Fun times. Bill had his camera, but his hands were full keeping the Whaler
afloat so no pics. I guess it didn't happen.
November 30, 2006
I apologize for the silence. We haven't stopped development, we are just
keeping our heads down and trying to refine the design more. In order to
avoid some typing, I have just copied the following from a post I put on
Sailing Anarchy today.
I have got my Hoot set up with about 1.5" more downhaul which really alters
the shape of the sail. But I haven't found the day and wind (15+) to test
it. I know what Bob is talking about with it being slower than it should
be upwind in wind with bumps.
After talking with a real expert (Bill Hansen) about the shape we decided
that the thing to try was putting more shape up top and trying more downhaul.
Perhaps windsurfer lessons have nothing to do with dinghies -- but perhaps
they do. In windsurfers, if you are underdownhauled, you are dead slow.
If you are overdownhauled, you pay a small penalty. So that leads me to
wonder whether I am essentially underdownhauled all the time -- looking
for that pretty dinghy sail shape.
Chris is also trying a new sail that is a radical departure. Sigh. The
man never rests. He is actually going to try a -- I am having trouble even
writing this -- a sail track and halyard. And he's talking about spreaders.
Of course, he's also up there building a new rules IC, so spreaders and
sailtracks don't look like complex to him. But if the boat feels like its
jet-propelled with the new rig, we'll do it. I just don't have too much
faith here. The other development track we're pursuing is molding the wing
tanks straight into the wings. We have been having chronic problems with
the wing tanks cracking and leaking. That's because they are the first thing
to hit the dock when you land.
October 15, 2006
I'm a little slow on the updates here. My apologies. We repaired the bow
on both of the boats a couple of weeks ago. The bow on my boat we repaired
by inserting a large block of G10 into the bow and then just screwing into
it.
This is not a production repair, but one that we are confident will hold
for the demo boat. On Bob's boat, we scratched our heads for a while and
then an idea sparked. We wanted to get the fitting off the very bow where
it is likely to get damaged as it is run into docks and move it back. However,
the middle of the deck isn't a great spot for strength, but the edges are.
So we wound up splitting the forestay and running it down through a couple
of blocks attached through the deck edge. This should be plenty strong.
If this works as well as we think it will, we are considering going to some
sort of an aluminum "handle" that will span the foredeck and take
a single block in the middle.
We are also going to play with the sail shape a bit more. If the new shape
proves to be substantially faster (and easier to rig) then I will have nine
or ten perfect condition Hoot sails up for grabs...
September 25, 2006
Bad weekend for the Hoot. Bob sailed his boat in the Richmond
Yacht Club Totally Dinghy races this weekend and I loaned my boat out to
whoever wanted to sail. On Saturday, the headstay fitting pulled out of
my boat leaving Matt Noble to pull the pieces together and get it back to
shore. On Sunday, the forestay on Bob's boat ripped out the front few inches
of the deck.
So a huge apology and thank you to Bob and Matt. It looks like we still
have some further testing to do before we start serious production. We'll
fix Bob's boat and give him a new hull if he wants.
September 5, 2006
Yesterday (Labor Day) was an absolutely great day for sailing Hoots. Bob,
Allison and I met at the launch ramp to take Bob's boat for its first sail
and play around with the demo boat. It was sunny, 70 degrees and blowing
8-10. Just a nice, fun day to be messing around in Hoots.
We learned a little bit about boat speed. As Bob put it, the boat wants
to be balanced fore and aft on the daggerboard. For me at 180 lbs, that
means being all the way forward on the wing when I'm sailing upwind. For
Allison, that meant being about a foot back of the forward end of the wing.
What we really learned was that it is just great fun to have two of these
on the water. The acceleration is so fast that we were able to just play
around. Racing a fleet of these should be a blast as the speed potential
is so great -- for anyone -- that place changes should occur relatively
frequently. A blown jibe or tack can just stop you, while hitting the right
angle on a reach can pay huge dividends.
