hard to sail..... If that [censored] is not groundbreaking, then I don't know what is. I also believe these cats were the first to use water balast in the transomes or as they called it, the 'Oh [censored] Tanks'.

If anybody has not read the book 'The Race', then I would recomend picking up a copy. It gives you a very good insight into the development of these boats, the concept of 'The Race' and the unique sailing experiences that was encounted buy the guys who pioneered not only Maxi Cat racing but cat racing around the world form the early days up till The Race.

Oh, gosh, you're starting to sound a bit moronic here.

So, here goes, again. As I've already said, I don't care if you don't like Fossett. I don't care if you worship him. I personally don't care who you do or don't worship. If I were prone to worshipping heroes, he would be on my list. But so would everybody else who gathered up the balls to do the Race, and set out for records previous and post, regardless of where they hailed from. I also think the people that have brains to try to design and build these things are worthy, especially if they are able to learn from their mistakes. Honestly, I don't think you share the same open mind.

But I don't care for the attitude that seems to surface whenever Playstation or Fossett is mentioned, especially since it seems to based more on attitude than fact. I would feel the same compulsion to defend you if I felt you were being unfairly portrayed. Ask those who know me on that score...

Now, for the other stuff. As others have advised, please get a copy of "The Race" and read it. Lots of stuff to learn there... Read it, really. It's good.

So, other stuff:

"-Well documented handling problems"

Do tell, what were they? Your statement seems to indicate more than what prompted them to extend the hulls. What other things were done to address these "well-known problems"?

"- She was launched first of all boats designed for The Race yet they didn't use that advantage to tune, practise, iron out bugs... Why?"

Are you really asking this? PS had quite a few miles on her with some records to show for it before The Race. The need to extend the hulls had been recognized and performed. In fact, I seem to recall some people bashing Fossett for starting the race with worn out equipment. Perhaps the mileage explains some of their other problems. In the end, a brand new set of sails to replace the worn out ones from all the sailing they had done were their undoing. Criticsm was then levied for not testing the new sails properly, maybe that's fair, maybe not. I guess there's a certain expectation when you buy new sails...

"- She was then rebuilt beyond recognition. The Fosset spin was that this was according to plan and the original hull shape was merely to trick the oposition. Who bought that one? Not me for one. The original hulls must have been a major failure and now they band-aided the design."

Rebuilt beyond recognition? That's funny. The hulls were extended, flowing from the original lines. Previous to that, ballast tanks were added. When the work was done, I doubt anybody sat back and said "gee, what is this new boat"? M&M's take was that they "finally put the right size chasis under the rig". Now, if we want to talk about failures, maybe we should discuss the fact that Dalton had to bring in another design team to reinforce the failing structure of Club Meds hulls and main crossbeam. That Ollier initially refused to give up the structural drawings so the fixes could be made, because they believed they were the only ones smart enough to build such structures. Their conceit could have proven fatal. That those same fixes were truly needed, and were incorporated into the other Ollier cats. Sounds like a major failure that required band aid fixes. And the boats still suffered some delamination. But I won't say the boats were POS because of that, but I don't think you're applying the same standard.

"Oops, don't "send in the marines", please."

Here's where you sound moronic. I'll not even dignify that stupity with a response.

And if we want to credit anybody with ground-breaking designs for The Race - the only one with a ground-breaking vision was Pete Goss. Ill-fated for sure, but maybe he had something there.

Now, a serious question about the boats themselves - it always appeared to me that Playstation and the Ollier cats had a ton of rocker in the keels. The motion displayed in the video to me would seem to be a product of that - given that the other boats also had that feature, I'd love to see video of them in similar conditions. Of course, if you got rid of the hobby-horsing you'd be slamming the whole structure after launching from each wave - potentially a big deal in shock loads for boats that big.

Actually, I think the rocker lends itself to less hobby horsing...that's the theory anyway. If you take volume from the bow and the stern and place it in the middle, the boat is more affected by the wave further away from it's ends and therefore, should hobby horse less dramatically. If the boat was more flatline with more volume in the bow and the stern, the waves would affect the boat further away from it's center axis and would make the pitching more violent.

Agreed, BUT by virtue of more rocker don't you also create a situation where the hull is more 'tippy' fore and aft? I'm sure there is a compromise solution there somewhere - but that is the art/science of performance boat design isn't it?

Take two exremes, the Hobie 14 or 16, extreme rocker, vs. a pontoon boat, straight as an arrow, no rocer at all. Which one rocks up and down more in waves?? I thought the rocker was there to allow you to move weight to the back and keep the bows up in waves? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Yes, I would agree that it is!

I know that on my 6.0, which has a decent amount of rocker, you can get the hobby horse pretty bad sometimes, especially if you're not powered up and the waves are right. The N-20 exhibits almost none of that. Of course, another thing that can contribute to that is weight aloft.

It's all about the frequency and size of the waves that the hull shapes are designed for. In my opinion, the N20 will hobby horse and slap badly in smaller shorter waves in lighter conditions where the 6.0 will slice right through. The 6.0 is a much better boat in moderate air with choppy water. However, put the N20 in some two footers with breeze and it will sizzle through/over them. In really heavy stuff, it will survive better than the 6.0.

Agree on all that, but I've not found the hobby horsing of the N-20 objectionable at all compared to the 6.0. You do get more slap than the 6.0. I really love the feel of the 6.0 when it's in power-on cut through chop mode. But I love even more the feeling of the N-20 in the heavy stuff - you get away with things the 6.0 will chew your butt off for... More than a few times I've had the thought of "that would've been a pitch on the 6.0", and to me the 6.0 didn't pitch that easy. My only wish for the N-20 would be a little more freeboard so the rear beam doesn't get caught by waves as easy.

