Latest Hoot News
We’ve been working hard on the Hoot for the past 4 years. We are now in the process of setting up for all the production components such as the mast, sail, boom, etc. As we continue to move towards final production, we’ll continue to post news here.
October 20, 2008
I spent a good chunk of the weekend working on the Hoot. I tested out some different battens in the sail and was really impressed with what a difference it made. We tried the lower couple of battens with a more continuous curve -- instead of deep up forward. That really helped the boat power to windward so we're trying that on all the battens.
I also sent off some specs to a couple of Chinese companies -- one to make foils and masts and another to investigate the possibility of having the entire boat made offshore. I am interested to see what they have to say. Before I go that route I am going to have to be convinced about the environmental quality of the production facilities.
October 15, 2008
Ouch. It has been a long time since I updated this page. We are not dead, we are just slow (busy with the rest of my life). But this recession should give me more time to play with boats.
We are now really trying hard to figure out where to produce this boat. I've been talking to a shop in China about building the foils and I'm discussing building the entire boat with another shop. To be honest, I would rather have production closer to home (and perhaps we still can). So if anyone has any ideas -- please send them along to me.
April 23, 2008
I got some new video up of two Hoots sailing next to each other. Dan also has a great minicam with some pretty cool movies. But I am too lame a webmaster to be able to get the file size down enough to post.
We did take two Hoots out side by side -- big board vs. standard board. While we need to do more testing, we couldn't see any speed improvement (or penalty) to the bigger board. But it certainly felt a lot better. More testing to come.
March 30, 2008
Last Wednesday we finally got a good day to test the new centerboard -- and it works really, really well. The boat now has a much wider groove upwind in waves. Before it really demanded constant attention to keep the boat in the groove and moving. Now the groove is pretty wide and the boat is much more fun to sail. So we're done with development. We do have to change a couple of bits of tooling to handle the bigger board (and I have half a dozen prototype hulls that just became scrap) but the boat feels wonderful.
We also were having chronic problems with the wing pods leaking but we've got a new manufacturing technique that we are pretty sure will stop that. Chris has been using it on his boat for a bit and it is holding up well.
March 15, 2008
The Ides of March -- beware. It's now official; I suck at being a webmaster. After much struggle, I have managed to get a new video up on the site. It is of Dan Brandt sailing in January. I have another really cool video from a bow-mounted camera on the Hoot, but I cannot manage to get it edited down to size to get on the site.
We have the new centerboard to test. I'm hoping for good wind tomorrow. The theory is that this board will make the boat more forgiving in big waves. If the improvement isn't really noticeable, we're not going to bother with the change. We need to get this boat out there.
January 14, 2008
The big news for today is that I've finally accepted the obvious (to everyone else) that I don't really have enough time to test the boat. So I met with Dan Brandt today and he agreed to start as a test pilot for the Hoot. I will get him going and then he'll sail the Hoot and tell us what breaks and what needs to be improved. Should be good fun and Dan is a really good sailor.
December 19, 2007
Yes it has been way too long since I updated this news section. Things are progressing -- we are still alive -- I just got swamped with the rest of my life. We have modified a boat to take the new wing tubes and I am trying to find an open day and wind to go test them. We are feeling pretty good about it, but 20 knots of wind will find out whether we got it right.
July 7, 2007
The wing tube production run arrived and they look really great. The profile is beefier (thicker and also bigger around) than the first set. This will give us some additional stiffness particularly off the wind. Now we have to find enough time to start building boats. The good news for us is that our rowing shell business is keeping us really busy this summer. But that is also bad news for the Hoot at the moment.
May 1, 2007
At long last the first of the newly retooled wing tubes arrived. We fit them onto a wing and we're having to do some final tweaks before they run a couple thousand pounds of aluminum in that shape. Much beefier and stiffer. And consequently heavier. And we went back to the drawing board and have figured out a way to make the wing pods so they are foam filled, but probably lighter than they are now. That will get us the durability of the foam without all the weight we were seeing with other alternatives.
It's all good news. So we should be able to start serious production here in another month (they need some time to get us production wing tubes.)
Of course, I also heard today that we are probably going to have to move the shop as the Port of Richmond wants the land our shop is on to park more cars. So we're going to have to pay to move the building to a new location in the Port.
March 4, 2007
Yesterday was one of the Richmond Yacht Club's "Sail a Small Boat Day." We had two Hoots there -- Bob's and mine. Before the people started coming to sail, Bob and I took the opportunity to take the two boats out side by side. I had the HCL sail on mine and Bob had a stock, luff sleeve sail. The wind was light -- perhaps 5-7 knots -- and shifty. However, either Bob is a much better sailor than I am (quite possible) or the HCL sail is noticeably slower in those conditions. It felt to me like I couldn't ever quite power the sail up. If I eased the vang, the leech would sag off. If I tightened the vang enough to straighten the leech, I would flatten the sail. I guess that's good news that we are not going to pursue the compliant leech technology as it is one less variable to consider.
I think that the difference between the Hoot and a windsurfer is that we have all these sail adjustments we can make. A typical windsurfer just heads out and needs to have (for the most part) the sail adjusted for a range of wind speeds and courses. We can adjust the shape according to speed and direction.
