Kids F12

Listen here, you ignorant fool.

Among other certifications, I actually hold a Bachelor of Science degree (BSc) in Maritime Engineering. There is nothing that these

succesful boat designers

can do that I can't do. It will only take me more time to do it.

The subject of my Master of Science speciality is also alot more complex then anything related to boat design. Lets be honest here. Basic (sail)boat design is NOT a difficult field of engineering.

But of course, it is alot smarter to use the efforts of all volunteers in the field they are best at. That will also free others like myself up for other tasks. That is just plain smart project organising.

I don't know about the other designers and what

they obviously don't wish to share with me

, but that is pretty irrelevant anyway. The only result they achieve by that is that it will take me a little longer to get the job done anyway. Like I said earlier, there is nothing engineering wise that they can do that I can't.

In addition to that I started sailing at 12 years of age and started out on monohulls. In the 23 years since then I sailed/raced/DIY-ed pretty much everything. Dinghies, small cruising mono's, sailboards, catamarans, skiffs, landyachts, a big cruising cat and even a bloody three-master tall ship. The latter being week long trip from NL to Portsmouth UK and Cherbourg France as part of the sailing crew.

I actually dare venture that my practical experience relating to a design like the F12 is something that may exceed that of the others.

I don't just write posts about the push-rod setup, I actually worked-up experience with setups like that while landyachting. I don't just muse on the possibilty of using old windsurfer masts for the F12, I actually have experience with the problems one will encounter with that (still have 7 masts in my shed left over from that). I have designed items like custom alu beams for high performance beach catamarans in the past (in actual use now). Back in the 90's, I have made a bulk head design for a bulk carrier, had to make the bloody technical drawing for it as well, using a Sun station CAD program called Medusa. Did finite element ANSYS analysis on various components. The list can go on.

And to top it off I have actually created a new internal catamaran class succesfully, how many people can say that ?

So don't start on questioning my sailing experience and boat designing skills here. Because you have absolutely no idea of what I have done and are capable off.

And what is up with you Aussies anyway ? During the F16 start-up, you guys (except Phill) were a bloody pain in the neck then as well.

Wouter

Mark and Luiz,

The basic project status at this time pretty much is that we have failed to reach agreement on any specs for the F12. More fundamentally we have failed to reach agreement on the goals that the F12 class and design should satisfy.

Phill Brander and some other designer that Mattaipan is refering to (Scarecrow ?) has decided to work on their own where Phills design will be an OD or SMOD setup. Neither of them have referenced with the F12 project lately, neither in public nor privately to me.

Gareth (Grob) says he has an active project but I haven't seen anything from it since the springtime earlier this year.

Retired Geek is both publically and privately referencing his designs and contributions with the F12 project. He is also helping other volunteers in this project with filling on some of the blanks. He is a team player.

All designers have stated preparing to prototype their designs starting in Januari this year. Note, that this is done without any F12 framework having been agreed upon. Basically the only common feature among all of these designs is that they are all MORE OR LESS 12 foot length. Most designs differ significantly in one or more important parameters like sail area for example.

If all persist at this stand-off then it will be impossible to form a single class organisation around these significantly differing designs.

Without a class, I don't fancy much the chances of any of these designs to become a succes outside of a very localized area.

Maybe we should just accept the split between the Aussies and the rest of us and continue the F12 project with Retired Geek (Grob), Gato, Mark, You and some US volunteers I haven't assigned any tasks to yet.

If any of the volunteers want a F12 for kids below 12 years of age then they are invited to join the Australian project with all others being invited to join the F12 project that is build around the above named persons.

Wouter

Listen here, you arrogant fool

At no time there did I question your sailing experiences or boat designing skills.

If theres nothing you can't do that these designers can do, then just bloody well do it.

And its not that they won't share their ideas with you or anyone else for that matter, but they obviously want time to prototype ideas and I don't see point of the guess work you throw toward other people designs, just wait til they tell people their findings or ideas.

