Messages

I always wondered what Jane did behind my back to ensure our gybes are so elegant!

On the rake front, both Jane and Mike are correct. Once the breeze gets up so we are fully hiking and beginning to get over powered, we start to increase rig tension via the shrouds to put a little more bend in the mast and flatten the sail to depower it. As the wind increases, so we use even more shroud tension and begin to ease the jib halyard bringing the top of the mast progressively further aft. In survival conditions the boom can get a little difficult for the helm to get under whilst tacking and this is probably about one-third or less halyard easing, two-thirds or more additional shroud tension. At its extreme, the mainsail can be almost completely bladed.

Kevin Iles
N3491 - still for sale at a very modest price!

Moderate winds forecast for the weekend, let's hope it stays balmy too.

Kevin

Will be there also. Lesley has managed to coax Peter Miatt out of his between Norfolk Week hibernation so they will be there too.

Kevin

That was not the original intention Philip, but it is looking increasingly likely that is what will happen.

Can deliver N3491 to Scaling Dam next weekend if there are any potential buyers in the north out there.

Kevin

Rick, if you want to wear hikers then I for one will defend your right to do so to the death.

The class is (in case you have not already cottoned on to this) full of individuals with different ideas of what is fast and what is slow, what is pretty and what is not, what is acceptable and what is unacceptable, etc, etc. I don't know whether hikers are fast or not, and not having seen you I don't know if they are pretty or not, but so long as they hide your modesty I cannot see them being deemed unacceptable.

For my part, I have an important modification to make to my boat before the Inlands and that is to replace the mirror on the boom. To the best of my knowlege, no-one else has this on their boat but it will be on mine. In my opinion, it has no impact on boat speed, is not especially pretty but not ugly either and is not unacceptable.

Kevin

These are now available on the web-site in the usual place or accessable by following this link: http://www.national12.org/events/2006/GillSeries/results.shtml

Write-up on its way in the next day or so.

Kevin

Kean,

Yes, I was there and Yes, we do have to wait for Mr Camm to reappear.

Kevin

We have the contact details. Have emailed separately.

Kevin

Back to the top. It's this weekend and quite a few people in addition to those who have posted here have told me they are going along.

Should be a great event. Forecast looks good, moderate breezes predicted.

Kevin

I think the last few posts of this topic are spot on the important points for consideration and my thoughts are these:

Stiffness depends partly on how the hull is built and what it is built from from. For instance of my two boats 3373 is built to the old rules but even today  is considerably stiffer and more bump resistant than 3491. 3373 has kevlar as well as carbon in the lay up which I believe may partially account for this. She also has a floor (single bottom) about an inch thick. Even though she has wooden decks, thwart and centreboard case capping she still carries about 10kg of correctors.

Side decks, in my humble opinion, are generally too narrow today. As well as allowing more water into the boat when roll tacking this makes them less comfortable for sitting out on in a breeze, which in turn makes it harder to sit out for long periods. 3373 is easily the most comfortable N12 I have ever sailed and when we commissioned 3491 Jane & I had Mike copy the decks from 3373. I have to say he did a pretty decent job of that so 3491 is the next most comfortable 12 I have sailed.

Draining water from the boat underway seems to be about the same whether in a single or double bottom. In a breeze it goes out the back or down the bailers at about the same rate. In light weather it sits at the front until the crew weight is moved back or it is bailed by hand as applicable. I do not subscribe to the idea that self bailers add meaningful drag, in fact when they suck air there is a longstanding argument that they reduce drag. The only difference is in a capsize when the self draining attributes of a double bottom mean that it empties far quicker. However, as plenty of people have pointed out, this can be a problem if the water goes out too quickly (i.e. before the crew is back in the boat, has everything untangled and is sailing again) since the boat can become unstable and assume the horizontal position again.

At the end of the day if the rig is kept above the hull, the underwater shape is right and the boat is well sailed it will win regardless of buoyancy arrangements. I think semi-self draining (like the original Big Issue or RS200) is right and have said so for a long time. (Could this be a significant factor in why the RS200 has outsold the 12 recently? Oops, that's another topic).

Kevin
N3491 - for sale

This message is intended for anyone one who missed the postings in the summer and did not read their Ratchet. The meeting was moved to July in order to avoid the clash with Bim's wedding which would have reduced the turnout to something uneconomic for the club to run.

Kevin

I think Meds actually meant to say there is a maximum batten length.

Kevin

I will be there. Not sure about the front end as only got back from holiday last night and haven't tried anyone yet.

Kevin Iles
N3491 - also for sale

I have emailed the webmaster for you to let him know the link is down. Unfortunately he is at Burton Week at the moment so you may have to wait a week or so before it gets rememdied. If you have any specific questions, why not post them here? I am sure there are plenty of others stuck in offices who would help out whilst the really fast boys are fighting it out.

Kevin