Some pictures of the fun:
Bob demonstrating his mastery of the boat.
Doug and Bob going upwind.
Allison and Bob hiking.
August 28, 2006
Back in the Bay Area after a hectic August, we're ready to start demoing
the Hoot again. Send me an e-mail if you want to try the Hoot.
Chris and I also spent a day last week lining up two Hoots to figure out
what was fast. The three questions we had were; sail twist, reaching vs.
running and footing vs. pointing. In the generally 6-10 knots we had it
looked like twist was really good in waves and marginally slower in the
flat. Running beat out reaching, but not by much. A really skilled sailor
(Nige) might make that work out. And pointing was better than footing to
windward. Although it seemed like there was a transition point around 10
knots where footing off 5 degrees was really fast. Still more to learn.
August 15, 2006
Today was a great day. We delivered the first production Hoot to Bob Hyde.
As people who read SailingAnarchy are aware, Bob is a local (SF Bay) sailor
who has experience with a wide range of boats -- most recently an I14. This
isn't likely to be his only ride.
The Hoot fits really nicely onto his racks and the wings slid into the
back. The bed on his pickup is a 6 foot bed -- which means that the wings
are in on an angle. As Bob noted, one of those swing-out tailgates would
have the wings lying down flat.
I am off at the first ever North American Open Water Rowing Championships
that we're sponsoring up in Seattle, so I won't be able to do demo sails
until the first weekend in September. But at that point I'll be back to
building a local fleet here in the SF Bay. I am really looking forward to
a great season of racing this winter!
July 23, 2006
Today was a really fun and informative day of demo sailing. We had a range
of sailors -- from Peter who's a good sailor but hasn't stepped in a dinghy
in 20 years to Nige who's a really good Moth sailor. In between we had Michael
who is a very good young Laser sailor and our friend Bob Hyde. The one thing
they all had in common was a wide grin when they got out of the boat.
First up was Peter. The wind was around 7 knots when he got in the boat.
Then he took a break for a bit and got back in the boat when it was more
like 11 knots. Peter got off a couple of really great reaches in 11 knots
and capized only once -- in my favorite way. You sheet in and accelerate
so fast that you drop off the transom.
Next up was Michael. It was instructive watching Michael adjust his technique
from Laser to Hoot. There were a couple of noticeable things: when the boat
starts to heel, you cannot simply hike harder to bring it flat, you have
to ease the sheet. Second, the boat doesn't pivot on a dime the way a Laser
does. You have to carve your turns a bit more. All in all, this is a guy
that bears watching, he's young, motivated and good.
Bob arrived at the docks while Nige and I were waiting in different places
for each other. When we figured out that Nige was likely over at the Richmond
Yacht Club, we buzzed over and got him. We then took the boat out into the
wind (15 kts) and waves (2 ft max) of the Berkeley Circle.
It was just plain fun to watch Nige handle this boat. He never had a problem
with it. He was tacking, jibing and accelerating like this was child's play.
I will let Nige speak for himself, but it looked like he had a really great
time. He was looking for a better tiller extension (long story, but it'll
change) and a strap mid-boom to give him something to hang onto during jibes.
He was also looking for the Moth-style lines led out to the wings. Those
aren't going to happen.
Here's Nige in the circle. Note how much twist he has here in the sail.
And then, just to see how it would be, Nige capsized the boat. Dry-rolled
it in fact.
Then Bob took over and went screaming through the Berkeley Circle for a
bit.
Bob did manage to blast himself with water hard enough to knock himself
off the back of the boat. This shot gives some idea.
Remarkably enough, it was so warm today that Bob didn't wear a wetsuit
and didn't miss it except for the knee protection when he was righting the
boat.
And lastly, a picture of the new boat that Chris has been developing. This
is a rough prototype. The mast is final, but the rest of the boat is a bit
rough...
July 22, 2006
I have been hearing that no one believes that we are a real company. So
here are some pictures of the inside of the shop. What you'll mostly see
are rowing shells as that is most of our business today. This is the rigging
area:
This is the lamination area.
