Having come to the gentile art of dinghy sailing relatively late in the day, I find it has followed a course of action not unlike that of another sport dear to my heart, Windsurfing.
Basically most of the exciting fast stuff becomes next to near impossible to sail by someone with the level of work commitments and perhaps the deteriorating motor skills bought on by the decay of years. Fast boats are over canvassed slim skiffs that fall over if no-one is inside them to mind whats going on. They fall over even more, with people inside them, even if they do mind what's going on, especially when its windy or in challenging sea conditions, to the point even the finest of Gold Medal Olympic atheletes are at a loss to control them as witnessed in the Olympic medal race at Beijing.
So having once more purchased what I thought would be the answer in the shape of a super new boat the RS100 only to find it needed the level of skills possessed by an ex Olympic Squad member in order to suceed at, I decided there must be an easier way, and I'm hoping the answer will be the final result of this blog which will record my progress in fabricating new style racing dinghy.
I christened it initially the V2 as a latter day version of a dinghy known as the Vortex which due to its narrow nose and multiple daggerboards I'm tempted by but find unsuitable to the beach and sea condition I sail from at Hythe in Kent, but have since renamed, due to the V shaped hull which flows into twin aft planing sections and it is now called..
The V-Twin.
The illustrations on the left are renders from a CAD programme drawn up by Dan Holman who works for a company called Synthesize Yachts and Design.
I'd drawn sketches of my requirements, which is for a fast stable boat capable of being launched from our infamous shore dump at Hythe, safely.
I wanted a retracting centreboard, planing hull, widestyle with good righting moment and stability, the ability to either hike (easily without trashing my knees) or trapeze once I'm accomplished.
I don't want a Cat, they're difficult to right if they go over, don't tack well so not really suitable to close quarter tactical sailing using shifts etc that I enjoy, so the answer seemed to me to try and produce a cross between a Cat and a Mono but using some of the expertise I've learned over the years from assisting in the design and production of racing long windsurfing boards.
Having spent a day down at Synthesize and absolutely amazed at the capabilities of modern computer programmes and their ability once rendered to predict planing, wetted surface, plot attitude and generate a feasible model prior to production. I agreed to generate the inital design and move on to get quotes to mill a blank ro build the first prototype.
Hythe on a relatively benign day.
The design calls for three stage rocker, a 'rocker' being the varied angle of attack of the planing surfaces of the hull presented to the water. Most dinghies seem to have a progressive rocker, because primarily they are 'displacement' rather than 'planing' hulls. Or, more recently there has been a trend to straight rockered 'skiffs' that are designed to plane on rather than displace water, they use Assymetric rigs and emulate windsurfing techniques of planing at angles downwind rather than directly toward a mark by using their greater speed which generates apparent wind to progressively sail further and further offwind.
However when the windspeed is not great enough for them to work this way, they are inevitable sluggish due to the high area of wetted surface always present when no dynamic lift from motion is present. These hulls we also found in racing longboards with similar rockers, whilst good on flat water are slow to plane in sizeable waves and at certain wave angles promote a downward trajectory into the back of the next wave with sometimes dramatic results as the boat slows down or stops quickly and in some instances pitch poles stern over bow.
So having a rocker with three distinct 'sections' at each level altering the nose attitude whilst reducing contact with the surface presented by the previous section as the boat planes, assists this problem. The challenge was to work out the area, volume, hull width at key points in order to brief the designer, so I simply used what we already knew from long windsurfing boards, the result of which the two rear sections emulate two windsurf boards side by side.
That's the underside of the deck showing the inserts and deck moulding for the racks and fittings
Same thing from another angle
The internals, the centreboard case and bulkheads to reinforce the hull.
Couple of shots of its raw state out of the mould frames...
Prior to sanding.
Next step is to rub and fair the surface
Prior to filling and painting.
Clearly quite a lot of work, these stages which took most of last week.
It is however taking shape, and looking remarkably like the original plans and CAD programmes which although expected, is surprising nonetheless and very assuring.
Looking at the shot of the bow and these stern sections, it looks fully capable of taking what the sea is going to chuck at it. That nose lift should deal with anything and the stern flats look well capable of fast planing, it is a beast, I certainly won't be naming it after anything floral that's for sure..
