Youth Recreation Trend

I work in the recreation field, one disturbing trend seen in the industry is a sharp decline in casual recreation participation i.e. a group of kids from the neighborhood getting together and playing a pick-up game of football, soccer, baseball etc. The primary emphasis is falling towards organized youth sports. While this is not necessarily all bad, it does restrict a childs casual and unstructured interaction with his/her peers. So how does this relate to developing a catamaran that would be marketed to kids coming out of opti fleets??

Well when was the last time you saw kids at your local sailing venue sailing just for fun, not being involved in a regatta, or structured sailing program? While there are kids that certainly do this, the numbers are just not great. At the club I sail out of, on the weekends, opti/laser/420 coached practices will draw 50+ boats out on the water, but take away the strucure, and there may be 1 or 2 of the more dedicated High School sailors and that is all.

Until a fleet of youth catamarans can be established and the concept bought into by local sailing organizations, there will be a lot of difficulty creating a market for this boat.

That all being said, I think it's a great idea, but an uphill battle to create. The first step is to expose as many kids as possible to catamarans. Get those kids out of the opti's for a couple hours for a ride. More often than not they will be hooked, and looking for more!

If someone can provide me the line drawings of that cat in a 14' version, I'll start cutting the bulkheads for it tonight.

The small car top Cat has been done before.

I had a chance to sit in a van going to some party with Hobie Sr. back in 99 at Carlton's regatta.
He was asking the people there

how can we get more kids sailing on cats

.
He talked about the 10 and 12 foot designs he had worked on without much success.
He was very passionate about getting more kids sailing.
I remember him talking about how it cost almost as much to build a 12ft Cat as it did a 16ft version and that it was very difficult to get parents to buy boats they could not sail.
I don't think the boat is what will make the difference.
It seems that the kids that sail at clubs do so while the parents are having lunch on a big boat they never take out.
The Opti is like the VCR or video game at home. An easy babysitter.
We all need to keep trying to get the kids out on the water.

Looks like something Mom or Dad could sail too.

I'm going on sheer demographic numbers here, not the past. The first baby boomer turned 20 years old in 1968, the last baby boomer turned 20 years old in 1984. I'm not really interested in why based on the past it won't work...we can throw statistics at one another until 2008. So enough on that.

Of merit, to build a boat there are significant base costs. What are the ideas to simplify and keep it cheap?

Maughan,

If it's a 12 footer are you still in?

Folks,
I started prototying a boat like this a while back and even have two half built hulls.
I have been drawn off the project helping to get the Blade F16 and F18 into production in Australia.

Since then I have come up with further simplifications that will keep the craft very simple and straight forward.
Currently I'm working on a new building method that I hope will make building such a boat easier for the handyman than both tortured ply and chined construction and allow a boat to be built from either ply or foam. So when I get back to it I will start fresh using this method.

The idea is to car top the craft so the all up rigged weight has to be under 50kg. It's a rope and stick boat.
They are the only controls. The mainsheet also applies tension to the luff of the sail. Other than mainsheet there is a tiller. That's it. The boat will be easier to rig than a Laser.
The boat is 12ft long and crew weight limited to around 60kg.

If needed it should be able to be sailed in water the kids can stand up in. As it has a free standing rig and with so few fittings and moving parts the cost of construction private or commercial should be quite cheap.

Getting something like this on the water and working is the easy part. Convincing people to build or buy and sail is the challenge.

I believe we should be growing our own crop of sailors instead of leaving it up to the mono guys.

I will be getting back to the project as soon as I have the time to do the prototyping.

Regards,
Phill

Yes, this is the man that you all love to hate !

But bear with me for a moment, afterall there is alot in this concept that originated in my mind. The drawing itself is mine as well.

You'll probably have noticed that the hulls look very similar to the Blade F16 hulls because I ripped those of the F16 drawing I had made weeks earlier.

The idea for this 12 footer came from Phill and he wanted a very simple boat that would be very suited to children and small adults but not look like a bycicle with training wheels.

I remember how despite my love for complex boats I really appreciated the simple and quick setup of my class 5 landyacht. So two things merged. The Blade platform with a class 5 (unstayed) rig of about 6 sq. mtr. area (65 sq. ft.). The idea was to make is really agile boat (like a laser 1) but with a much simple setup that still retained a high efficiency ratio. The laser 1 has a triangular unstayed rig. The class 5's landyacht have a unstayed rig like the lasers as well but with a much more high aspect and therefor much more efficient rig.

