Upwind speed (Question)

Colin,

I mean laps not races. In the first race I was about 400 yards ahead of Dave and on the last lap, I think I was stating to tag onto the back of the last A's.

I'd really like to see individual lap times for Race 1 if they exist. In fact looking at the results this is partly shown by finishing times. Yvonne did 4 laps (and last A class to finish) and finished at 13:29:13, I did 5 laps and finished at 13:29:55; Dave Tugwell did 4 1/2 laps (ish)and finished at 13:29:25. But the last lap for me was by far the slowest. This is the info I'm after if it exists.

Yeah, I misread your post - I'll dig them out.

Thanks Colin,

The A's were generally smoking us anyway. But the first race was the race I was sailing best and did not make to many mistakes.

Most of them were smoking me too <img src=

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John and Mark,

I try to look at the re-routing of the main halyard with a neutral position.
1: The Tornado fleet dont invent everything, as their creative pool is limited to fleet members <img src=

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2: The Shearwater dont look too fast (I would not know) by the photos on their website. Looks like they have centerboards not daggers and the hullshape is kind of V'ish. Would the relatively small difference in drag/lift be noticeable on that platform?
3: 2.5 to 6 minutes delta upwind is a lot, and so it's worth researching now that the horse is out of the stable.
4: Shearwater assocs. website crashes my Firefox every time <img src=

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I got to say, if I were planning a really secret weapon for a major event, I would also like to keep it quiet. But then again, I would not go racing with it. Two boat testing is the way to go if you want to keep something hidden. The openess is partly what makes this forum so cool.

I suppose the increased pitch resistance from T-foils (like the ones Darryls F-14s use) could help neutralizing the advantage of the A's longer hulls upwind.

Mark, good of you to kick some Tornado butt. Got to say tough that the boat is not easy to get the most from. Sailor skill makes up for so much speed on the boat.

One question. What will 20kgs difference in crew weight do to your pointing ability? How about 40kgs?

Second question. How many go low after a tack to build virtual wind before heading up? Is it worth it?

Question one; I can't answer as I don't have a crew of any description (Unless 20 Marlboro lights count)
Question two; When it's windy I stay very high after a tack until I'm safely out on the wire and then bear away to a proper course. In medium winds when I'm not aiming to roll tack it's beat to beat or as close as I can judge it. In light winds I don't move across the boat until it has tacked completely and has started to make headway on the new course. slightly lower than normal as the main has been dropped off, the new windward hull often lifts and at this point I'll move over (mainsheet at the ready just in case). I find using this method of tacking doesn't upset things as much as moving over when there is no wind in the sail.

Rolf,
Try updating the Java on your computer, that might solve your FireFox problem.

The Shearwaters aren't particularly fast, that's true, but they've been around a verrrry long time and have quite sophisticated rigs (there was at least one square top main in regular use back in the late '70s).

They had very slender wing masts with 3 sets of spreaders and airflow was critical. I notice that the more recent boats have masts more similar to the Tornado section. I should think that, being a development class, they've experimented with just about every combination of sail control and routing imaginable!

Interesting then that a lot of the 'top' boats still have a pretty 'standard' layout that is comparable to most modern cats. The Shearwaters even had curved tracks before the 'As' !

Allow me to set the record straight, before anyone misunderstand me and think that that lead was caused ONLY be rerouting the spi halyard.

Alot more was tweaked on that boat then only the spi halyard and it was a club race. The skipper sailed well and his adjusted his rig the best in the changing conditions. It went from light to strong winds over the course of 2 heats and 7 laps. Most of gains were surely from sailing well and not making large mistakes. All this combined with his sailing skills (=good) caused the outcome.

In the second race the rest of the fleet got their acts together and the lead was shrunk to 2.5 min. This weekend we'll see the next installment and all the other boats will have had a few more sails as training down their belts.

So all is very preliminary although I really tried and simply could not hold on to him upwind. I could with respect to the others in the fleet. I would have loved to have his upwind performance.

Wouter

Curved tracks even with a spi? What would the advantage be unless the boats dont build much apparant wind when going downhill?

I got the impression that the impressive deltas to windward was down to the re-routing of the halyard. Now it's sailor ability and a series of improvements. Not sure what to belive <img src=

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John, I dont think it's Java crashing Firefox. The applet they use for navigation works well enough, but there is some kind of silly Javascript/DHTML 'transitions' in use:

Javascript is a can of worms, and DHTML and abomination..

Rolf,

What version of FF are you using and with what plugins ?

http://www.shearwater-asc.org.uk/ works fine for me on FF 2.0.0.3.

2.0.0.4 with Adblock, DOM Inspector, Talkback and VideoDownloader. It's no big thing as I used our MS computer and had a look with IE.

What the hey are you doing up at this time of night? I am awake becouse our two years old have some fever and refuse to sleep, but would much prefer to be in bed instead of thinking about re-routing of spi-halyards <img src=

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I'd don't sleep much; usually about 5 or 6 hours a night...

Usefull sometimes, but it usually catches up with me every 3 months or so and I sleep for a good 12 in one go.

!Curved tracks even with a spi? What would the advantage be unless the boats dont build much apparant wind when going downhill?

Thats the point , these highly developed cats (!) carry a symmetrical spinnaker with spinnaker pole mounted on mast and gybed !, they can run dead downwind , not a lot of apparent wind sailing going on there .(admittedly class rules probably preclude an assymetric )

But as Jalani points out they did come up with stuff long before others , most noteably the spin chute which they had for decades , which has now been accepted by cat sailing and changed the whole game for the better , suppose flying a symetrical spin from one didn't look too cool .

