N3444 Trick Cyclist

[National 12 Webmaster]

The life of N3444 Trick Cyclist. Design: Feeling Foolish, designed by: Bim Daser in 1995

[JohnMurrell]

Having spent the previous 2 winters 'doing Twelves' - 3396 and 3435, I decided to do it again! Derek had moved to France and his Foolish loulds were stored in my factory in Plymouth. So logically they had to go to Linton for another boat to be built from! This time I had the opportunity to have a boat built exactly the way I wanted and worked with Linton through the process.

The outer skin of the hull is carbon, the inner skin is C glass with a carbon layer where the stress goes as can be seen fron the pics. Originally the mast was deck stepped as it was hoped that we could get a dispensation to experiment with a 'wing mast'. When this wasn't allowed we went back to a d/floor stepped one. As with 3435 the decks are Sapele with sycamore gunwhales.

Trick Cyclist is apparently the nickname that pschologists call themselves, and at the time I needed that sort of help - I still owned 3396 and 3435............................................

[Jeremy C]

[JohnMurrell]

Jemery,

What ever you do - do NOT remove the glass!

After a couple of years sailing we discovered that the batch of Sapele used for the decks was suspect and that the top laminate was extremely thin, so much so that it was actually cracking. This wasn't an uncommon problem at the time and was down to an almost impossible supply situation with Sapele.

After much discussion with the suppliers, Robbins if I remember correctly, it was decided that we use a very light weight cloth, 40gm2 from memory and lay it in using 2 pot Epithanes varnish instead of resin. It worked extremely well and when first applied could hardly be seen. I suspect that with a good flat back with wet and dry and a couple of coats of Epithanes the original appearence will reappear.

What ever, give me a call if you want any more history on TC, the numbers in the handbook.

John

[Jeremy C]

still loving TC and going strong at BSC