And finally, us Aussies, well I guess we just like to make things happen, rather than study mathematically or from an engineering point of view every possible aspect that doesn't really make any difference to the design, i.e constant comparsion to the laser, we just get the boats on the water. When they designed the Mosquito, I doubt they constantly compared it the Fireball or the Tornado to a FD.

It just doesn't matter!

No-one has as far as I see, has split from the plan,I think it was you that referred to some sort of design battle, well fair dinkum mate, instead of polishing your gun, others have already fired a shot.

Who says I haven't done it yet, huh ? You think those detailed cost and weight listings come out of my butt ?

Right now I'm trying to build a F12 class that everybody feels is right and you guys are making things bloody difficult for no good reason.

Lets get one thing perfectly straight here, you Aussies haven't produced a darn thing yet except an artist impression and a whole lot of bitching. So don't go around pretending that you guys

make things happen

.

Fricking unbelievable,

Wouter

Why blame the Aussies for your troubles? It seems to me the Aussies contributions to the sport have been significant. The F16 for example is nothing more then a slightly glorified Taipan. <img src=

alt=

/>

We don't need to pretend, the runs are on the board.

I was going to post, butt, I changed my mind.

Matt,
That is good news.
Hope it works out well. If there is anything I can help out with let me know. If we all take a shot one or more of us will hit the mark.
I'll try to get to Sydney to get my ply during the week.
Just hope they have what I need in stock.
I will probably build two boats to demonstrate the one set of plans can accommodate both building methods. I may end up donating both to the local sailing club when I'm finished testing. That way a couple of kids can sail against each other. It is predominately a mono club, but with a strong junior program, so it should be interesting.

I hope you guys keep us updated on how things are going.

Regards,
Phill

Well, it is official then.

The Australians have decided to go their own way and build boats before we have all agreed upon the F12 specs and rule base.

I don't even think Jeff/Matt and Phill will be building the same design even. So even in the local area of Australia there won't be any uniformity.

Ain't that the right side up.

What I don't understand however is why some persons still felt the need to post on this F12 forum and shake things up when they never intended to cooperate with the others in the world anyway ?

What was the point in that ?

Wouter

Gday Phill

Yes should be good, one of the conditions of building is to take loads of photos.
If you have no luck with decent ply try Boatcraft Pacific in QLD.
I know Jeff has kids of sailing age, but my youngens won't be ready for a few more seasons, so this will be the first of my donation to the sailing program.
And I'm looking forward to watching your progress to, thats a really good looking boat, be great to get all of them out there on water doing what they are designed to do.

Regards

LMAO

I fully intend cooperating with anyone thats interested in building their F12, thats why its posted here, because it is relevant.

Don't get me started with you and uniformity, again LMAO.

As much as you would like to think that it is yours, this forum and the F12 ain't, so its time to get your head out of the clouds and your feet back on the ground.

Have a nice day

Wouter, that might be a more pessimistic view than is necessary. If you go back and look at this post from Phill and the mini-thread that followed from it, there seemed to be some consensus that getting boats on the water was important before settling on all of the details of the class rule.

I'm not certain that everyone is on board with the need to converge eventually to just a single design, but I think there is at least some desire to reach consensus on a well defined set of rules that would allow the development of a single class.

Incidentally quite a few successful one design classes have gone through a period of prototyping and experimentation before full scale launch.

Mark.

I've just realised that the stupid aussies are only interested in getting kids out of 420's and pasers onto cats whilst the really clever people need lots of rules. To me F12 is just a club with a forum for kids to go, any 12 foot boat that fits local conditions is a F12. The more different boats the more kids on water, why would you exclude a 10year old who already has a 12ft boat from competing and chatting on line. We have agreed to build a genuinly cheap boat that looks good to suit young kids to teenagers and I encourage everyone to build whatever you can for young kids. Chill out a bit Wouter you've stretched 12 ft to 12ft 8 inch because it made it a better boat then told us that it is for teenagers not young kids this thread was started by Grob and this forum was started by Rick, I appreciate your engineering input but you really need a PR person.
regards

I don't mind people designing whatever they want, hobie can add 10 more small cats to their product line and I won't loose any sleep over that. Hobie will simply not succeed at making any of them into a viable class anyway.