There are other places, but this should quell any fears that we are building
in my garage. We are in this business for the long haul. It may take a while
to build the fleet, but we're going to do it (and have great fun along the
way.)
July 9, 2006
We had beautiful weather yesterday to demo the Hoot at Marina Bay in Richmond.
It was 75 degrees, sunny and blowing 7-10 knots. Three people turned out
-- and one very wisely decided that he was one wetsuit shy of jumping into
the boat. It is just great when I see a big strong guy decide that discretion
is the better part of valor.
The first sailor was Allison Green. Allison's experience with dinghies
ended some years ago with a pretty good showing in Sabots. At first she
was a bit frustrated with the boat as it not very forgiving. But after 45
minutes or so and a bit of coaching (the boat makes its own wind) she was
screaming along on reaches and tacking reliably. Her biggest issues were
handling the tiller extension (Bob Hyde is saying "Amen brother"
right now) and getting the camber-induced battens to pop through.
A closeup of Allison sailing.
And Allison bringing the boat back level:
The next sailor up was Brian Buchanan. Brian races JY15s with the Cal Sailing
Club and has some big boat experience, but his performance boat experience
was previously limited to a Laser. Brian's initial issues were stability
(no kidding) and how to deal with the hull steer. If you've never sailed
a tender boat with chines, the hull steer will be a bit overwhelming. However,
just like Allison, after 45 minutes and a bit of coaching he had the boat
scooting along.
Brian coming out of a tack
And Brian getting the boat going:
All in all it was great fun and I hope to meet more people.
Oh, and for those of you of the male persuasion, forget BMWs as chick-magnets.
We had a lovely and really nice woman join us in the Whaler just to watch
for a bit because the Hoot looks so cool.
June 18, 2006
Sailing Anarchist Bob Hyde and I took the Hoot over to the San Francisco
Speed Sailing event Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It was very odd weather
for the Bay in June. Clear, bright skies and winds generally in the 8-12
knot range. Great sailing weather, but not ideal for speed runs.
Thursday was a warm-up/practice day, then the event started for real on
Friday. Our best run was on Friday, later in the day when the chop was starting
to build. We averaged 14.71 mph in winds that were 8 - 10 knots.
I was very happy with that run as we're running faster than the
wind speed through some pretty serious chop.
Bob was the secret to our speed. He was sailing around on Friday trying
to figure out why the boat wasn't going as fast as he thought it should.
Finally he decided to try to make the sail look like a windsurfer rig. So
he cranked on a bit of downhaul and then really loosened up the vang --
and the boat took off. Twist seems to be very, very fast.
Hopefully I will be able to get some pictures of the Hoot from Michelle
Slade who was running the event. There were hordes of cameras floating around
and lots of video so there should be something we can use.
Saturday ended with some disappointment as the wind finally came up in
the late afternoon and the course got set and I broke a rudder stock (cassette).
This was one of the first batch and I'd been told that the alloy the casting
forge used was relatively poor quality. We might have hit something, but
it shouldn't have failed. The good news is that the new castings are about
ready and are of a much better quality material.
We figured out what happened with the wing delamination last week. It was
a manufacturing error in the way that the wing pods were glued onto the
wing surfaces. We had no problem with them after fixing the adhesive.
June 11, 2006
I sailed yesterday to shake the bugs out of a new pair of wings before
the SF Speed Sailing event. It didn't go so well. I'll figure out precisely
what happened, but the wings delaminated in about 10 minutes. Clearly a
manufacturing error. We'll have them fixed in time for the weekend.
I also put 16 telltales on the sail so we could really see how the wind
was flowing. Chris has been having trouble getting flow over the entire
sail in light air. I couldn't find any light air this weekend in the Bay
-- the best I could do was 10-15 kts. But the flow over the sail was perfect.
