Nationals

[MikeDay]

In the spirit of this website discussion, I'd go for experimenting with three full length battens on a conventional rig - which seems to be in the tradition of the 12s (taking further the loose foot and full length top batten changes of years ago) while I would not welcome, after all my recent expense, rotating masts which would seem to take us nowhere.

Mike D
N3496 (hopefully will be legal after measuring tomorrow)

[John Meadowcroft]

If we are going to solve a 'problem' lets solve one that maybe exists!

I would suggest that building sails out of 'modern' materials compared to dacron has some longetivity risks that we should address.  As sails get older creases appear from the clew towards the inboard end of the bottom batten.  This gets worse and worse.  

In the photo at the top of this page you can see the crease starting to develop on the white and blue boats sailing off on port tack.  You can also see another couple of examples in the centre spread of the 2004 annual newsletter in the photos at the top of each page (yes one of them is my boat, so there is a vested interest).  Another example on page 52!

I think that the problem could be eliminated and the sail last longer by

- considering the current restrictions on the number of batten and/or batten lengths
- consider changing cross height measurement limits on the sails

I would not advocate changing the overall area but redistributing it, maybe an extra batten.  As a starting point take 200mm off the bottom measurements and redistribute.

I do not believe that this would attract people to our class, but sail life is very important to everyone in the Class so we should consider.  Rule changes should however not be externally focussed, they should be primarily good for the people who are around today.  The sail measurement calculations were last considered before the advent of the modern rigs we have today.  I think that this would be a decent opportunity to allow some new ideas into the rigs based on the existing spars.  Were I to be sailing enough to justify it, I would ask for a dispensation.  

A potential rule change caused by other popular developments that have happened, rather than a rule change which might give rise to unpopular developments.

Probably needs a response from a sailmaker......  Kevan, Tom ?

John Meadowcroft
N3473

[tedcordall]

Can you not keep the 8 sq m of sail based on the main and jib triangles and say anything else is free? Have all the roach you can eat and as many battens for pudding!

After a couple of years the optimum shape would evolve (which I suspect would not be radically different, just a bit roachier) and the 12 would look a bit different and be a bit quicker in certain wind strengths (and probably a bit slower in others) and you could all go back to worrying about wingmasts.

Ted
No N as yet.

PS this is a lot more interesting than the Wanderer website where they are agonising about allowing centre mains and slot gaskets!

[Tim L (Guest)]

[quote by=James_McC link=Blah.cgi?b=Cool,m=1114709070,s=43 date=1116011401]

I would suggest taking a look at the high performance catamaran scene - they are not uncommon with the fast classes.

[/quote]

Good point James, I did think of that after I posted the last bit but I think it further indicates you probably only get a significant benefit from a wingmasts efficiency if you're moving pretty fast in the first place!  Also many of the cat classes still have ally wingmasts which maybe suggest that engineering in carbon is still rather expensive??

Another thing that makes wingmasts nonsensical is that we'd essentially be writing off our perfectly good (and not cheap) carbon rigs.  Despite being 'old fashioned' according to Mr C and Mr Knight they are still too futuristic for most other dinghy classes so there wouldn't be any secondhand market for them.  Might make a nice garden ornament I guess but a rather expensive one...

Fully battened rigs would make much more sense for most of the reasons already covered in other posts, definitely a more positive avenue and more in keeping with past 'rule change' development in the class (i.e. taking on good tried and tested ideas while not changing the racing unduly - e.g. adoption of 4 plankers came after the advent of many similarly produced ODs in the 60s).  While there are possible handling issues with moving area higher on the rig I suspect it would actually affect the perception of the class in a positive way, marking us out from the more traditional rigs of grads, fireflies and ents?  And with sails being 'perishables' as it were, the trickledown of secondhand kit would make the change accessible to those on more limited budgets much more quickly than wingmasts ever would.

T
N3497

[Graham Iles]

As the first person to mention battens although it wasn't to suggest changing the rules I thought I'd make a second set of comments.

Re Meds message, as Dad is at Derwent I'll say it first the sails on his boat in the 2004 newsletter were less than a month old when that photo was taken, I think they were measured that weekend. Since the creases Med's describes seem to be a problem pretty much from the first time we pull up the sails does this suggest that we've developed sails that aren't well supported by our current battens. Again I'd like to hear a sailmakers pov on this one

I'm not a big enough anorack to know when we last examined the batten rules but even in relitively short time I've owned a 12 I've noticed that sails have changed shape, so again maybe the batten rules need adjusting.

Whilst thinking about fully battened sails, why do boats with fully battened sails seem to have more batterns anyway? ??)

What happened to the fully battened main that Kevan made in the early/mid 90s?

Finally, it won't just be kids that are less scared about getting into the boat on a windy day.

Right thats it from me, better go do some revision

cheerio
Graham

[tim knight (Guest)]

Yes to fully batten masts

I also had the extra crease with my new sails though Tom Stewart says its due to trying to squeeze too much area in.


Personal stuff
Unless im not mistaken I did not count 70 boats at Burton week 'Mr L'

I also only referred to 12s in my writing as modern 'Mr L' and did not make derogatory remarks.

Please check your facts before making caustic comments. I own and sail both a 12 and a Tasar. I feel able to add to a conversation about rotating rigs based on real experience not personal bias.

Yes the Tasar is a very out of date looking hull and rig, hence the new rig  currently being trialled.
But check out the longevity, yardstick and hull weight. Mine carries 4.5 kg of lead to make a racing weight of 64kg. (oh and its 27years old). The light hull weight makes a crew weight rule essential.

