The only logical decision

Notice from the IMCA President regarding wingsails

Dear IMCA Members,

Thank you for the prompt responses to your own national Presidents on the vote to amend the 2011 World Championships NOR and thus allow wingsails to be measured and compete; or not to amend the NOR.

The Presidents of all national associations have responded with the vote being 30 in favour of option 1 and 6 in favour of option 2.

We will therefore be proceeding with issuing an amendment to the NOR under the guidance of and with approval from ISAF. Chief Measurer Adam May is currently working with ISAF on the final text and I expect this to be released shortly.

Mark Robinson

President

International Moth Class Association

Coach Matt

Matt Knowles has a new blog that hasn't found itself on Doug's IMCA BlogRoll yet so I thought I'd post a link.  Some neat pics of the wings and of Matt's coach boat.

http://knowlesmoth.blogspot.com/2010/12/arrived.html

Also, the report from Chris Rast, including a somewhat skewed video of Bora on the water.

http://fasterandhigher.blogspot.com/

Lastly, a link to Bear's ride onboard Ichi Ban in the Sydney-Hobart race:

http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/yacht_details.asp?raceEntryID=12526

Go team USA!

Travel costs

The "travel box" rule, i.e., requiring all rigs (including mast, sail, boom, wing sails etc) to be able to be dismantled and packed away in a box of similar dimensions to the current hull travel boxes seems to be a proposal specifically aimed at barring the current generation of solid sails. But it also bars one piece masts (which can't fit into a hull box) and one piece foils (the older Fastacraft foils) which require a separate box for shipping. The rationale could only be one that correlates the cost of travel with the size of the equipment. But that seems to me to be a non-starter. The cost to ship my boat to Weymouth and back (to the east coast of the US) was over $4500 and that was piggy backing on Bora's and Bear's group deal with Seko. And that was with a two piece mast and separable foils.

No, those wanting to travel to international events will always have to bite the bullet with respect to costs. If you're relying on shipping firms, be it trucking companies, air freight, or even shipboard containers, you are at the mercy of their timetables, security requirements and rates. I found it interesting in trying to become vetted as a non-terrorist to enable me to ship my boat even within the US (I trucked Try-Foil to Portland and back for the Gorge worlds.) Overseas airfreight was even more problematic in 2008. I could not ship my boat to England without going through the Newport Hood sailloft, a connection I got through George Peet.

On a related note, I notice from Alan's recent post that the Belmont PRO is Peter Moor. I wonder if it's the same Peter Moor that participated in the '76 Ware River Worlds.  That Peter Moor was the reigning Australian Champion at the time and finished 2nd in the '76 worlds in a borrowed skiff (he did use his own rig.) Why didn't he bring his scow (which also can't fit into a current hull travel box)? No doubtedly because of travel costs.

Peter Moor sailing at Ware River in 1976 in a skiff (I think it was a Poacher or a Stockholm Sprite) that he borowed from Ted Causey, the eventual winner. Note Moor even bolted a tube extension onto the box wings to make the beam the full 7'4".

Another trip around the sun

A re-run from a couple of years ago:

But with wings, water, seafood, and bike riding, the video seems to fit. And, yes, I ratcheted up my age on my profile on the Yahoo! Groups site by one more notch.

So to celebrate my 215th post and my 56th year I'll crank up Jimmy B. and have another cold one.

Again, from Buffett's album License to Chill (2004).



Trip around the Sun, lyrics by Sharon Vaughn, Al Anderson, and Stephen Bruton
Sung by Jimmy Buffett (with Martina McBride)

Hear 'em singing Happy Birthday
Better think about the wish I made
This year gone by ain't been a piece of cake
Every day's a revolution
Pull it together and it comes undone
Just one more candle and a trip around the sun

Chorus:
I'm just hanging on while this old world keeps spinning
And it's good to know it's out of my control
If there's one thing that I've learned from all this living
Is that it wouldn't change a thing if I let go

No, you never see it coming
Always wind up wondering where it went
Only time will tell if it was time well spent
It's another revelation
Celebrating what I should have done
With these souvenirs of my trip around the sun

(Chorus)

Yes, I'll make a resolution

That I'll never make another one
Just enjoy this ride on my trip around the sun
Just enjoy this ride ...
Until it's done

Wither the Wing?

Bruce turned off the comments in his latest post showing Bora winging it Down Under. So even if you can't comment on Burce's Teknologika blog, feel free to add in here.   I do note the aft section seems a bit ragged. Maybe it's the way the light is reflected, but perhaps the film itself has gone slack.  Of course, Bora maybe sandbagging it and trying to get the most out of a subpar surface, only to pull out a fresh wing in time for the races.