Later we found out that the 65 sq. ft. sailarea was very similar to the laser 1 radial rig that is optimized for light weight laser sailors like women and teens. Afterall you'll need to be 80 kg or more to hold down a standard laser-1 rig.

Some development was done on this 12 footer (later coined as F12) but it stalled, F16 and F18 design work did take up alot of time and effort.

So here we are. I still think the basic idea has alot of merit and over the X-mas hollidays (I was fed up with control engineering design work of my more mundane weekly endeavour) I worked some extra portions of this design out. Mostly trying to make the design simpler and easier/cheaper to build.

I believe that if this thing is to fly that it must be really easy to build and ludicrously inexpensive to market.

Like I said the rig is pretty much of a class 5 landyacht and I know that reasonably well. I have measured mast several setups and I think I have the rig sorted out designwise. It also looks like this boat can be rather fast despite its strict emphasis on simplicity if one condition can be satisfied. Overall Lightweightness !

50 kg ready to sail would be perfect ! 60 kg would be acceptable. Higher will be unsufficient as then it requires more sailarea and heavier component thus leading direction into a weight trap.

The mast itself looks to be buildable in aluminium (out of standard round sections) for 8.5 kg. The (sleeved) sail and boom should not be more then 4.5 kg overall. As the rig is unstayed it should be buildable for 13 kg or less. That is pretty lightweight. And added advantage of the class 5 rig is that the mast is build up out of shorter components by fundamental design. Therefor the rig can be

collapsed

into smaller sections just like the laser rig. This takes care of one major problem point mast -length and easy transport.

The beams should not be more than 80x2 and the whole platform should not have to be wider than 1.80 mtr. Probably 1.60 mtr. is better. That is if you look at the ease of flying a hull, a key component in thrill experience. But either way the beams themself will not be heavier then 2.5 kg a piece, excluding additional fitting of which there are hardly many as this is a simple boat. That makes 5 kg for the beams.

I have a very simple traveller setup that is both very cheap and effective. I have that system on one of my other landyachts. I never believed it would work but it truly does. The whole system is just two blocks with a becket and a length of line. No cleats, no rails, no cars. As such it is excellent for this F12 setup. Mainsheet and downhaul are integrated and should not weight more then 1 to 1.5 kg.

I've also done some stress analysis and it looks very doable from many angles. There are only two problem points. We are now only left with roughly 30 kg for two hulls. That means 15 kg per hull.

problem point one :

How to make a hull by inexpensive means that only weights 15 kg. I believe that the 12 foot length is a very helpful factor here, just as the unstayed rig is. But cheap and inexpensive production techniques pretty much mean a hull made with core-matt instead of foam. As in spraying a core layer of chopped matt and resin on the outer skin and than finishing of the inside with another layer of glass. Will that allow a 15 kg hull of 12 foot length ?

problem point two :

How to fit the mainbeam to the hulls. The mainbeam will be under significant torsion loads that all need to be taken up by the beam landing if the boat is to remain simple. Calculations will only help a little bit in this area, significant real life testing need to be done to really find out what will work and what won't.

I also measured up the roof of my car and a 12 ft by 6 ft is really cartoppable when fully assembled. Afterall the laser 1 itself is 13.5 ft by 4.5 ft. But again lightweightness is key as pushing a 50 kg platform on top of your car is alot harder then 30 kg.

Personally I see this concept as very promising. At least up till now I have not really found any serious hang-ups. Maybe we should indeed persue it further.

However I do propose to forget about 14 ft and go straight to 12 foot. This will not carry a family as neither the laser-1 will. We are not looking to design a competitor to the Hobie wave.

Without clear concent I can't use any F16 hull data for the F12 hulls. So somebody, somewhere has to come up with a decent 12 foot hull or persuade Phill to draw of the F12 hulls. Without Phills concent I really can't work on the hulls. All the other stuff is unrelated to the Blades and so I can work on them and make the findings public knowlegde.

But far more interesting at this time is solving the beamlanding issue. For that even simple test rigs can be build and used. That'll save us wasting time and money on hull that we'll break.

I propose to start on that first, any takers ?