I am having a really hard time finding a place that can make the beefed
up wing tubes for me. So for the time being, we are putting some doublers
into the existing tubes. I am wondering whether I have to go offshore for
some of this stuff. I have found a truly great machine shop -- in New Bedford,
MA, A& R Machining, write me for contact info -- but I am continually
struggling with US vendors who simply don't respond or do so in a half-baked
way. That's enough whining for now.
June 7, 2006
Well the Jericho Classic was fun, but there was very little wind. The report
from Chris was that the wind got to 8 kts at one point before a race, but
the races were in 1-4 kts. It wasn't much of a test of anything.
However, it was great fun to see other skiffs show up. There was a Musto
a couple of Swifts and the Voodoo. The boats with kites are clearly faster
off the wind -- particularly in the light stuff -- but Chris managed to
sail respectably. He also passed along thanks to all the people who came
by to take a look at the boat. Many people really got the concept of Simply
Fast.
May 27, 2006
I also realized that I never put in a link to the article that Paul McHugh
of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote about us in the May 4 issue. It was
just great -- on the back page of the sports section.
Check
it out.
May 26, 2006
I'm a bit behind on the news at the moment. Mostly I've been busy making
a living.
Bob Hyde, a Sailing Anarchist sailed the boat two weeks ago and had a good
time. Bob was kind enough to post a lengthy review
on Sailing Anarchy. We had a really nice person come by and take some pictures
which they later sent to us. Thank you!
In this second shot, Bob is just coming out of a tack. You can see that
his technique is to face aft.
Then I went out today in what were probably the worst possible conditions
for the Hoot -- wind gusting between 5 and 30 knots with direction changes
of around 20 degrees. The gustiness was partly my fault -- I was too chicken
to go out far enough to get away from the buildings. However, I did feel
better when I was driving home and watched an Etchells motoring home with
half a mast.
I went out to get in a bit of practice before the San
Francisco Speed event. I know that I need some more practice in serious
wind. Here are my lessons from the day:
1) I need to do something different about the wheels when it is blowing
like that. It was impossible for me to wheel the boat into the water on
the existing wheels. Luckily a couple of people jogging by held the boat
down for me to get it down into the water. I am going out to the shop today
to figure out a collapsible dolly for those conditions.
2) After a capsize, you have to bring the boat back up and scramble in
quickly. If you do that, the boat is still moving slightly forward, the
tiller is on the centerline and you have some steerage. If you pause, the
boat starts backing, the tiller is off on the wrong side and you're in trouble
the moment you right the boat.
3) Raking the rig back worked really well. The bow stayed up and the boat
just screamed along. There was a lot of load on the rudder, but it wasn't
a big problem. I didn't get any speed readings as my GPS crapped out almost
the moment I hit the water.
4) Jibing was a matter of just fearlessly committing to the jibe and then,
as soon as the boom starts swinging across, you need to beat it to the other
side. Once again, any hesitation spelled doom. ("He who hesitates is
lost.")
5) When the wind is around 25 knots, you HAVE to keep the boat flat. If
the wind gets under the windward wing, you're over. I am going to try some
additional cutouts in the wing. I may not be able to put in enough cutouts
to make a difference because I need to keep the structural rigidity of the
wing.
6) When you are coming out of a jibe in 20 kts+, it is a really good idea
to come out of the jibe seated a couple of feet forward of the transom.
Otherwise, you stand a good chance of being dropped off the back by the
acceleration of the boat as you sheet in.
All in all, it was a pretty good day.
April 27, 2006
I realize that I am a bit behind on the news. We were at Strictly Sail
Pacific April 19-23 here in Oakland. It was really great to have so many
people come by that had heard about our boat. I wasn't really expecting
that much interest at the show -- I figured that most of the people would
be looking for new folding props or nifty little coolers for their cruising
boats. But we signed a lot of people up to take a demo sail of the Hoot.
Thanks to everyone who came by.