But I can see also a bit more now that the rocker on big boats may not be as extreme as I once thought given the length of the boats and sea states.

That's one of the things that most of the big monsters suffered from too (and one of the things that Orange was designed specifically to hopefully avoid). As violent as a rear beam slap is on an I20 - can you imagine the loads involved in same event on a 125' monster?

BTW, the a great piece of video from Team Adventure when it runs down a seemingly never ending wave.
http://www.teamadventure.org/video_clips/bigwave_large.mov

I just looked up some back issues of Seahorse:

The Race was conceived right after the Jules Verne thing in 1994. Playstation was launched on Dec. 21 in 1998. The Race was intended to start on the eve of the new millenium but was postponed by one year.

But then Seahorse is European so I guess they lie.

/Martin

Wow,

You're a ****. Go away.

Yeah, yeah, yeah right! Where were you when the local rag of a paper wrote that I "...fell of his Nacra 20 and had to be rescued by the race committee."

Hmmmm . . . ?

ah (noddle), look what I found:
"I read today's article in the Evening Capital regarding the West River Twilight Race and felt compelled to write.

With regards to the Beach Cat Class, conditions were particularly tough for them because their course was two laps of the 15 mile course the other classes sailed. Most of the catamarans had completed the first 15 mile lap before deciding to retire. Their decision was made in light of the building conditions, time of day, and the fact that the course could not be shortened to one lap for them.

Chris Allen did not fall off his boat and was not rescued by race committee. He suffered a dislocated shoulder during a capsize in a series of heavy gusts near Bloody Point while on the second lap of the course. His crew, Todd Berget, righted the boat, secured Chris back on board, and sailed single handed from Bloody Point to the West River Sailing Club, where paramedics took Chris to the hospital. Todd deserves credit for the job he did.

It would be nice if a printed correction could be published in the Capital. Left as is I don't believe the event and class is represented properly.

Thanks,
Keith Chapman"

New breed? Yes in a way but the French built pretty big multis in the mid 1980s, around 25 m in length. Formule TAG
was built in Canada to Nigel Irens' plans and was much later lengthened for Jules Verne and again for The Race. Commodore Explorer was also from the 1980s and designed by Gilles Ollier. Club Med and her sisters were based on that depth of kowledge.

25 m is less than Playstation's original 32 m and Playstation was lengthened by no less than 6 m - a change almost as big as the difference between her and the maxi cats of the 1980s.

Seahorse, May 2001, page 35: "Club Med is 3.1m shorter than Team Philips and 4.4 m less than Playstation. She is also the narrowest design, at 16.5m. Suspecting that his American competitors would be tempted by greater stability, Gilles Ollier encouraged them in their pursuiut of power by announcing--wrongly--a beam of 17.5m early on. In fact Ollier had already decided upon a narrower and more sensitive boat."

There are lines drawings of Team Philips, Playstation and Club Med in that article...

As for Formule TAG/ENZA/Team Legat/Whatever.. I have met the structural engineer of that old Irens cat and he thought the old lady should have been alowed to retire long ago. But the structure is still holding up after 20+ years of ocean crossing and several laps around this planet.

As for Playstaion crossing oceans and breaking records before The Race. Yes she did but she also sat in a harbour on the US east coast for months on end doing nothing. The first record--24h distance--was a huge disapointment to me. She was the latest and biggest in multihulls at the time. They set out specificallly the break the 24h record, fully crewed and carefully picking a suitable weather system north of New Zealand. Still they barely made it and the former record holder was Laurent Bourgnon on a 18m trimaran singlehandedly delivering the boat back to Europe.

These two things was what made me wonder if there was something fishy about the boat and/or the project.

Later they had that near 'fatal' incident early on in a transatlantic sail. It was clear that they were struggling to control the boat and the major surgey she underwent in the UK proved the point. They actually arived in Barcelona with what must be regarded and Playstation mk II.

/Martin

Check out the pic and the caption I got into the latest Spinsheet. You might change your tune! In my defense, I also once again gave them that nice pic of you at the C-100 and once again they refused to print it... I told them before it would make a great cover shot.

And back on topic, I found it kind of cool that in engineering the big boats they had to consider the effect of water pressure on the hulls if they really stuffed 'em in - given how long they are.

I find this below a picure of a heavily pitching Playstation in the Feb 2001 issue of Seahorse (page 8): "Watch leader Brian Thompson
confirmed that Playstation's new bows (above) had greatly improved the handling of the boat in heavy conditions, with the only obvious
downside being a slight increase in weight and stickiness in light airs."

I have already covered this one at some length in another post.

As I have already mendtioned elsewhere: 6m was added to Playstation. And the bows got a lot higher. The sterns lost their beach cat look.
That M&M comment clearly tells you all was not OK to start with!
The Ollier cats did suffer delamination but they prevailed and one of them won The Race. I know Seahorse covered that 'second opinion' thing.
I am looking for it but no luck so far.


True. I visited the building site once early on. They were still doing the molds.

If you are able to track down the May 2001 issue of Seahorse you will find lines drawings of Team Philips, Club Med and Playstation (MK II)
on pages 34 and 35. All three are cats but that's about all they have in comon. Clube Med has more rocker than the others.

/Martin

MartinRf, is it something in the water in Sweden that gives you folks such disdain for anything American? Perhaps it's the politics (that many of us don't agree with) - something else?

Nobody here has denied that Playstation went through some changes and evolution but you would have us believe that it was a fruitless and unimportant design when it was clearly one of the first of it's kind and quite an engineering and human powered marvel. I've had the pleasure of discussing the boat and some of the design issues with Pete Melvin while in California a couple of years ago and found many of the challenges they faced and the methods they came up with to work around them quite fascinating.