The issue I see with prototyping before any agreed ruleset is that when all the prototyping has been done we'll get into a right

Battle Royale

about the rules. Afterall, at that time everybody wants the rule set to fit their boat as there is no point in wasting all that invested effort and money. When the designs differ significantly (as they are very likely to do) then well end up with no agreed rule set. Basically if we are having trouble now, think of the trouble we'll encounter then when designers are entrenched and more emotionally committed to their own specific design choices.

I'll give you an example that is not intended to diss anyone. Phill makes his boat narrower and with less sailarea then all others as he want the boat to fit between the Blade F16 hulls on his trailer and to be sailed by 8 year olds. I will make my F12 2 mtr wide so a 40 kg crew (12 year old kid) will be able to hold down the 7.00 sq. mtr. rig. Now when both boats have been prototyped and found to work (which is very likely) on which maximum F12 width and sail area shall we agree ?

If we agree on Phills specs then we can just throw out all the effort associated with the other projects like RG and myself. Most likely result is that we won't agree to that and form our own class. If we set the specs to suit my design then Phills design will be dead in the water with respect to any level F12 racing (= more serious racing for youths). It will significantly underpowered. We already know that Phill won't agree to entlarging his design and he will just continue as his own OD class.

Basically, we won't have a viable F12 class beyond the situation that we call any and all 12 foot catamaran a F12. This situation will be impossible to convert into a true international class like the optimist of laser 4.7/radial which was afterall the REAL intention of the F12 project.

Maybe everybody for himself will work in Aus (but I doubt it) but such a setup will most definately fail in the US and EU were organisation is of paramount importance. You will not be taken seriously by any organisation and sailing club if you don't have a real level racing class, either OD or formula.

Now we can indeed do our own things and have our own Battle-Royale-to-the-Death, where like the Highlander movies

There can be only one !

in the end, but I don't really enjoy competing other peoples efforts to extinction, I think it to be a great waste of resources and skill actually.

Wouter

Mark and Luiz,

While I agree with your points I think it is passed station at this time.

The others simply won't read these updates and brush then aside as more

useless mathematics

. Several have even admitted to this by their own admission of never having read the F12 website.

Basically they have set their minds and trying to convince them of anything else is now a pointless endeavour, so why try ?

We can much better spend our own time on designing the craft we want.

I invite you two to decide which project you find most attractive and contact the leading persons to help out further.

I'll continue with my own F12 design along the lines I have layed out in the past, I'll probably rename it.

I extend the invitation to all other interested people as well.

Wouter

I think you may well be right. However regardless of whether it's the right or wrong thing to do, I don't see much evidence that there is strong support here for restricting the rule at this point, although there seems to be at least agreement on the basic length/width/weight/sail area parameters. I think the best you can hope for is that a design emerges that fits these constraints and finds some success.

I think part of the underlying issue is that there isn't sufficient agreement on exactly what the market needs are - and arguably this is because at this point we really do know less than we'd like to about exactly what features are actually going to make a junior catamaran class successful.

I think a key decision that needs to be made is whether the name F12 is going to denote any design that fits the current simple box rule or a specific design that emerges from the current mix of ideas or nothing at all. Though I know you don't favor the first option at all, I think it would be wrong to assume that it has no value at all. However, like you I see difficulty in getting a really substantial class off the ground on an international scale under this model. But I'm not sure if everyone sees that as the goal. It would be good to hear from RG, Chris and Phill in particular on exactly what their views are about the form they see an F12 class taking in the future. Personally I don't think the one design approach is dead yet, but there definitely needs to be some discussion on this. Gotta run, more later.