An alternative could be to get the timber Pixie building plans (a 14 ft 100 kg catamaran) and use that as a first test bed. Or maybe the 14 ft paper tiger building plans.

Does anybody here have experience or data concerning core-matt hull building. ?

Gareth, are you willing to provide us with some Michlet hull drag data ? Preferably compared to f18 hull drag graphs ?

If we forum members work together on this one then maybe some really exiting may develop.

Wouter

How about if we could design this F12 so it can be produced and sold for very little money. Something like 3000 US$ ?

Something stirdy enough so it can be safely given to young people without risking alot of money ?

Something really simple and that will look really simple to most novices as well. As in non-threatening.

Would that allow us to throw these things about and work up demand for them among young people.

Afterall there are not many racing sports with as little danger of serious bodily harm then sailing. If you spin out of control then the worst that can happen is that you'll get wet. But it is still very much racing.

Wouter

Here an example of how a class 5 unstayed landyacht rig looks :

It is quite tall and skinny, but with some significant surface area.

Its aspect ratio is very close to a F18 !

Also notice the absolute simplicity of the mast, sails and even the sheet.

The keys are

make it cheap

and

make it easy

. Easy to build (if homebuilding is to be a serious option), easy to transport, easy to rig and easy to sail. The Opti used to be like this, but no more (50 measurement points when measuring a hull?).
The potential for a kid having fun (with friends) is much larger on a cat than on a Opti. A cat is the perfect platform for bathing and other fun water activities. If the boats are fast in addition they are fun.
In the end, it's the parents who has the money or the resources to build a boat. Cost is a deciding factor not to be underestimated. Another factor to consider is how to get it started?

Wouter: I have buildt a Quattro16, which is a Pixie scaled up a bit. Simple to build, but all those full bulkheads add weight.
Do you have any pictures of the traveller setup you described?

The boat will be 50KG (125lbs).
How much crew weight can the boat handle and still sail well?
This design stuff is not my cup of tea.

The big question still remains:
What will be done differant to get the kids on the boats and out sailing that has not been tried many times already?

I don't want to be negative, but I still feel the big issue is not the boat.
Your trying to provide a product with no established demand.

There are still a lot of H14's out there, there's the Wave, Bravo, Dragoon ,Mystere 4.3 and others.
Why do you guys feel that an F12 will get kids to want to go sailing on that boat over any of the above?

My personal preference is to have Phill design the hulls as his Blade hulls are very good. Much better then any other homebuildable plans out there.

The pixie idea is just to get a test platform on the water to work out the beam-landing design and test the class 5 rig. Think of it as a validation platform with the real F12 platform being optimized with the experiences gained.

I think 3 out of 4 key points are almost certainly assured with this F12 basic setup.

I know from my class 5 experience how quick and easy this mast sail combo is too rig and sail. I see no reason why it should be any different when placed on a boat.

The same class 5 exeperience tells me that it is easy to transport as well. The class 5's are 50 kg in overall weight and the mast can be broken down into smaller pieces.

The mast is easy to build and as good as all class 5 landyachters do build them themselfs. The sail is nothing special either, just a sleeved sail with a round tube stuck through its sleeve. Its most important feature is luff curve. The boom is free hanging and even my grandmother can build one of those.

Other components are pretty standard Cat stuff.

The angle to attract kids is to first make these boats look modern and look fast. I think the rig goes a long way in adressing this.

The second is to do fleet racing like the waves are doing, where anybody can come along and enter himself into the race after paying say 25 bucks per evening.

Then grow it from there. Maybe challenge a few laser-1's and beat them.

Wouter

Because nearly all of the boats named look ugly or look like something

your parents

would sail. And if they do look more or less okay then they are too heavy and too complex.

Lets face it, is the Bravo easily associated with

speed

or

cool!

when just looking at it ?

The only rotomolded cat that looks good is the Dart 16.

Nearly all of these rotomolded boats are designed to carry 180 kg of crew weight and as such they are under-performant. I think it to be a big mistake the require these boats to carry the whole family. If anything only a parent and kids should be carried for as long as it is required to teach juniour the ropes and build up enough confidence to go out alone. Therefor the boats should be able to float say 130 kg but should really be optimized for much less crew weight say 40 to 65 kg.