After the show, Chris headed back up to his place in the San Juans with
a mostly-completed boat. He will be racing in Seattle in the middle of May
(I can't recall the name of the regatta.) We're sending him up the sail
that we used at the show to complete the boat. He will be using wing tubes
that have some internal doublers. So the boat won't be final production,
but it should be quite close.
The biggest changes to Chris's boat are to the laminate schedule on the
wings. It is now much stiffer and has a great deal more strength out where
the wings attach to the wing tubes.
I finalized the design for the new section profile on the wing tubes and
sent it off to the extrusion house today. By calculation (always a rough
estimate) the change will add 1.5 lbs to each wing and double the stiffness
of the wing tubes. That doesn't translate into a boat that is twice as stiff,
but it certainly stiffens the boat.
My biggest worry with the flexing wing tubes (now that the shrouds are
out at the tip of the wing tubes) is that over time we'll get fatigue of
the metal. That is the biggest reason to beef up those sections.
The plan now is to put some doublers into a boat here in the SF Bay Area
so we can sail one locally. Sail the boat as fast as we can in the Speed
Sailing event June 15 - 18. And start giving demo sails. It's going to be
a really fun summer!
April 17, 2006
We rigged a boat with the shrouds running down to the very end of the forward
wing tubes and went sailing on Saturday in around 15-18 knots of wind. This
configuration worked really, really well. It reduced the loads on the shrouds
and put all of the flex into the wing tubes. The wing tubes now noticeably
flex under load, but it seems to work pretty well.
The next steps are to get some stiffer wing tube extrusions. It looks like
these will add around 4 lbs to each wing. The earlier boats will get the
existing (lighter) extrusion for the aft wing tubes as they don't get anything
like the strain of the forward wing tubes. It will likely take 6 weeks before
we get the beefed up extrusion samples to test -- so it's going to be at
least that long before we can actually deliver a boat to anyone.
If you look closely in the photo, you can see the stays (wire for this
test) run to the end of the forward wing tubes.
Chris is currently building himself a boat to take back up to his home
in the light airs of the Pacific Northwest. Those of you in Seattle may
see a bright green sail coming by.
On Wednesday we start showing the boat and talking to people at the Strictly
Sail Pacific Show. Come on down and have a look. We'll be there just dying
for people to come ogle our boat.
April 7, 2006
We spent yesterday afternoon seriously stressing a Hoot to see what might
be the weak points on the boat. We've learned a lot about where things flex.
The good news is that the hull seems to be rock solid. The flex is almost
entirely in the wings and the wing attachment to the hull.
We've also proven that 1/8th Amsteel is NOT going to work for the shrouds.
Under a high, but normal, sailing load, we were getting 3/4" of total
elongation in the windward shroud. Of that 1/2" seems to be stretch
and 1/4" seems to be creep. We would really like to avoid wire stays,
but I need to find a better material.
Testing will continue as we refine the design.
April 4, 2006
We are definitely postponing sales of the Hoot until we've thoroughly stress
tested and broken a boat. Chris is coming down next week and we've got a
plan to pull on the mast of a boat really, really hard and watch what happens.
We'll lose a boat in the process, but it's well worth it.
If the change needed to reinforce the wings is a small fix (a change in
the lamination schedule) then it will only delay us a couple of weeks. If
it is a bigger fix (a change in the extrusion die for the wing tube) it
will delay us a couple of months. We'll let you know as soon as we find
out more.
We've also got a couple of pictures of people other than the bald guy and
the chick sailing the boat. Here is Chris D showing his stuff:
And here is Jen righting the boat. I show this picture mostly because it
is likely to be the only time we get to see Jen in a capsized boat. She
is a really, really good sailor. (Kudos to Jen for winning the pursuit race
at the RYC on Saturday in her 29erXX.)
March 31, 2006
Today was the first demo day for the Hoot. It was blowing 15-20, raining
and cold. Not exactly the stuff we were hoping for. But we had half a dozen
people show up interested in trying the Hoot as well as the Musto Skiff
that had been brought along for demos.
