Lets say hypothetically the DS16 will have rudder gantries. Would integral construction as seen on skiffs be legal?

When measured, I would assume a gantry like that to be included in the total length of the hull.

I can't actually see how a gantry like that would measure in? You'd need a ruling from the Technical Committee. If you're serious send your proposal to the F16 Executive who will obtain a guidance ruling for you from the TC.

I think we refer you (and the others) best to the class rules.


I refer to the following three rules :

1.2.1 The maximum overall length measured on the hulls is 5.00 m (= 16.4 ft).

7.3 Overall length of the hulls

The overall length of the hulls, outside rudder pintles, corresponds with the horizontal distance between the verticals passing through the extremity of the hulls, the boat being levelled on its waterline.

7.4 Rudder pintles

Elements fitted to the sterns that only function as hinges for the rudderblades or rudderstocks and don't effectively lengthen the waterline of the platform in any way.



The key element here is the part "and don't effectively lengthen the waterline of the platform in any way" as the ruling on max hull length is only there to limit waterline length and force the wetted surface area of all F16 hulls to a very similar total. Both these factors are important in equalizing the total drag between F16 makes and thus equalize performance. The position of the rudderboards is not a factor in this. Putting them further back may have some benefits in how the boat feels while steering (sensitive or not) but not in the ratio between total drag and total saildrive. As such we decided (when we wrote the class rules) to not limit the height of the rudderpintles and to exclude them from the hull measurement.

My ruling would be to go ahead and live your heart out. Personally I don't expect this feature to be a real winner anyway as the distance between the daggerboards and rudderboards is sufficient enough to fit the rudders directly to the sterns and not have an oversensitive feel while steering. Moving the rudders 15 cm back won't change the boats behavior that by any significant amount. The only thing that may change with these gantries is the length of the tiller arms if your rear beam is far back (the can now become longer). That may give the rudders a more calm feel but the response of the boat will not change significantly for the same rudder angles, just the feel you have when setting those angles by the tillers. Additionally, the length of the tiller arms is not regulated by the class rules and moving the rear beam foreward will allow the same lengthening. In effect, no worthwile goal is served by prohibiting the use of gantries. I mean why would it be more fair to allow a boat with a forward rear beam to have longer tiller arms but not allow another boat to lengthen these by using gantries. The third argument in favour of allowing it is that putting gantries on your sterns is something that can easily be done by anyone aftermarket and for low costs indeed. Just make up the gantries, using the pintle holes in teh sterns that are already there and bolt these gantries to the sterns.

So in summary, no class-balance-upsetting improvement is expected (or even possible in my opinion), much of the same benefits can be had by other means that are also allowed, it is simple, it is cheap and it is easily fitted to older boats by retrofitting. What on earth would banning these things have as positive effect beside making easily spooked sailors feel better by taking away their unfounded fears. These sailors belong in a very strict SMOD class rather then the F16 class, read my parting brief as F16 class chairman for details on this topic. The spirit of the F16 class and class rules has always been to allow such refinements of the F16 design, no matter what the opinion of any Technical Committee on that topic. I refer everybody here to the following F16 class rules :



2.6.1 In case of doubt, the intention of the rule makers, which is the spirit, shall take precedence over the letter of the rule.

2.6.2 The spirit of the rule includes, among other principles, the following considerations:

2.6.2a Preserving general equality in overall performance between crafts of different make, accepting small variations, in order to garantee fair racing between designs of different make.

2.6.2b Maximizing the freedom to optimize a design to personal preference and to improve the performance of a given crew and craft through refinement.

2.6.2c The allowance to gently improve, by design, the handling and overal behaviour of a craft in small controlled steps which don't upset the balance in the class to the extend that the continued existance and growth of the class are no longer guaranteed.



We are afterall (still) a (development) rule set where everything that is not specifically disallowed or obviously against the spirit of the rules is allowed. I feel a very strong case can be had on these points to "allow" gantries. By a very similar reasoning that allowed the T-foil rudders (by excluding them from the overall platform width as they don't contribute to righting moment, the feature that was sought to be limited by the width rules)

But I must underscore here that it appears I'm excommunicated from the class (while still being allowed to pay for class stuff like the URL's) and that the technical committee does not appear to have any interest in hearing the opinion of the guy that actually did 80 % of the work when writing the F16 rules.

So, the above is merely for what it is worth and the far off chance that I'll do a coup and take back the class !

Wouter

I think John said it best.



The way I read that, is that the gantry would have to be defined as rudderstock to be permitted?

If allowed, does mean that you can trapeze off this gantry, which effectively helps drive the boat harder downwind if the conditions call for it.

But what if the gantry was styled like the Bladerider moth? http://www.bladerider.com.au/photos/fx/bladerider-fx-2.jpg

Could be seen as effectively increasing the waterline length of the hull when sitting at the back of the boat sinking the stern, and does have some buoyancy effect.