Seeing we're going off the subject slightly here, I take it that I'll have to accept the fact that F16's are approx 10% slower than an 'A' upwind. It could take 30yrs of development to reach the speed they are currently achieving in which time they would also have increased their speed so no net gain there. The only way to compete against F18's is to be launched (not delivered) at birth.
I guess I was looking for a more positive response on how the Class would improve performance within the current rules. Although, It is good to see that some people are willing to experiment, Scooby and his super, super long centreb'ds, 1*1 and their spi halyard system.
So is anybody else willing to put forward any ideas which they have thought about to improve F16 boat speed?

Mark,

people may not like this, but.....

I think to improve we need to spend more time on the water and stop making mistakes (I put myself firmly in this camp). Spi hoists when done well don't loose much in the transition, ditto the drop. But do it wrong and you loose 100's of meters.

Yes there is also more speed to be gained out of the boats with better design and setup, but I also think there is a lot more to be gained out of us.

What direction do we move in design wise ?. Boats are now getting down to weight. I think my longer plates are faster. Someone is playing with Spi halyard routing. My (and your) mainsails look much better for single handing. What's next ? Better Wing masts ? Better hull shapes ? Better sails ? Do we have another large step to take in boat performance?, or will we just chip away at it? I don't know.

But it is fun......

The largest variable factor will always be the nut on the tiller.

After that, in my opinion, the next biggest factor is weight. However, we can assume that, over the next couple of years newer boats will get down to the minimum for class rules.

Thereafter the largest gains have to be in the rig. Reducing windage, weight aloft, better mast profiles etc. We are already borrowing hugely from the sail developments of other classes.

In the short term therefore, the most cost effective gains are undoubtedly to be had in improving our individual performances via time on the water and also by makig our boats more friendly to sail - improving systems so that they are easy to use and effective in all conditions.

just my twopenn'orth...

I dont think we will see major tech leaps either. But sometimes an enterprising soul comes up with something new, like the T-foils. There is a lot we could try, but it would make things more complicated. E.g. telescoping spi-poles, canting rigs, true wave piercing hulls, banana foils etc. Most of it limited by our rules, which is a good thing.

Put a really good sailor on the F-16 and an average sailor on the A/F-18 and see what happens. Speed is mostly in our heads <img src=

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It would be interesting to put an A class rig on one of our platforms and then compare. I for one think that as a single hander we are carrying too much sail area ( we tend to have the downhaul on a longway sometimes and thus create a very draggy and inefficient sail ) and that if we reduced it to a high aspect sail similar to the A class with similar masts then we wouldn't be down 10% performance incurred by the extra weight, snuffer windage.

The other thing also was that with John P on the helm he was right in amongst the A's at Mumbles 06, perhaps we need to get ourselves up to speed by 10%. <img src=

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Exactly my point above; I feel we need to get sailing our boats right before we worry too much about the last 1% of boat design speed.

Don't forget this thread is about upwind speed not all round boat speed. The race I was originally talking about the 'A' was 10% quicker upwind but I was 12% quicker downwind and won. However, the following race the 'A' won and also won the regatta on count back (No prizes for guessing who but we were using his scoring software!!)

It's been done within the class rules on Altered, you couldn't get much closer to an A while staying within the F16 rules. It showed good speed. Don't know how it compared with an A on upwind performance but I'm sure it owned them downwind.

We could put my rig on Steve's platform if the mast foots are compatible...

Hi all,

I have looked at this thread a couple of times and avoided commenting because I have posted this stuff before and I am getting cranky being boatless, so please humour me if I get out of line <img src=

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Altered

has got me in. <img src=

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Firstly remember that

Altered

was truly as close to a A class in rig as possible, same mast,minimum weight and maximum luff length, with the majority of it's F16 weight in the platform.

I have found the major speed difference between the F16 and A's and even Taipans was when they flew a hull on trapeze and the F16 had both hulls in the water. This I believe was a factor of boat width and platform weight as much as anything else. My answer to these conditions around 7kts. upwind, was to sit on the side and point higher rather than to get on trapeze. This generaly improved my VMG and kept me close to the A's, at the same time I was actualy able to pull away from F18's that had one on trapeze and where pointing lower than the A's. <img src=

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Other than these conditions I honestly believe the difference in speed upwind between F16, A's and F18's is not that great and the crew weights and tune of the rig has more to do with it than anything else. As over the years I have been competitive with what I would say where similar standard sailors in most conditions on the right day. Keep in mind I weighed 90kg. so I was able to use my weight and F16 width to advantage in 15 kts. plus against A's, I think a 65kg. sailor was mentioned in this thread which I think would be just to light to be competitive one up sorry <img src=

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I have no doubt from what I have seen in OZ in the last couple of years with the F18 development. F16's just need to sail more and tune more, if we can improve our speed as much as the F18's have we will be competitive no problems. I just keep reminding myself in the first season on

Altered

I use to beat Greg on the Capricorn in under 15kts. since then he has beaten me every time, what changed? To me it is obvious he learnt to sail his boat faster and improved it's tune in those conditions <img src=

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We just need to sail more, boat handling and tuning is everything. <img src=

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/> Don't blame your boat blame yourself. Then talk to people and work out why and fix it for next time <img src=

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Alter Cup

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Your rig (mast foot) is likely to be compatible with the Blade owned by Paul.

Wouter