You know, this F12 did get my juices going in such a way that I started looking at something like this. I figured that for the extremely low cost of these craft a company could just buy 10 or 20 of them and do a major promo stunt with it. I dare not publically express the cost listing I have now as I just can't believe it myself but it is truely low.

But the boat have to look cool and exiting other a company like RedBull will not consider it and this company really does stunts like that.

And I figured one stage more. What if this takes off. How many would fit in a seacontainer ? Must we try to design the rules in such a way that it will be really inexpensive to ship them internationally. Say to one of the Caribian islands.

I now got the package down to 36 per 40 foot container with the F12's all packed in their standardized (card board) boxes. This can well be the boxes in which they were delivered to the customer initially. I'm getting close to putting 48 boats in. Result : Shipping your boat to an event to anywhere in the world would be between 200-300 Euro's if the container is stacked full.


Another reason for this effort is so that mass producing these boats in say Asia is viable.

Wouter

Gareth,
I'm both encouraged and discouraged by what has been going on in these discussions. So much enthusiasm yet still so much bickering.

I have been trying to work out why this is so. I think apart from the personal differences hear I think we may have two completeley different objectives.

On one hand there is a group that just want to get young people into the sport. Mostly people that you would not hook otherwise.

Then there is the group that are in the sport and want to get the best they can to introduce their own offspring to the sport or give the young ones they know in the sport the next step in performance or just design the best performer given the anticipated rules.

So in answer to your question I have two hull shapes in mind.
One will perform well but is essentially a fun boat that can be built in a very short period of time at very little cost.
The second is a more refined craft and given that I still have a desire to maintain simplicity and even with the physical limitations in this size it is a race boat. The race boat is for experienced kids and light weight adults.

The first shape is aimed at bringing people into the sport and if push comes to shouve could be built with a knife, screw driver, saw, plane, hammer and tape measure.
The magic in this is not in the refined hull shape but the method of construction, time involved and cost.
I think this boat will still give the newcomers what they need to get hooked.

So rather than share this with the forum and blow more hot air. I will try to clear some time in a few weeks and build it. Documenting both the time and cost. I need to build an F18 plug but straight after that I'll get it done.

It's time we saw something we can touch.

Regards,
Phill

I agree with this assesment. And as such I think the Formula setup of the class is key. If it were an OD then we would have to compremise between these two conflicting setups.

In a formula structure we can see both groups contribute to the class as a whole and more importantly the quick and dirty setup only has to different from the full force setup in the hulls. This means that while youngster is sailing and after the parent has evaluating the childs commitment to sailing is as sufficiently they can upgrade the boat with new and more performant hulls while just planting the rig and rudders over. This will save a bundle. I envision to old quicky and dirty platform to be moved on to another parent/child and thus grow the class by small steps at the time.

Wouter

Wouter,
There is nothing dirty about it.
It is just simpler and with simlicity comes compomise.
The simpler sollution in this case just has different advantages. Advantages that I think will be more inclined to draw people into the sport.
In drawing them into the sport it is more oriented towards fun than performance. When their prefernces shift towards performance you can then look at the more involved sollution that will give that added performance.

I'm taking about a sollutiom more focused on ease in the construction phase and fun on the water.
The other sollution is more about refined performance.

I agree that the formula concept will embrace both if the formula is well written.

Regards,
Phill

I understand and I was with that scheme from the beginning.

Forgive me about the "Dirty" word. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />




True.

But I would like to underscore that when designing the basic underlying structure of the F12 we should be fully focussed on maximizing performance given the strict limits (simplicity/cheap). Because it is far easier to make a fast design more "fun" then making a "fun" design faster.

Wouter

Are you guys trying to make excuses for Wouter or insult him? It certainly is not clear from the last two posts, which apparently were made by English-speaking people.

Perhaps Mary we should have a translation from Queens English to American English <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

No resin or glue?

Gareth

The mono 420’s have centerboards, the Optimist and Lasers have dagerboards, all popular with youth sailing teams should they also be considered for the F 12?

Regards,
Bob

Well a laser daggerboard is probably expensive. We will need 2 custom boards, so it is not in line lowest cost approach.

For now I want to try doing without daggerboards or centreboards but if we need them then they are easily added to the hull. Sadly, as Matt says, against added costs and complexity. As we'll have two on the F12, will be much more hit by these then a monohull.

Wouter

Can we talk about this single control line rule? It seems to me that this will work well upwind, but on initial view it seems we may end up with quite a bit of twist off downwind. If that were correct, this would mean that we are no longer sailing to VMG downwind.