Here is a list of items that I hope we all agree upon.

1-The primary goal is to create a new cat class for kids.

2-The

ideal

cat configuration for this purpose is NOT a goal. One could discuss the

best features

forever. We agree to accept this natural limitation and to settle for a compromise in a democratic way.

3-Organized teamwork is a goal. The group is a resource to coordinate our efforts towards the primary goal and shall be replaced by the Class Organization in due time.

4-All participants are willing to work orderly towards the primary goal. Complementary skills are necessary, frienship is optional.

5-Politeness is a requirement. People have different capacities, opinions, skills and opinions that must be respected. We NEED our differences (complementary skills).

6-Wouter leads the project because he succeeded in a similar one and there's no candidate to replace him.

7-The timing is apropriate for the introduction of the class.

8-A lot of work has already been done and should not be wasted.

9-Life exists outside the group. Anyone can work in other projects as well.

0-Common sense shall be used in all times. (the

zero

is not a typo)

Please note that the draft proposal of our program was never questioned. It is basically:

-Preliminary (design / rules)
-Introduction (class organization / boat construction)
-Development (marketing / races)

In other words: despite the disagreements on some technical issues, we agree on EVERYTHING ELSE.

Maybe we should expand and detail the list of agreed items in order to continue from there?

I nominate Luiz for the role of project leader. (and I'm really serious)

My persona is now too controversial to continue as project leader, all rights and wrong aside.

You can start from a clean sheet and therefor be more succesful in bringing people back together.

If there is any need for some prior experience in starting up a class I can always advice you on specifics through private mails.

Wouter

Wouter,

a) Starting from scratch would waste the work already done.
b) The group may need some moderation, that's all.
c) Downgrading the leadership would probably replace known problems by new ones.
d) My post is clear:

there's no candidate

.

Many thanks for the deference.

Luiz,
I have been thinking much the same as Wouter on this issue.
The polite and respectful manner in which you present yourself and address others on this forum would encourage people to return that respect and follow your lead.
In my own personal view this would make you a great leader.

It is a shame that there is so much hostility. I suppose that I see things quite differently to others. I see the work being done by Scarecrow, Gareth, Matt, Jeff and myself as complementary. While I can not speak for the others I believe that if I can catch youngsters when they are still very young and get them involved with cat sailing once they hit 12 they would naturally gravitate to another cat class and currently the model you guys are currently trying to define would be the natural choice.
Either way I will continue to do what I think needs to be done and hope it helps.

Regards,
Phill

Phill, what's your view of F12 as a concept (actually or preferably)? A loose alliance of people interested in junior sailing? A box rule? An international OD class? To put it another way, if Luiz were to take on the role of leader (not that I think that's likely, he's made his position clear), what exactly would he be leading?

How do you see the Blade 12 fitting in to the F12 picture? From your comments it sounds like maybe you see it as a feeder into an F12 that would be aimed at 12+ y.o.'s. Or do you see the Blade as a candidate F12 one design? Or one of several designs competing within a Formula class box rule?

Mark,
That is probably quite logical.
Regards,
Phill

Thanks Phill, that is consistent with the school of thought that F12 should aim at somewhere around 12 y.o. and up (or perhaps a couple of younger kids). And both RG's and Scarecrow's designs with boards and a stayed mast and the possibility of trapezing seem appropriate for the slightly older group rather than the very youngest kids just starting out. However it would be helpful to get comment from both of them on whether they see things this way.

Mark I'm aiming for under 12's with Scarecrows boat it is a very cheap basic design. Though Scarecrow looks like he's been chased off line he's doing a bit behind the scenes and at least 3 boats that I know of are to commence building shortly at 3 different clubs in a 700km stretch. So we have the start of a class down here.
regards

Do the existing F12 rules accomodate all the group's designs (Phill's too)? Is it necessary to widen the definitions so that everyone is

in

?