The dragoon and m4.3 look alot better, but both are too heavy and too complicated to be comparable to the ease of say a Laser or optimist dinghy. They are full race catamaran, including a spinnaker, but as such are too much for the group of kids, teenagers and women that we are going after.

The F12 should therefor be nothing of the above. It should be an catamaran that is really simple (15 min rig time tops), easy to learn and sail, lightweight and above all performant when sailed by a kid or light parent (alone).

Afterall how many parents step into a optimist together with their kids ? None, there is simply no room, still most kids get into sailing through mono's like these. So drop the

should carry the family

demand

Wouter

Pat,
By comparison the boats you mentioned are too heavy, and too complex.
The boat I had in mind would be so simple it would be rigged in about the same time it would take to put your sailing clothes on. So mum and dad could rig their boat and in the times it takes Johnny to get dressed his boat would be rigged too.
He sails around in the shallows while mum and dad go racing.

When you have enough kids sailing around in the shallows you can start organising races for them or better still ball games on the water. Ball games on the water can be a lot of fun if the boats are agile enough.

Regards,
Phill

Humm,

Looks like Phill and I are answering the same posts at exactly the same time.

Funny !

Wouter

While the thought of building a boat that is as short as the spinnaker pole on my current boat makes me smirk, I don't think I can FIT on a 12' boat. Hell I'm more than half as tall as it is long! <img src=

alt=

/>

What the hell, why not?

Need line drawings!

(also this would be a building learning experience for me, so the weight would be... lets just say it wont be no Acat) 😛

Looks like Phill and I are answering the same posts at exactly the same time.

Good point.

I'd better go do some of the tasks I have set for the day.
There is never enough time.

At one time hobie had a small cat, it was only about 11.5 feet long. I have a very old one sitting out back that I purchased a few weeks ago. I actually thought I was buying a Hobie 14 when I saw it. I really haven't looked at it at all. I know there are some pieces missing but it could be the boat that we are looking for.

I know you all are looking for something closer to a high performance boat with boards but in all honesty the boards add alot of weight and complexity. Also just look at the way the 14 is rigged, you could do without the traveler but other than that it would be about ideal. It is really simple to rig and if made smaller it would be a blast.

It sounds like the plan is to go with an unstayed rig, if it was made like that the sail could furl around that mast, that would be a huge advantage in making the boat simple and safe.

Also since we are trying to make the boat light and cheap. Lets only use one rudder off the rear cross bar. Wouldn't that work. Plus it could cut out the entire need for two rudder assemblies, and since they are not attached to the sterns the rear of the boat could be built lighter because it would have less stress on it.

I would be really interested in seeing something like this. I look at my generation and there are more people playing video games than even thinking about getting out and going sailing. I want to see people out there and a cheap boat could really help with that.

I guess we will just see where this goes.

It seems that the age groups would need to be broken down more. John mentioned 7-25yr old age range. I would say that it is more like a 7-12 bracket, 13-18, college age, and then the 23yr old plus. This makes it that much harder to make everyone happy.
I still find it hard to believe that parents will spend $3k for a boat for the youngsters(7-12) to bomb around on.
The 13-18 age group can start to sail a H16, F16 and even an F18.
I have sailed with kids in all the age brackets and know how hard it can be to keep them interested.
I find they come to regatta's and even fleet or club racing based a lot more on the social aspects then any boat factor you can throw in.
Looking Cool and Fast are relative terms and all the differant age groups will probably have differant views.
I can tell you

Fast

is a lot slower for a 7 year old than it is to a 16yr old.
I'm all for promoting youth sailing and trying to find a boat that makes that happen.
If you don't ask the questions you won't be successful.

Remember Maugan, that laser 1 dinghy isn't bigger than the F12 !

Wouter

Hi All

I was just having a quiet think to myself. When I sailed juniors the only real option available was an Arafura cadet or an Impara cadet (both 12 ft), are you familiar with the Impara, Phill? Theres actually one in storage at the local yacht Club, its ply, rounded tortured ply as opposed to the hard chine Arafura. When we used to rig on the beach, we'd dream of sailing the boats like the mosquito, taipan or the pipe dream A Class.

My only concern (don't hurt me) would be not make it too simple, even the smallest of the monos and indeed the Arafura and Impara had the basic control lines, not necessarily a 8:1 internal downhaul or anything like that, but when kids look at the big boats they can associate their boat with something bigger.

