Hakan, you are right, what ever the class decides everybody else has to live with. But then again the management of the class has to decide what's worth having a ballot about, and I trust them to make the right decision about that - no worries.

I guess the key point I was trying to make is that over an average of different conditions you are as well of with your streight boards as with banana boards. And you should now how marginal these small differences are. If you still have your old Marström you don't have canted hulls and your daggerboards go vertical through your hulls while almost every other A-Cat builder has had canted hulls and angled daggerboards the last 10 years - and still a Marström is as competetive as any other A-Cat.

Don't forget that the main reason for a boat going fast or slow is still the sailor. Glenn Ashby, Lars Guck or Pete Melvin will probably come and beat us all again at the next worlds with a stock boat with no modification :-)

Here are some pictures of the Nikita at the Europeans - I couldn't find any ones showing the boards better. Maybe the hull shape is part of the success as well...

Thomas is saying exactly the way it was out there so i have to fully agree with his good and stated report he wrote.The best sailor did win not the boat.

You can say that the value of boats are going down when this change to curved boards is going to happen, if it will happen but what i do not understand is that when Marstrom made the new model A-class he had the change to put some things in it like the canted boards or canted hulls and he did not , for his reasons ,but the development of the class is not stopping. Maybe he created for him selve the problem of getting a boat which is loosing money in re-sell because it has not canted boards or hulls. But i think the boats will keep there value because they are build very nice.
He did ofcourse a lot of money investement to get the new boat out but he did now that the canted boards where already there and can give some advantage, so you can not yell to the class now and try to stop some developments. The ballot track is the only way to do it and the proper way to do it and i did understand they made a proposal for a ballot so let wait and see what will happen. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Cheers,

Hans Klok

Yep, Steve Brewin

Humm, have you ever seen me run-away, Stephen ?


Well, allow me to clearify may earlier statements.

It is as I have written in the later posts. I have little appreciation for A-class members who don't really understand that the A-class is a full-on development class and can be seen to prefer tighter rules and banning of experiments that have not yet proven to work or be a giant leap forward.

My very first statement was intented to convey that, but I see that it partly fails on that account. So consider that corrected.

I'm personally of the strong conviction that the A-class should remain as it was somewhere in the middle of the 90's. I truly believe that to be its strong point and indeed its selling point and path into future succes. I also feel that much of the "obseleteness around the corner" scares are largely unfounded.

The hydrofoil rules should be dropped in my opinion as it is will technically speaking very challenging to make it work with sufficient gains anyway. Much like Ben Hall's solid wingsail. Indeed, I'm in favour of removing similar rulings from other classes as well include the one my persona is often associated with.

I truly don't understand why the A-class would allow items like carbon masts in the past but not allow "vertical lift" producing foils. This seems inconsistant with their philosophy and indeed history to me. In the words of another poster, how many giant improvements in A-cat design are we still expecting. The beast has already been refined for over 40 years now. The changes of any breakthrough are much reduced now simply because the "standard" performance is already so increadiably high.

On the other hand, "attacking a class and members" is an weak ploy when debating a given topic. But since when have we all grown such weak persona's that we can't take a little heat in the discourse of a debate ? I think I'm coping with alot more of that without a single compliant. Am I such a hardened individual or are you all just such fragile souls ?

Wouter

You are still assuming that banana boards are an advantage. It's really early in this game and while I might agree that their could be some advantage in certain conditions I don't think they're going to be the ultimate end-all performance gainer.

Buy an A (any ol' one will do), become a member, vote at the AGM and overturn this rule. You said the same thing when there was numerous debates about the F16 weight.

The A has only a small number of rules which Jake pointed out, and the class is as popular as it has ever been. So something must be working.

And TA will be back tomorrow to resume normal banter. Little distraction in the Canetoads beating the ****.

Precisely. It would seem that the vertical lift obtainable under the present rule is not enough to justify the use of banana boards, so there is no need to change the rule.

I still favor hydrofoils, especially for seaworthiness. The pitch and roll damping they provide should not be overlooked. As Tom Speer once wrote: "hydrofoils don't make a slow boat fast, they make a fast boat more seaworthy".

Hans, the new Marstrom has canted hulls, strikerless main beam and changed hull shape. The discussion here will of course be biased depending on if you have a boat with banana boards or not, or if you don't have an A-cat at all and just wants those poor bastards to pay for foil deveolpment that you can pick later on for your own class.....

If you have such a boat you will of course try to say that it isn't faster to avoid any rule changes. My information is also from people that where there sailing and the result from the races gives an clear indication that that boat has a very good combination of hull shape and centerboard for some conditions. 1,2 one day and mid fleet the next day.

/hakan

I think you have a good point there. Easy to have adamant opinions when you dont risk anything.