Your last paragraph and sentence have just caused me to lose any last vestiges of respect I may have had for you Wouter. Talk about being economical with the truth!!! You're behaving like a spoilt child and a total d!ckhead. As far as I'm concerned, as long as you believe yourself to be some kind of godhead to the F16 class I will reserve my right to ignore you.

So while I won't answer you directly, I will refute any lies, rumours and 'economical' truths that you post.

Wouter has not been 'excommunicated' from the class - he chose not to join! He told us he couldn't afford it!
The class is not allowing him "to pay for class stuff like the URL's" - we offered to pay for the URLs in full but Wouter chose for reasons best known to himself to refuse the offer while at the same time pleading poverty!!
For him to claim that the Technical Committee has no interest in hearing his opinion may have some truth - the point is they are all perfectly capable of forming their own views (that is why they are on the committee) and don't need Wouter's input to come to a decision. Also a claim that Wouter did 80% of the work in writing the class rules? Is that really relevant and what empirical data is there to arrive at a figure of 80%?

And what's with the bullsh!t remark of "take back the class"? - Oh, please Mr Wouter Hjinck sir, save us, save us, take back the class!!!!! As if! W@nker.

As I understand the reasons for gantries is to make the distance longer between the trailing edge of the CB and front edge of the rudder. The rudder is therefore working in less disturbed wash from the CB, this construction detail/design has become very popular amongst fast, small skiffs which have an extremely small wetted hull area in the first instance, so steering is a premium consideration. A 16ft Cat well trimmed is practically self steering and IMO doesn't plane (overtake and surf it's own bow wave) So there shouldn't be a steering issue like that of a monohull. However, the rudder/steering could sometimes be affected by the wash of the CB but we do have TWO rudders so it would be very rare for them both to either cavitate or just loose performance.
There is also possibly the argument that the increased measurement between the CB's and rudders would also increase the natural turning circle of the boat and as every Cat sailor knows, tacking isn't one of our fastest qualities so this might be another reason why gantries haven't been used.
I haven't looked at the rules this morning but to my mind if the gantry was permanently fixed to the hull then it would form part of the hull, but if it were bolted and removable then I would think the gantry could be classed as an appendage. In this case very large gudgeons or pintles. However, John is correct the best bet is to correspond with the TEC team if this matter is going to be a major concern.

Note that you are now the one to hang out the dirty landry in public view !


I will say this in reply.

I'm required to state in posts like the one above that I'm not longer recognized as a factor in the F16 class by any class official or official class body. In fact, it seems a trend that somebody adds this fact to the public record any time I make a critical post here or on some other forum.

It is no secret that there are differences between myself and the current leadership of the F16 class and how the rules are intepreted. That is a given and everybody knows it. No point in being secretive about it.

If I'm acting like anything then I'm acting like a F16 class founder and former class chairman.

It was in my tenure that the F16 class rules were envisioned, drafted, revised, refined, completed and accepted. Additionally, during the same tenureship the class was created and grown to a size where it could stand on its own feet. That is the background from which I'm coming and commenting.





I don't think it to be very wise to vent private dealings here out in the open. In fact it makes you appear rather vindictive as none of this has any real bearing to the wording of the class rules or the well documented seperation between myself and the current class leadership as written down in my earlier posting. I mean, it is public knowlegde that I pay for this stuff and have done so ever since the beginning.

Sadly, the path of public exposure has now been taken and I see no reason anymore to consider myself bound in this respect.

What the GC offered me can be summerized as handing over the last remaining property rights I held as a founder of this class and its main facilitator of the first 6 years. FREE OF CHARGE that is ! And then pay for my class membership. For some reason they felt entitled to "demand" that I write off a good chunk of money I've invested in securing these resources over the last 8 years without any path of me recouperating (even a part) of my investments later by selling for example www.formula16.com to the highest bidder. Maybe if the leadership had said please I would have considered it.

Instead I offered the class complete use of the last items I held in ownership, free of charge, were I (by default) also continued to pay for continuation in the coming years if they would grant me a F16 class membership. Note here, that these annual expenses in order to continue to safe guard these resources is a couple of times HIGHER then the membership fee. In fact it would mean that I would keep sponsoring the Class budget in excess to what normal class members do. Call me stupid but I think this comprises something that would be called a "very sweet deal".

That counter offer was not good enough apparently.

In private conversations made in passing, I think to Marcus, I had once mentioned that I would consider selling the last items that I held in ownership. A request from the GC came by informal channels for my price, I named it and ... ... ... that was pretty much the last I ever heard of it.

The amount I had quoted was pretty much the amount I had payed over the years for the URL's ownerships alone; I just decided to forget about all the other expenses that were incurred over time. We are not talking about any large amounts here. I'll be lucky to buy a new jib for the amount that I quoted.