I've been thinking of the future for my son as well, and have sat down with paper and pen, nothing too technical at this stage, but in realistic terms what I would have liked to sail when I was a junior, whilst remaining as stated easily and inexpensive to build, transport and sail.

Maybe ask the juniors what they see as being the ideal cat for them, I know, I know never work kids or animals, but you never know what ideas they might have to help.

Just another opinion, but at the end of the day. If was a junior, I'd want to be able look at my boat and then look at a F16, A Class or whatever and say to myself, 'Your Next'. Just tell Mum and Dad to start forking out the inheritence a bit earlier, I keep asking mine, but they won't go for it <img src=

alt=

/>

Regards

One point that has not been mentioned......the boat MUST be exciting....it HAS to be able to SMOKE mono dingys of similar size/length (including Laser). Kids today are a bit more adrenaline addicted than even a generation ago. Add to that the fact that we (in most cases) are trying to pull kids from strong existing mono classes with a lot of family history. Even my own 15 year old has a hard time bucking all his friends to come sail on a cat....but he will IF it is significantly more exciting...but NOT

just

because it has 2 hulls.....(as an aside, I'm hoping to get him on an F18 soon...)

Does anybody know what the US sailing Portsmouth numbers for the laser dinghy are and if these numbers can be compared to the cat portsmouth numbers ?

That would help me.

Matt and Joe, basically what I'm trying to do is keep walking down the scaling path that lead the F16's to have the same performance as the F18's and that has also shown the Aussie F14's to hang with both the F16's and F18's. This will allow the F12 to be a pretty fast boat.

Roughly speaking if we scale a 5.52 mtr long F18 hull (330 kg crew+boat weight) down to 3.65 mtr (F12) then that hull will carry optimally 100 kg (boat + crew). Now if we are succesful in making the F12 50 kg ready to sail then a 50 kg kid will be flying with about the same speed as the F18 if the rigs are scaled by the same extend. This latter conditions is too much to live up to as that would require some 9.25 sq.mtr. of upwind sailarea. and we would only carry something like 6 sq. mtr. But still those 6 sq. mtr. would bring the F12 performance to somewhere around the Hobie 16's and Prindle 16's. And that is really not a bad speed potential for the kids. It will certainly impress the Laser crowd.

But this are just early predictions.

And Matt, in my basic plan the platform would look almost the same as an A-cat except not having daggerboards but skegs. The only real different will be the rig itself but I think the unstayed landyacht rig does look flashy enough to make it attractive. Ohh, and it won't have a trapeze. It will be a hiking boat just like the laser.

But one thing is for sure, because of the extra width a kid will be able to make the F12 go much faster then he can make the laser dinghy go. Afterall you need to be pretty tall and heavy to get max performance out of a laser.

Wouter

The standard Laser is rated at 91.1

For sake of reference following are a few various cats:

Hobie 14 - 86.4
Hobie 16 - 76
F16 (2up) - 65.2
F18 - 62.4
N20 - 59.3
Tornado - 59.0

I couldn't sail a Laser either Wout 😛

Not anymore.

Laser (Int.) LASE 91.1 93.8 92.2 91.0 88.2

And yes these numbers would apply against a catamaran.

Portsmouth

Doh, I'm a little slow.

Matt: Here's your Arafura
There are at least 10 cats that have been designed and built that are under 14ft over the years.
Has anyone heard of the Paper Tiger?

Yes, Paper Tigers everywhere over here, but too big for junior IMO (assuming where chasing the youngest of sailors)
Although it has approval I think for junior development over here for things like Vicsail (turning juniors to champs).

The Impara Cadet looks like a small version of the mossie, more modern than the Arafura, however the Arafura is still fairly popular I think, but I've only ever seen 3 Imparas.

I'm not sure that the collapsible mast/unstayed rig would be my thinking, but I'm not designing it either. And I believe trapeze is a must have, if this boat could comparable to the hobie 16 or any bigger cat for that matter, I can't see how you could be in the ball park hiking, lets face it, I love and have always loved the wire.

Just my 2 cents

My 6 year old loves to trap even as I drag the Stingray over the sand, he wouldnt look at a cat without traps but would work the wild thing out pretty quick. Workout that small homebuild and I could get rid of the 420.
regards