Agree with you Rolf. A-Cats have been leaders in the past. Maybe the status quo of developments means that either cats aren't attracting the out-of-the-box thinkers, or we are on the cusp of the next development but it hasn't been thought yet. The past 5 to 10 yrs has been evolution rather than revolution. But if you look at the A history there have 2 major developments in the past 20 yrs. Taller rig accompanied by carbon mast development, and move to wave-piercing design. But with 9 to 11 different hull designs at recent worlds mean people are still working on one aspect of that. Steve Brewin specifically requested that the Tool he has in Oz had the front beam moved by a foot compared to the standard Tool. Not sure whether that was the case for his Euro's boat, but shows that rig/boat balance is critical and not as an obvious development as something which is being launched out of the water by foils.

Looking at F18/17/16, they are really evolution of ideas rather than pushing anything new. Tornados have pushed the envelope with the adoption of the kite and new jib/main configuration and sail development which has filtered down. But chasing the elusive Olympic medal will do that.

So- to move the thread along in the same direction.. Tornados have been pitched out of the next Olympics for no good reason. Thus there will be ample 8-years time for a new A-cat derived Tornado sloop with surface-piercing hull design to be perfected... with hull-lifting banana boards! I would love to work on developing such a modern creation.

Now that would be a great olympic event!

People, look closely at Dacarls photo above and to the left, you will see that is his A cat up on foils.

Any bigger pictures you can post here Dave?

Since you asked, from wwww.fastsail.com/catcobbler
avatar old wooden A-cat flying,
Hobie 18 flying on foils and Hobie 16 on foils, totally amateur pix. Curiously, nobody has come by and asked about sailing these rigs in the last 7 years. Note: these are obsolete foil designs, but still a great bunch of fun.

Hi Dave and all --great thread .

I'd like to see the rule allow foils outside the max beam --as long as foils are being added .

I think with the more box sectioned hulls out now an A foil might work best --or U foil in this case .

It would consist of 2 board slots in each hull at the sides of the box rather than center with the bottom foil as shown in the A foil pics .

With canted hulls this would have greater lifting capability and better stability {I,m guessing}

What do you think .

Scroll down on the site past the T foil to the A foil for a pic .

http://www.yachtboutique.com/BentleyYachts/Advanced_Hulls.htm

Thomas,

Do you have some pictures of the Nikita and a way to contact Nils. I would like to have him on my a-cat yahoo group under the builders section. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/A-CatWorld/

Thanks,

I think that the one neccasary rule that the class voted in was the minimum class wieght. I have not heard a great deal of concern over Ben's wing or lifting boards. The hydrofoil rule was put in place to ban vertical lifting foils, but not banana board or canted boards. Over the winter I will be modifying my A for canting boards, not because it will improve my sailing abilities, but because I want to use it a a development platform. I am also looking at hydrofoils that can be removed for competitions. Again as a test platform. For the most part, this class seems very open to development, from ben's Wing, to Pete Melvin's paint on his black A-3 to new sail plans, differing hull shapes and configurations and many other designs and thought to get speed out of the boat. So much of this thread is spent on stating that this class isn't really open to develpoment. Nothing could be further from the truth. It would be better to focus on how the top sailors in the class do find their speed, from glenn Ahsby, Steve Brewin, Lars Guck, Pete Melvin and the other gr3eat sailors who chose this class to race in and to help to develop.

I don't know how the flexible wings of RC gliders got into the conversation. But with that in mind take a look at this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxFOHoy-UNQ
These gliders work at a relatively low Reynolds number (compared to a cat centerboard) and in this situation it is lightly loaded.

I was sailing the Europeans in La Baule (with no good result unfortanly) and i do sail A-class already from 1981 when the first Bim made a big change in the A-class these days when most people where sailing Unicorn.
I was with my boat next to Marstrom at the beach and to be honest i did not see that the boat even used by Erik or by Goran where having canted hulls. I only noticed that Goran had a bid different boat than Erik and this was not with the canting and the others who where sailing Marstrom boats had no canted hulls. If they have it ,it is almost nothing and maybe less then 1 degree, it is not noticable.

I can tell you ( i was there ) that it was very tricky to sail and you had to made the right choice in going the good way of the course and when you made the wrong choice you where mid fleet. Maybe the boat of Bob together with his skills where on some days a good combination but Landy was also good in some days and made the right choices, he told me that he was lucky one race to have the good side of the course which was a first place. He was flying in the first race and nobody could beat him.

The only thing why i can see people are against it or afraid for it is that it can have affect at the price of the second hand boats with not having this banana type future. When you just made an investment in a new design or modified design you want to try to protect this investment, i think personally that is the discussion.

I will make some and try them on my boat to see if there is a real advantage because i can have a look at others but you have to experience it by your self to be sure if it is better.

It was by the way a nice sailing event with good atmosphere and good sailing and a lot of discussion as always. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Cheers,

Hans Klok