The first demo was by Chad Freitas and my hat is off to Chad. He stepped
in the boat and showed us how it should be sailed. He was jibing the boat
like a master after about 20 minutes.
Second was Jen Morgan-Glass who only had a relatively short sail before
a wing failed.
The disappointing news to me is that we are not ready for commercial launch.
That wing should not have failed and, since I don't fully understand what
happened, I am not going to sell boats until the problem is really understood
and fixed. We also had a problem with the rudder stock that was sort of
expected. We've already got that fix under way. I am starting to feel like
the owner of a VOR boat...
We'll be back out tomorrow with a second boat. I really want to line the
Hoot up next to the Musto and the Voodoo (which is supposed to be down tomorrow.)
It's all good fun.
March 21, 2006:
The people at High Octane One Designs have chosen the Hoot as their featured
design for the month. Thanks Chad! Check his site out as he has ALL the
cool boats. www.ho1designs.com.
Also, we're going to be doing demo days out of Richmond (CA) on March 31
(Friday) and April 1 for the Hoot along with the Musto Skiff and the Voodoo
skiff. Send an email to demosail@gohoot.com
to let us know if you want to reserve a slot.
March 20, 2006:
We finally got a combination of a break in the weather and some time away
from the rest of our lives to go out sailing on Sunday. The sail started
off a bit scary as we had a Hoot with wings attached tied to the top of
the car. When we got the straps off, the wind caught the wings, the Hoot
rolled off the top of the car and landed upside down on the wings on the
concrete. We got a little ding in the hull where it rolled over the end
of the roof rack and we cracked a wing pod, but then we went sailing. Everything
else was okay. It was a beautiful day and Carla had fun chasing down a very
nice woman sailing a Byte.
We spent Saturday in the shop doing really final rigging. We are going
with as much Ronstan on the boat as we possibly can, but there are some
things we just have to go with other manufacturers as Ronstan simply doesn't
sell it. But all the big stuff is Ronstan.
We also got a couple of new sails delivered last week with a great, innovative,
downhaul arrangement. It works really nicely and the sail is clean and powerful.
The only really different images from yesterday is a sequence of Carla
(115 lbs) righting after a capsize. I didn't get a shot of her standing
on the daggerboard, but you can see how it's done after that.
February 20, 2006:
Since our last update, we've been busy on a variety of fronts. Bill Hansen
has been working hard on some final sail modifications - adjusting the attachment
for the downhaul at the foot of the sail in a way that leaves the bottom
of the sail really clean. We've added a block to the rigging, so the downhaul
load is evenly distributed to both sides of the boom. The sail looks just
beautiful!
We've been getting lots of questions about when we'll have the boat available
for demo sails. While we'd love to get the Hoot up to the Northwest, down
to the South, and over to New England and even the U.K. to let those of
you who have shown interest in the Hoot try it out, at the moment we're
gearing up for a couple events right here in our own backyard. We've planned
a demo day with the Voodoo and Musto Skiff guys, and are really looking
forward to playing with them in Richmond on March 31st and April 1st. If
you're interested in sailing a Hoot either of those days, send us an email
at demosail@gohoot.com.
It promises to be a great day of sailing with three of the hottest new singlehanders
around all in one place! Go Hoot!!
We're also getting ready for Strictly Sail Pacific. We'll be there with
as many Hoots as we have available at that point. Stop by to say hello,
meet some of the team and see a Hoot for yourself. Strictly Sail Pacific
will be April 19-23 at Jack London Square in Oakland.
February 6, 2006:
We went sailing again on Saturday. We launched in a dying 10 kts of breeze
and sailed it home in 3-5 kts. Carla got in a good long stretch and had
good fun. The Hoot really gets up and planes very easily under her 118 lbs.
It's fun to watch.
We also were "found" by Sailing World. We were invited to participate
in the Boat of the Year (BOTY) competition in October. Of course we'll do
that -- Sailing World is a great magazine. They also are planning on putting
a short piece in the April issue.