Also, I propose to vote the unified class rules rules as soon as possible, allowing only enough time to build and test the designs. I am afraid that if we take long too many different boats will be built, which would influence votes. Is three months enough?

We need everyone's support to go on with this. Remember: everybody will benefit if we converge to a reasonable class and all can support his own designs as well.

Agreed?

I agree with Wouter and Phil, I think you would make the perfect choice for leader of the F12 project. Wouter has done an excellent job in laying the groundwork with the class rules and there are a number of designs being built now, so much of the work has been done, I think you could just continue this work.

I hope you will reconsider.

Gareth

You are all too inteligent to really need a leader. I guess we can go on without one if we use our common sense and keep in mind that this is not a zero sum game: we will all win together.

What I can do is what I am already doing, try to keep things organized and moderate when necessary. I believe this will suffice to reduce frictions enough to achieve our goals.

I haven't been chased off line Jeff, just trying to avoid the need to put on staff 3 weeks before christmas. For those that are interested my design is basically ready to go I'll be printing out a full set of drawings this afternoon and checking them through before finalising them and sending them off to eager parties tomorrow. Its basically as per the renderings posted a couple of weeks ago although I have added an alternate deck detail for those who want a more rounded look to the topsides than stitch and glue construction allows (you know who you are).

With regards to rules, I know of approx 8-9 F12 boats (including Phills) due to go in to construction over the next month and the only one that falls outside the basic box of 3.75 x 2 is Phill's. As far as I know both mine and RGs fit the 4 rule box (length, beam, sail area, weight) although I won't be suggesting to the guys building my boats that they add weight at this stage. As stated before I don't see any value in mandating stay or stayless etc as I believe the class will settle into a

prefered

solution over time as it will for boards or skegs. My boat has stays because I believe this is easier for kids to rig on their own (its much easier to lift a mast and then pull a sail up then to do them both together). While it will be possible to fit traps to my design they are not part of the basic design and are by no means necessary.

Luiz, I'll add my vote to you being the first president of the International F12 Association. And will re-state my offer to host a dedicated web site. I've started drafting something up but really don't have much time so if someone else wants to do the work I'm happy to let them (don't all jump fwd at once).

What I would really like to see is someone from the US put their hand up to get moving (pick a design any design) as all the actual development seems to be coming from Australia (NZ is actually an Australian state we just don't always admit it as we find the kiwis a bit rough around the edges).

Here is where I'm at web site wise: Those whose emails are listed if you want them removed please tell be.

You appear to have been chased online Scarecrow <img src=

alt=

/>. Nice site and a great line up of boats, definately rounded look for me, cant wait to see some floating and those two 420's of mine gone. My new motto is every time kids sail a mono ISAF kills a cat.
regards

Now we are getting somewhere !

I know it is fashionable to discard the EU branch of the F12 (you know, the original one !) but we too are very active overhere <img src=

alt=

/> and that includes the building of a prototype in the new year.

We just don't have any slick CAD pictures. This is most the result of me being an old school designer. I like the combination of mathematics and pencil/paper very much. Maybe some of the other volunteer can us a one ?

We are working on a deep V-ed (boardless and skegless) design along the following lines :

length 3.75 mtr (ex. pintles/rudders)
width 2.00 mtr (ex T-foils and other fittings like the tiller extension)
weight min 60 kg
mast 6.00 mtr
mainsail area 7.00 sq. mtr (sleeved c.q. pocket luff)
mainsail luff length 5.30 mtr

Boat will have a collapsable unstayed rig (push rod setup) with a tapered aluminium mast made from prismatic alu tubing. Boat will also have twin T-foil kick-up rudders fitted to the sterns.

So it look like this design will be compliant with the limitations as specified on the webpage. It still prefer a tighter rule set though.

Wouter