What am I missing? what is your plan?

You're missing a previous post (buried somewhere back there!) when Wouter mentions a traveller system using Ronstan RF188 becketed blocks and a 4mm control line.

You are correct.

But while this issue has not been discussed publically yet (except for the traveller setup) as solution is worked out anyway.

There are two versions : one uses a kicking strap (non-adjustable) and the other uses a ram vang (non-adjustable)

These have a use upwind as well. By preventing the mast from bending back too far when the mainsheet is released the sail should tack better in lighter winds. Additionally this limiter prevents the boom from rising beyond a certain level and thus reduces twist when the sail is fully boomed out.

But for most course John is right the F12 will have a traveller system, one that only costs 37 Euro's in DE-LUXE version and 4.5 Euro's in the cheap but effective setup. this will take of most needs All the way up to reaching a little deeper then a beam reach.

It is many more things but I'm not going into detail on this here and now.

But I can assure the readers here that teh basic idea is to give the F12 significantly more performance then the alternatives out there (like the wave) by providing much better sail control. The only limit to this is cost but even the DELUXE version costs less then 200 bucks overall. While providing full control in light, medium and heavy winds with draft control devided in lower halve and top halve and twist control for both the light and heavy winds.

Pretty much the design goal I had was this :



Light winds :

relatively shallow draft in the sail with alot of twist along the leech.

medium winds :

10-15 % draft in the sail with a tight leach. Here the mainsheet mostly controls draft in the sail and very little twist.

heavy winds :

shallow draft in bottom part of sail with almost no draft in the top and a leech that is twisting off. But with the behaviour that releasing mainsheet first increases twist and hardly any draft. If possible releasing the mainsheet should first increase draft then allow the boom to swing out and only in the later stages allow the draft to increase.


I think I got that worked out to a large extend.

Wouter

Is a windsurfing rig still in consideration for the F12? If you take a modern windsurfing rig and pop it into that welded bracket as shown on the land sailor...all the tweaking is done when you rig up the sail at the beach...other than maybe a traveler...and the main sheet what else is there left to do? I am really excited to see what a modern windsurf rig could do on the F12...IMHO the windsurfing rigs (sails/mast/boom) are light years ahead of the sails the catamaran community has in use.

The interplay between the sail cut/mast flex/boom stiffness
makes the windsurf rig feel alive. I would go so far as to say that most boat sailors would wet themselves if there boat had the 1/2 the gust response a well tuned windsurfing rig has. A gust hits and its just pure forward acceleration.

...ask anyone who windsurfs at a near expert level (short board) who is also a cat sailor... they will confirm this.

Regards,
Bob

Allow me to respond to this question in a short to the point way :

-1- What do windsurfer do when the wind changes in strength ?

-2- How many suit of sails do windsurfers have to be able to sail whenever they want ?

-3- How well does a windsurfer transition from pure upwind work to downwind with high vmg ?


Correct me if I'm wrong but the windsurfer rig may be lightyears ahead of catamaran sails, but only at a very narrow windstrength band and with only a narrow band of courses.

Maybe somebody should educated me on Formula surf boards, I hear they do better ?

But it is often forgotten that a sailboat rig is required to operated well at a very wide windspeed range and on any course between pinching upwind and runnin square downwind.

Sailboat rigs can sometimes have amazing flexibility in flying shapes produced by adjusting a few control lines while racing on the water. I haven't seen surf board rigs do anything like that.

Am I wrong ?

Wouter

Hi Wouter

“1- What do windsurfer do when the wind changes in strength?”

They use to have to change sails every 6 mph or so…now you can go out with a top quality sail and hold it down in wind that would have required 3 or 4 sail changes 15 years ago.

“-2- How many suit of sails do windsurfers have to be able to sail whenever they want ?”
I use to have an 8.0/7.0/5.7/5.0/4.5/4.0/3.5/3.0 in the late 80’s that would let me sail from 5mph to 40 mph winds. But the 5.7-3.0 were for surf sailing…where it is much more important to be dialed in with the perfect size. Back then just for recreational flat water it would be more like 8.0 6.0 4.5 Today you could easily hold down a good race 8.0 from drifting conditions to well over 25 MPH wind on flat water and the proper board. Basically all the conditions that catamarans are regularly sailed in.

The cut of the sails and the way they have tweaked and tweaked the sails and sail mast interaction is just amazing.

3- How well does a windsurfer transition from pure upwind work to downwind with high vmg ?

