As I get some time here and there, I’ve begun construction on a couple of US1M hulls. I’m still perfecting my vacuum bagging technique but have settled on a laminate schedule. This hull had a layer of 3.5oz S-glass (the strong fiberglass) and one layer of 5.7oz carbon fiber cloth. Concerned about the oil-canning tendency of the large flat bow, I placed two strips of balsa triangle stock in the bow section for stiffness - they work well, but I’m not completely certain they’re necessary. Certainly both aren’t and only one will be required. The good news is that I’m right at the weight target for the hull and I think I can still get a little lighter with using a 2oz fiberglass cloth on the exterior. This hull half weighed in a 5.39oz (.34 lb) but hadn’t had any of the flashing or PVA washed off yet. I’m trying to get an assembled and reinforced hull and deck down to around 2/3 lb. This includes the primary bulkhead and radio tray. I did still have some void issues in with the vacuum bag but I used a stretchy vacuum film called “Stretchelon” for the second hull half and suffered NO void issues. Good stuff!

The second hull half that I laminated came in at 4.8oz (0.3 lb)after the flashing was removed - that’s right on target! I laminated up a 16″ x 18″ piece of 1/8″ balsa with carbon on both sides to fashion three pairs of bulkheads and radio trays that came in at 5oz ….some rough calcs for cut-away waste and the material for the bulkhead and radio tray should come in at 1.25 oz (.07lb). That puts me at .695lb with the 3.5oz glass…so a switch to 2oz glass on the exterior may just knock it do .66lb and I think that’s as light as I can go and have it be reasonably durable.

The Appellate Division of the New York court system shocked the sailing community yesterday with a complete reversal of the America’s Cup case of GGYC (BMW/Oracle) vs. SNG (Alinghi). In a nutshell, three out of the five judges deemed that Justice Cahn’s ruling to date were null and void and reinstated CNEV (Spain) back in as the official Challenger of Record (COR). Nobody was ready for this ruling and I don’t believe that CNEV, the yacht club, technically exists anymore after they disconnected their phone, removed their board of directors, and admitted they were a legal adjustment put in place just for the America’s Cup.

The judges went back to the word “having” and determined that in this sentence from the Deed of Gift (DoG) that the wording is ambiguous and does not necessarily mean that the club must have already had regattas as Justice Cahn had determined. Because it was deemed ambiguous, they went back to precedent and determined that clubs that did not meet this requirement were allowed to compete in years past in the challenger series - Alinghi is one of them. Alinghi has never been the official Challenger of Record but competed in, and won, the challenger series and beat New Zealand in the finals several years ago.

Any organized Yacht Club of a foreign country, incorporated, patented, or licensed by the legislature, admiralty, or other executive department, having for its annual regatta an ocean water course on the sea, or on an arm of the sea, or one which combines both, shall always be entitled to the right of sailing a match of this Cup…

The dust is still settling from the surprising result and while some commentary I’ve read questioned the ability of the judges to make some of the leaps they did, the fact that two of the three judges strongly dissented the ruling automatically gives BMW/Oracle the right to appeal the decision. The BMW camp is “evaluating their options” at the moment and Alinghi is touting justification of everything to date. It’s undoubtedly a black eye for BMW but I do think we’ll see them file a strong appeal. Rumour has it that their DoG Monster catamaran/trimaran is mostly ready for launch…but now it has no event….for the moment….

It’s been a while since we checked in on our fiberglass and carbon guru who’s spending way too much time building a huge jet powered Blackbird r/c model plane. He’s getting really close to flying the first prototype and instead of fitting it out with $8,000 worth of jet engines, he’s mounted up a couple of rather powerful alcohol powered piston engines with propellers. In his own words,

I’m crazy to be doing this project, but not crazy enough to risk eight grand worth of jet engines on a test flight that might result in a big lawn dart maneuver from 200 feet.

He’s also rigged up a unique system where he can remotely drop weights from the plane to quickly experiment with different centers of gravity. Performance and handling characteristics are greatly affected by CG on a plane and with the odd ball shape of this beast, it would normally take a lot of time to sort out where the CG needed to be if you were having to land and take off for each minute adjustment. Click for more.

 

We’ve been discussing ways to get people into the sport of catamaran sailing. A quick look around at our regattas shows that we’re a pretty experienced bunch of sailors - some say that this fact alone is intimidating to a new sailor and is part of the reason our fleets aren’t growing.

We’re starting to sketch out an informal and informational regatta weekend - hopefully to take place sometime this year. We will do some informal short-ish distance racing, perhaps swapping crews and skippers to mix up the experience levels, and possibly some off the water chalk board sessions. However, I don’t know how to reach the people that might enjoy such an event. Are any of you reading this blog? Email me at jake [at] teamseacats.com (substitute “@” for [at]).

I’ve been called to the mat over at The Horses’s Mouth for being a little critical of the sailing speed records set by windsurfers in the purpose built ditch and not in open water in France. An older video of a heavily reefed ORMA 60 trimaran reaching with a windsurfer at relatively the same speeds was placed as evidence! While the following video does not show a direct comparison between a windsurfer and a multihull, it’s hard to imagine a windsurfer out in these kinds of conditions able to gallop through the waves as the Geant Trimaran is able to do here. The speed, the brute strength, and the shear power of these multihulls in the ocean is awe inspiring.