On the development front, we sewed a real boom vang attachment strap that
works really well. Bill came by and tweaked the battens. The sail now goes
through much easier. We are still thinking through the tradeoff between
sail draft and ease of getting it to pop through. Carla was able to get
it through in the 3-5 kts but it required a bit of work.
We also have definitively found that we cannot anodize the rudder stocks
we had cast. It turns out that the stainless pins will get eaten right off
in the process (which the casting guys had told us wouldn't be a problem
...) So we have to redo the dies for the rudder stocks.
We also finally took a picture of the Hoot being wheeled down to the water.
The wheels are mounted on axles which go into holes in the aft part of the
Hoot. Once the boat is floating in the water, we just pull out the wheels
and leave them behind.
January 29, 2006:
It's been an intensive week of work. Chris was here and he and Billy worked
10-12 hour days for seven days straight to complete a new hull and jigs
and work through some production details. They popped hull number seven
out of the mold on Friday and it weighed in at 42 pounds trimmed but not
fitted. It looks like 48 lbs may be realistic for the bare hull.
We also tested a couple of outhaul ideas and are -- surprisingly enough
to everyone -- settling on a simple loop that goes around the end of the
boom. The problem we found with the inhaul is that it was really hard to
do in any wind with the boom flogging around. We also trimmed the mast height
by five inches and raised the gooseneck by 3.5 inches. The loss of two inches
of boom clearance wasn't noticeable.
We tested out the new hiking stick from Acme (Alex Maas) and really loved
it. Ya'll ain't ever used a stick this sweet. It is likely to be a bit pricey,
so it is looking like the one and only option for the boat.
This new sail isn't popping through as well as we'd like so Bill is going
to do some of his magic adjusting the length of the battens/camber inducers.
It is pretty remarkable how much difference just a small tweak can make.
Check out the new videos just added to the gallery.
January 22, 2006:
We got the new hull done and out sailing yesterday. There was very little
wind but we got in some testing. We've worked out a way to use an inhaul
on the sail and that is working really, really nicely. Bill had to recut
the sail to accomodate the inhaul loads, but it looks great.
We got some pictures and video of the boat scooting along in less than two
knots of wind. Today Chris and Billy are laying up another hull and I'll
start modifying the mast. The one we're using is 2.5 inches too tall and
we need to move the gooseneck and flanges.
This shot shows the sail under reasonably high vang and downhaul tension
with the tip of the mast held down as it would be under pressure from the
wind. Look at how beautiful Bill has made this sail.
January 16, 2006:
We've just gotten the first five masts in from Erich Chase -- the mast
builder. They all look really great. Now we have to attach all the bits
(gooseneck, sleeve, etc.) before we go sailing with them. Bill is modifying
the sail a bit. We should have this rig ready to sail in a week or so.
January 7, 2006:
Billy just popped a new hull out of the mold. We've gone to a light grey
color, moved the daggerboard back 1.5 inches to get a bit more rake to the
rig, and have a really clever way of putting on the transom. We are taking
our time with the mold and tooling changes and don't expect to have this
hull out for a test sail until late January.
January 6, 2006:
We've modified the extrusion for the boom to add just a bit more material
and hence stiffness. The original booms were really hard to get extruded
as they are a relatively large shape and 0.050" wall thickness. The downside
to the very light, thinwall stuff is that it is a bit too flexible and we
worried about boom attachments coming off over time.
January 4, 2006:
Happy New Year! We took some time off over the holidays, but we're back
working hard. We just received the first sail that has production graphics
on it and some other little tweaks that we like. We rigged it up and got
some photos of the basic shape under full tension (flat)
and no tension (full)
Stay tuned!
December 9, 2005:
We just heard that the next sail will be completed in China some time next
week. And we have a photo of the first rudder stock castings. We'll be testing
them when we find a good windy day.
December 1, 2005:
We just finished our production sail design, and expect to have it back
by early January. We’ll post photos on the web site as soon as we
get it back from the loft.
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