At any rate whatever heat he's generating would be much more comfortable than what's happening back home -- Detroit is getting ready to be hit with a big winter storm tomorrow. I would think that weathering the coming storm of wing legality would be a whole lot more fun than shoveling snow and ice half way around the world.

Obvious Poll needed

Cookie's statement of "I have yet to speak to someone who thinks they are good for the future of the class" begs to be addressed in some sort of poll. So, the question is thrown out to the readers (certainly not scientific, but intriguing none the less.) Only two choices:

(1) I think wings are good for the future of the class.
(2) I think wings are not good for the future of the class.

Cast your vote!

Gantry thoughts

Following John's HHPDO report of his gantry failure (and the subsequent pix posted carnage album) and after reading Dave's thoughts on pre-designing a gantry failure point:

             "So how can I design a design failure location into my         gantry? Add a Shear pin to would release the bottom gudgeon at the pin? The strut and cassette assembly would fly up. 8^( Would this still break nearly everything? Add a SS pivot at the top? Release the bottom gudgeon at the stern? The whole gantry would fly up......."

...and re-reading Dan's report on two exploding gantries at the Gorge, I thought I'd chime in on my experience and observations.  When I built my first rudder system I was following Bill's lead with his added admonition to beef up the cassette since he had experienced the rudder ripping out the back wall of his cassette. My resulting system was successful in that in occurred no failures (even at the heavy air of the Weymouth Worlds.) The pictures below and to the right was taken in the spring of '08 during the second or third time out. Obviously the boat is flying fine, albeit a little low. This was with both the mainfoil and rudder foil as non-production elements, built by me with lots of assistance from Gui and Bill (using their molds and employing their expertise on laminate schedules, etc.)

Clicking on the image above will bring up the original image size and the gantry can be seen more clearly. This gantry and rudder have since retired to the spare parts bin.

During the winter of '08/'09 I re-designed the rudder system to lose some of the mass and play (no cassette, just a vertical with gudgeons), incorporate an improved worm gear, and to feature a forward cant angle similar to the M2's geometry. I built a new strut using John Z.'s skinny vertical section (the low drag winner in Bill's tank tests) and fitted a much smaller Beiker-designed/Bora-built horizontal (that I got just a few days before packing up for the '09 Worlds.) The horizontal and vertical sections seem to work well, and in fact the horizontal is near the size that's currently in vogue - the span is only 775mm, approaching that of the new M2 "small rudder." So with an improved adjustment system and a new, but not tested rudder and gantry, I went to the Worlds in Oregon. Unfortunately, the gantry decided to come apart not once, but twice. The culprit was the G10 plugs I inserted into the tube structure. Either due to poor surface preparation or insufficient contact area, or both, one of the inserts came out (probably the lower tension member) and caused a cascade of failures. Adam snapped a pic of me swimming back in and I commented about the fiasco in this post.

I did repair the gantry and sailed the rest of the season with the "agricultural" - thanks Bear- setup without incident. This spring, in preparation for the NAs I decided to replace the gantry with a third version, keeping the geometry but losing the massive turnbuckle, the fairing (which never seemed to work as well as I hoped), and incorporating a different pin adjustment system as suggested by Phil Stevenson in this post. The tiller and swivel system was completed and works way better than the old set-up, but I wasn't quite able to finish the gantry. Nevertheless, the rudder system was in the best shape since the boat was built. So, of course this season's failure wasn't the rudder but the mainfoil, occurring during the first race of the NA series (why didn't it happen during the almost four weeks of daily practice leading up to the trip to Harbor Springs?)

At any rate, the third gantry is just about complete. The geometry has a slightly wider top base, with the top attachments fitting around some beefed up G10 tangs instead of employing any inserts. The lower tension member has just a threaded barrel that accepts the male clevis for gross adjustment. The female barrel is embedded such that it can't come out. I've retained the triangulation joints and I believe that they are way beefier than required. The bushings for the 1/4" ss rod are made of 1.25" long delrin, turned so that they require a press fit into the vertical tube (and definitely not capable of vibrating out.)

So what do I think would happen if I ran aground at speed? My rudder vertical is about a long as the mainfoil strut so any forces should be taken by the mainfoil and centerboard well. If for some reason I hit a log that missed the mainfoil I would expect the boat to stop suddenly and damage would be taken by either the lower gudgeon on the rudder (it happened once at the Gorge on the 2nd to last day) or to the aluminum plate on the hull, perhaps ripping out through the transom (unlikely.)  The point of this whole post is that I think one should not design a failure point, but just build the whole kit and kaboddle sufficiently strong so it won't break. Wishful thinking, I know, but why anticipate failure when anticipating a perfect build is so much more rewarding?