Did I say 12 sailors shouldn't sail with children? Were you at Burton week last year?

My 9 year old daughter weighs in at 21 kg and will be sailing with me at Abersoch, if the forecast is light. I think this family aspect of 12 sailing i have witnessed at previous Burton weeks is one of the attractions..... don't you?


Classes need to look at each other to see what is happening the other side of the fence and cherry pick the good bits.


Stop being so defensive. 12s are unlikely to grow at the expense of Tasars and vice versa.

Lets keep it friendly and move forward. I hope someone puts up a fully battened proposal


Tim Knight
Bouncing Ben

[Graham Iles]

Fully battened masts?! Mines quite stiff enough as it is, i suppose it is one way of stiffining a floppy mast.
 
Always can rely on Tim to think out the box.

Graham

[JimC (Guest)]

[quote by=tim knight (Guest) link=Blah.cgi?b=Cool,m=1114709070,s=50 date=1116232073]
 I hope someone puts up a fully battened proposal
[/quote]
Just for interest (maybe)this is approximately based on my recent NZ made Cherub rig, but scaled to approximately 8m2. (and the jib made a bit shorter in the foot as seems to be your norm). Its also not unlike a NS14 rig, so its not impossible that an unrestricted N12 rig would go in that sort of direction.

 

[Sore head (Guest)]

[tedcordall]

Have a look at the RS700 sails (www.rssailing.com/fleets.asp?fleet=RS700). They aren't as radical as the image above and in fact are quite similar in shape to your current sails. Because they have 3/4 battens they don't flap in the wind but have a soft enough luff to allow you to do just that - luff. It makes them a joy to sail (badly in my case!).

Light wind sailing is so much harder with fully battened sails (bad workman etc) and sitting quietly on the start line is also difficult because the sail keeps generating lift even when you dump the sheet.

TC

[tim knight (Guest)]

correction

fully battened sails.

oops out of box or  out of tree....

as many or as few battens as you like might be a good idea, ie proposed deletion of the rule rather than ammend it


Tim

[John Meadowcroft]

Quick reply!

I would not support fully battened right now.  Too much change.  Would support an experiment / dispensation regarding the rig, but would more strongly support a minor rig change rather than a major rig change.  We should be clear that change will not generally attract more people to the class than it will deter within it.  If we want more numbers on the water then we should continue to concentrate on what we know we are good at rather than taking punts so that we hope we end up somewhere that we might like to be.  Changes that support the value of secondhand boats are good as they inspire confidence.

john
n3473

[david greening (Guest)]

This thread is following a philosophical arguement that has embroiled the class throughout its life.

Removal of the batten rule would no doubt promote some rig development, but I suspect it would polarise to softer rigs for inland and fully battened rigs for Burton Week, I don't see that this would be good for the class, since inland sailors won't want to fork out for a rig that is only useful for Burton Week, therefore they won't turn up.

This is not a disimilar arguement to the D*****board debate, where although I know that our boats would be much better on the sea with daggerboards, we have to accept that some of the apeal would be lost at Henley or Trent Valley.

I wonder if changing the description of the class to a Development Class in the 70's has done the class a disservice, it has given the impression that the class promotes development, whilst the reality is that many of us would prefer the tighter constraints of a Restricted Class.  It is interesting that the Merlins seem to be quite successful at a club level because of the relative competitiveness of older boats.

Regards,

David
3461

[patrickgaunt]

Contributing from a position of relative ignorance:

I would have thought that any improvement to the aerodynamics which reduced drag without reducing lift would make the boat faster AND easier to sail.

Has anyone tried putting a turbulator on the front of a N12 mast?  Something like a strip of tape with golf ball type texture could only improve things (though possibly by an un-measurable amount).

Having a diamond arrangement for the spreaders which can rotate around the mast (a bit) might have some potential.

[Graham Iles]

Can anyone explain why a soft sail would be better inland than a fully battened one. Surely the effects of having a fully battened main would be the same on the sea and inland?

I'm struggling to see how it relates to the DB debate - its been a very long time since I've seen anyone with their mast pointing the right way up sail their rig into anything. It's much more common to see a centerboard sailed into something.

Meds, can I push you for a slightly longer reply - since it was you who pointed out an existing problem and suggested we solve it. As you've said you wouldn't support the most obvious solution to the problem. What would be your suggestion for a "minor" rig change?

Surely any rule change would immediately mean new mainsails for those at the front of the fleet, because its fairly pointless unless it makes the boats faster, cheaper or longer lasting. In this case the two will probably go hand in hand. Even in the middle of the fleet new sails come every few years and surely fully battened sails would mean these guys buy sails less often too.

Only possible problem is the cost of the sails, do fully battened sails cost more than our current ones? Since a RS200 main is cheaper than a 12 one at the moment I don't see the difference being much.

It's true club sailors probably won't bother but then most can't keep up with the open meeting people anyway, so would it really make any difference?

I'm not sure a change would have much effect on 2nd hand boat prices in the medium term -  the change would take a lot less time to reach second hand boats than allowing double bottoms did. It may even promote growth in the area of the fleet who can't afford new sails with a mass dump of good condition second hand mains around.

If only I had that many thoughts about my degree I'd probably get a much higher mark. Never mind time to carry on. Hey its only brain science...

Yours,
Confused of Cardiff