So I guess any offer "to to pay for the URLs IN FULL" was lost in the mail somewhere John.

In the mean time I have paid for another year of continuation and allow the class to continue to use these resources as if they own them. I think no-one can claim that I'm not acting on good faith and in the interest of the class by doing so.



The selling offer still stand as far as I'm concerned as well as the usage offer (= I pay for the resources and keep ownership while you guys use it as you see fit for the benefit of the class and also reward me with a class membership).

At this time, it is the current leadership of the class that has to make a choice for either one. There won't be another deal as I'm indeed not entertaining any more BS since I'm in dubio whether the past "negociations" have been a waste of time already.

From my perspective it appears that the GC is simply too proud to choose either way, in fact choosing to ignore the situation altogether. I haven't heard from the GC over the past 6 weeks and I have never received any reply since I've send in my selling offer. That is the reason why nothing has happened since then. Or as you word it "Wouter chose for reasons best known to himself"


Other then that I don't care whether you ignore me or not.

That is all,

Wouter

James,





At this time there is no regulation in the class rules about adding wings to the boat either as long as you don't go beyond the max effective width (righting limitation). So having something reach back past the sterns to stand on is also possible/allowed without using these gantries. Although you would need to make the platform more narrow to have such elements fitted within the width regulation.

However the forward pull of the trapeze is already quite significant when you are standing as far back as the sterns so I really don't believe such racks will be winner. This stuff works on very short boats like the 12 foot skiffs but not nearly as well on longer boats like the F16's, if at all.

Guys, we must keep looking at these class rules as a mild development class. They only regulate on IMPORTANT performance parameters, not on fears or artistic expression. If anybody wants to hoist the mainsail upside down then they are allowed to do so. If you want to make your rudderstocks out of pure gold then be our guest ! Eventually you'll find that boat performance is not improved significantly if at all by such things, hence the absense of any need to regulate it. That is the core of any formula setup. We must all accept this if we want to belong to this class.

Wouter

I think the question is "is it legal?" not "is it a good idea?" I wouldn't mind seeing what "if any advantages they give to the boat.

Scarecrow. What do you see as the advantages of the gantries?

Personally I think the correct way to handle this is for wouter to give the domain the the class association, free of charge, and for the class to recognize all he has done as a class founder by granting him a life membership of some sort for services rendered to the class.

Wasn't talking about wings. That is another aspect which is unrelated to the gantry and the question from Scarecrow at hand.

No, if you look at Scarecrows pic, the gantry is quite high up from the stern so really doesn't have an impact on waterline length. My question was a gantry style interpretation similar to the Moths. So effectively having the gantry begin say an inch above the stern and having "buoyant qualities". How would this work in the "spirit" of the rules as it is quite open for interpretation since there is nothing in the rules talking about this.

The C-Classes had a situation similar to this recently with the hydrofoil version. They chose not to enforce as 4 C-Class in one spot is a rare occasion.

I would suggest that all skiff gantries will never touch the water while in normal sailing position.

The 12 footer gantry shown definately wont nor will the bladerider gantry. In fact the waverider isnt solid its a thin carbon sheet last I looked.
Most skiff gantries are tube construction or plate and not allowed to increase the waterline length.

think you missed the "wink" ..

Wink?? Could have been a dozen winks in the posts above, and don't think the tone would have changed.

No, I think he saw it that's why he called him a winker. Oh, it wasn't winker.........

Simon,

from my point of view gantries (or the possibility of them) frees me as a designer up to experiment to fully optimise the location of the rig and foils with respect to the hulls.

However, tube style gantries can be heavy and prone to breakage. A gantry as shown above would minimise the weight penalty and be much more reliable. To those who have commented that it will add buoyancy. The gantry would be designed to be clear of both the static and sailing water lines, would be stepped inside the line of the hull so would have no effect on the waterline from a performance point of view and it should also be remembered that reserve buoyancy in the stern is considered by many to be a negative as it acts to reduce the effect of moving the crew/skipper all the way back down wind.

There will be a letter to the GC but I thought it worth testing the feelings of the sailors first to both help the council make a decision in line with the consensus of the class and also minimise the chance of a back lash at the other if they are approved and prove successful.

With all that in mind, as the person who started the thread can I please request that we take the politics elsewhere and discuss the question at hand.

Unless the gantry can be defined as pintles or rudderstocks, I can not see how they can not be included in hull length measurement? That is my speculation. Only the TC can answer with authority

Personally, I think it would detract from the visual appearance of otherwise fair hull lines. Sorry
If it was found to be within the rules, I would have no problem racing with such boats in the fleet. If you actually build it and test it, I will applaud the effort.

Sadly, I fear you will not get your wish when it comes to what you call politics and which I define as something worse. Unfortunately the F16 class have some human resources issues. I am sorry.

Thats making a big assumption about the rest of the boat.