Here is a shot of the two Hoots on the dock at the RYC. You can see the compliant leech sail on my boat. Also notice the really nice dolly Bob made for his boat. It breaks down easily to go in the back of his truck -- maintaining the theme of no trailer required.
One of the most fun things about the Sail a Small Boat Day was the number of kids who were jumping into the Hoot -- with their friends. I completely understand as I would have given up the family cat for a boat like this when I was 9. Antoine and Lauren were two of the more accomplished. Oh, by the way, the deck really isn't built to take the weight of a person.
February 28, 2007
Test Pilot, Bob Hyde took his boat out with a modified sail this last weekend. Bill had modified the sail by adding a patent-applied-for compliant leech. (The system is referred to as the Hansen Compliant Leech or HCL.) The HCL technology has really been proving to be faster for the windsurfers -- particularly in manuvers. We were curious to see if it would pay off in the Hoot.
As you can see, the sail shape is really nice. The HCL is the black darts that you can see coming in from the leech.
The result? Unclear at the moment. Bob felt that the boat was easier to sail upwind, but didn't feel like the boat had the power he was expecting from the old sail when going off the wind. And it started blowing Saturday so he got in some blazing fast runs. We are going to run the HCL sail alongside a stock sail this coming weekend to see what we can tell.
February 19, 2007
We had good weather over the weekend, so I spent both days on the water. Both days were relatively light -- 4-7 knots on Saturday and 8-12 knots on Sunday.
On Saturday, we had a 29er out chasing around Bob Hyde in his Hoot. We were particularly interested in what was happening at the top of the sail -- particularly with windward heel. We attached a couple of 18" lengths of cassette tape at the top of his sail. My theory was that, under windward heel, we would see a change in the tip vortex. While we saw plenty of evidence of a tip vortex, we could not see any change. The boat does appear to be faster when heeled to weather, but we still don't know why.
In terms of trim, we basically found that, in flat water or until you are overpowered, pull on the vang. As you start getting powered up, ease the vang to twist off the top of the sail.
The fun part on Saturday was finding that the 29er couldn't keep up with the Hoot upwind. Bob would consistently move away from us. Since I was in the 29er, and am too competitive for my own good, I was simultaneously frustrated and proud at the same time. A bit of therapy will help here...
Sunday I was sailing solo with my sail that has telltales everywhere. It wasn't really blowing hard enough to see whether the additional curve at the top of my sail and the additional downhaul made a difference. I learned much the same lessons as Saturday -- ease the vang as you get overpowered. Also, this is an athletic boat. 2.5 hours of sailing and I was ready to be home. Great fun though.
I have also finally succumbed to the lure of a new idea. I have asked Bill Hansen to put a compliant leech into my sail. The compliant leech is an idea (patent applied for) that is working really well in windsurfer sails. He is putting in wedges of a somewhat stretchy material (maybe neoprene) into the leech of the sail. This allows it to flex under load. On the windsurfers they are finding that the sail stays hooked up much better which is allowing them to jump better, jibe better and just go faster. Pretty cool stuff and since Bill is so reasonably priced, I have to try it. Bob and I will take out a couple of Hoots and line them up to see what difference it makes.
For a bit more info, check out Hansen Sails.
The other thing I tested on Sunday was a different wing pod. We laid up a new wing that, instead of a pod, is a large block of light foam laminated into the wing structure. It really worked well. There is no way for it to leak (which was a chronic problem with the pods) and it had the unexpected benefit of making much less fuss when it touchs down on the water. I really liked that. If anyone has a use for some really nice wing pod molds, let me know and I'll send them along.
February 8, 2007
Billy has now gotten a new wing built that incorporates foam in place of a wing pod. It is just about the same weight, but has a great deal less material on it. We know it won't leak, but we may have to add some weight so the foam doesn't get just thrashed quickly.
I also just signed off on the drawings for the new wing tubes. Lots of little holes, angles and a really different extrusion shape. The shape starts out similar to what we have now -- essentially a tube with a flange -- but I added material top and bottom to make it stiffer. These tubes will show up fully cut, drilled and anodized.
Chris just sent me pictures of his latest toy/experiment. He's been intrigued by the idea of a bolt rope sail for a bit. His thinking is that we'll get a more tratidional shape and it might make handling easier at the dock if we can just drop the sail. We'll see. I am all in favor of testing and playing with things.
Here are pics of Chris's sail:
And a shot showing the sail with moderate downhaul. Other shots show that the camber can be pretty well adjusted, but we can't twist the top off like the current rig. My bet is that the sail will be great up to around 9 knots and then get overpowered. However, it is generally a bad idea to bet against Chris's ideas.
January 20, 2007
Not much happening at the moment. I am working with the aluminum shop to get the shape of the new wing tubes just right. We're stiffening them by adding some material to the top and bottom and then they are going to arrive all in the right shapes. The scary thing is that I've got 1000 lbs of anodized aluminum heading my way and I'd better have everything correct.
Once we have the aluminum (probably another 2 months) we're going to build a new wing -- one that has a foam shape glassed in where we currently have the pod. We've just had too much damage on the pods so we need to test it this way. The foam is going to be much more expensive, but we feel we need it for durability.