That’s a function of the board shape (rocker/bottom shape/rails) and fin being used as well as the sail itself. Dead down wind is not its fastest point of sail but sailing powered up on a deep broad reach will get you downwind at break neck speeds for sure.

“Sailboat rigs can sometimes have amazing flexibility in flying shapes produced by adjusting a few control lines while racing on the water. I haven't seen surf board rigs do anything like that.”

My Friend Mike Gephardt three…(or was it four?) time Olympic sailboard campaigner (one silver, one bronze) has had adjustable outhaul and downhaul on some of his race boards that I have seen to address just the things you are proposing…

Please don’t take my enthusiasm for windsurfing as a knock on catamaran sailing…I love them both…it just that windsurfers has been so much more open to new development than boat sailors. So to have a chance to take what I feel is a vastly more developed rig and apply it to a catamaran gets me all excited.

One lesson that windsurfing surfing seemed to grasp right away it that everything is interdependent…and although that sail design might not have worked last year, it works great this year because the board is been refined to capitalize on the sails strength or the fins improved which allowed the sails to be cut flatter and still have the power to plan out quick…or that setting on a softer constant curve carbon mast allow the sail to breath with every puff but reset to its static shape much more quickly. Large square head sails with tons of downhaul that allowed sails to triple there designed wind range. Its not that Cat sailors are unaware of this, it just that the windsurfing community has put more a lot more energy into R&D . Every variable affecting every piece of gear was/is on the fast track so that it just keeps getting better and better at an accelerated pace.

On the other hand most Cat sailors seem to put “protecting their investment” over any desire to propel the sport to the next performance level. Every possible improvement is seen as a threat of making their cat obsolete.

Shake loose some of the cobwebs and fire up some cat sailors to consider something beyond the status quo…LOL..push the limits till they squeal like little girls. I can’t wait to see were we end up.

Best Regards,
Bob

That is a very true observation in my opinion. The cost of cats is much higher than windsurfing, so it is understandable tough. Balancing cost vs development is a very fine act of performing on a slack line, with entrepreneurs trying to find loopholes in the ruleset all the time. A different view on the same problem would be "do we want the sailor with most money to win, or the best sailor". The answer is usually trying to control development, so it happens slowly and in increments. Not in large jumps rendering lots of boats obsolete and uncompetitive. And what about spending money on the latest "hype", just to discover that it did not make you any faster <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
The C class is an example of an class which nearly have developed itself into extinction by not limiting their development over the years. Those rigid wings are drop dead sexy, but wildly impractical for club racing.

I'm not ruling out windsurf rigs and that has been my personal opinion from the beginning.

As the situation stands a windsurf rig can be fitted to the F12. I see no need to forbid it.

Still the designing I've done so far does not enclose optimizing a windsurf style rig. The reasons for this decision are as follows :



-1- Cost limitations

A class 5 mast can be homebuild by an absolute amatuer.


-2- Sail efficiency.

A sailboat rig at this time can have a significantly higher aspect ratio then the windsurf rig.

I'm not sure that the current lower aspect surfer sails can easily be scaled up while retaining their excellent behavior.


-3- A cat is significantly different from a surfboard

In my experience a catamaran has a much lower need for gust response then both skiffs and sailboards. Having the sail respond to a gust while it is not necessary means losing performance. At this time I feel a more conventional catamaran rig is more suited to getting optimal performance over the full range of conditions from light to strong. It not about holding a sail down in all conditions, it is also about getting maximal performance in all of these conditions.


-4- Windsurf sails don't really have a mainsheet system that affects the leech tension.

In affect with a more conventional rig you have one extra tuning control. With f12 you have two more as the traveller setup can be set to windward (something normal cat traveller systems can't do).


-5- I'm personally not experienced in windsurfer sails.

I understand catamaran sails to a large extend and surf sails to a much lesser extend. In effect I do what I know best. Maybe somebody else needs to do the design work involved with F12 windsurfer sails ?



But again these are not reason why the surf rig is disguarded (it is not), they are only reasons why I'm not developping it further as opposed to the class 5 landyacht based rig.

But if anybody else wants to spend some time on this I'll be very interested to hear the results.

Wouter

I am trying to persuade a windsurfing school and a holiday company to test my current boat, which has a biplane windsurfing rig setup, both these companies have experienced dinghy and windsurfing sailors on their staff. The feedback should also apply to F12 windsurfing rig setup. I am hoping to get a better understanding of which sails work best. I will share the results with group.

Gareth

That'll be great thanks.

Wouter