Good to hear. They are certainly looking to try new ideas in the 12s. The hull shapes were certainly in need of an update so will be interesting to see how the class develops.

He was also involved in a pretty cool 40ft yacht as well recently, so he gets involved in interesting concepts. That 40fter can do 9knots upwind which is better than a Farr40, with half the rail-weight. The foils on that one were certainly different (and not-canting as well)...

And Wouter, you seem to live by the adage "There is something wrong on the Internet and I must fix it!" Remember that it can be people's opinions and observations. We all live in various parts of the world and this is a place to note and discuss.

Not easy to measure under full load whist sailing. See what I can do on land though.

The test Phill and I would like the measurements from is taken on land. Just measure the distance from bowtip to bowtip. Then hoist the mainsail and sheet in hard (could we come up with an easy and repeatable way to sheet in with a known force?). After you have sheeted in, say enough to flatten the sail as good as possible, take the measure again. This would give an indication on how much flex there is in the hulls under load.

The extra width on a Tornado would make the angle of the lines from the bows to the pole tip flatter than on a 8.5' wide boat for the same height of pole tip above bows. So you aren't get as much help from those lines in resisting vertical deflection of the pole tip.

Which is why a pelican striker might be very helpful on a Tornado, but not so much on a narrower boat.

Sounds logical, but we just will not know until we at least have some measurements. Anybody up to do the same on their F16s or other boats while we wait for the F18 and Tornado numbers?

Whatever mate. I'm not dumb enough to believe a win in that contest will ever solve anything. If I win then you will just claim I got a lucky shift; if you win then that will be claimed as proof that you are next Bruce Farr or whatever famous boatdesigner you can think of. Both would be equally silly.

Besides, the last placed crew in the final F18 worlds listing can also claim to have "taken on the worlds best". I'm officially registered as a 1st place winner in a major event (650 boats). If you really want to compare penis size then all I have to say is that I didn't just take on the worlds best but actually came out on top as well. Come back when you achieve parity with that.

Personally I find this pissing absolutely rediculous. Again, personal results achieved on the race course say diddly about the validity of the engineering comments made by the same person.

I wonder how many (major) races the head engineer of the Multiplast yard has won !

So I say, come back with some actual measurements of spi pole tip flexing using the normal setup and prove that that is significant to sailboat performance before mouthing me off.

I claim two things :

-1- That the absolute flexing of the tip is not at all that much, given normal dimensions and stiffness of hulls and support wires.
-2- That the relative flexing of the tip under varying spinnaker luff loads when properly sheeted is too little to matter much in performance. Meaning the amount of flexing while sailing is to small to matter.

Note that -1- and -2- are two different things !

That will be all from me.

Wouter

Rolf,

Darren Bundock once told me that the luff length on the Gransegal kite was very important & any deviation to that length (while sailing) either thru pole lifting slightly & mast flexing above the hounds was detremental to speed. So I believe the striker on the picture you posted would be a mere additional support to help stop the pole springing under load.

FYI - When we sailed Sail melbourne regatta (Tornado's) against Darren a few years back, he gave us some halyard measurements to use on our Mk4 GS kite & the difference was amazing. That is when he also gave some advice about how important it was to keep the setting from being affected by rig & pole movements.

I was reframing from posting this info, but since Wouter & Steve are having a slinging match, thought I might try and help change the tone of the thread <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

Nice one Marcus! As far as I am concerned if Bundock says/does it then its gospel!

Makes me realise how big the difference between a good club sailor and a world champ is!.... Shame I'm not even a good club sailor.

All conjecture. No real data there. Wouter won't accept this kind of thing. Need evidence, and numbers, lots of them!!!

Gee taipanfc, I have a good thread with good information rolling here.

Marcus, when we went from 9100mm to 9130mm we noticed the difference, no doubt about it. I never noticed much flexing when going downwind so I find this discussion very interesting. Having those "hull flex" indications from measurements will be very interesting!

Rolf,
I've done some tow in measurements several years ago to evaluate the benfits of fitting a sub deck to hulls.
I used a loose guage on the forestay to ensure the loading was the same and I was comparing apples to apples.

On a very light weight timber platform the hulls towed in 30mm.
A glass platform was around half that and a timber platform with a sub deck in the hulls was half that again.

Unfortunately I don't remember the loose guage setting but if I find my notes on this subject I'll let you know.

Regards,
Phill

I missed this in all the fun. Bundy uses the 5 and I currently have one of his 'Games' kites.

Apologies Rolf, was just trying to pre-empt Wouter.

Thread is good and is something quite interesting and probably overlooked/assumed to be right when a boat is set up. Regularly sail on TPs and other raceboats (either as bow or spi/jib trim) and see how critical a stable pole and rig can be on an A-Sail. If the pole is not stable and is bouncing, it has a massive effect on the rest of the sail. Now, I know that this is a cat forum and we are talking about different boats, but the general concept of creating a stable luff is there. And with the kites going flatter (and those pix from Delta Lloyd are certainly looking flatter compared to a few years back), the luff stability is an issue. I think it is a take on moving in the right direction.

Rolf,
I've found my notes:
32 on a loose guage on the forestay will yeild a tow in of 25mm on the glass T4.9 platform that I measured and 30mm on
the timber T4.9 platform without a sub deck.

Regards,
Phill

Very true. I am more mid fleet (International) than a world beater, but have beaten World Champions in races as well as regattas. As I said, I will prove my worth against a quality fleet rather then hide in fleets that flatter sailors.



My Girlfriend is an Engineer and helms my Capricorn now...... Don’t make me drag her in here and bitch slap you down buddy.

Engineers are only as good as the models they create. Engineers are also at times WRONG...... Which is something you never will admit to yourself.



You came here and slagged off a mate of mine resulting in me coming in to bitch slap you. He made a claim based on personal experience by himself and many others including rock star sailors.

You came here and accused him off speaking “utter nonsense”

How about you go out and do the test, record the results and publish them with someone verifying the accuracy of them before calling BS on someone. You call yourself an engineer but have nothing to back up your claims on this except for “because I said”

I am sick of you coming here and kicking down peoples valid opinions stating they are wrong and you are right because you are an Engineer and others are not.

Not winning many friends here mate.

Pull your head in or this will continue.

This thread was started about a Tornado setup.

With the main comments comming from f18 and Tornado setups.

Why not post on the open forum and give more people the benefits of your knowledge.

FWIW I am currently looking at fitting a pelican striker to my Stealth. I was already playing around with it when this thread came up!

Background is this: I got a new kite from Grant Piggott that is the same as Scooby's and Mark_P's. It has a much longer luff than my other kites and although it fits the new style Stealths, it won't fit on mine. The pole needs to be lowered to where it is on the newer Stealths and they use tangs fitted low down on the inside of each bow. Mine are on top of the already higher bow of the old style Stealth. As a result, although I can get the pole down low, the steadying wires are now almost horizontal and doing nothing to resist upward deflection of the pole tip. On shore I can get the spin set up beautifully with a nice tight luff but as soon as we're on the water the pole prebend turns into an S-bend!!

I looked at the possibility of fitting lower take off points for the pole wires and that is what will happen when I remodel the bows this winter (if I keep the boat). In the meantime however, I needed a 'quick and dirty' solution and the obvious one was a striker arrangement which is exactly what I was working on when this thread started.......

Jalani, also fit a strop (as on the Tornadoes) from the bridal to the pole to assist in vertical stability in the mid section.

Better pic

Yes, Steve - thanks. I already have a compression strut fitted. I just need to now make it longer.