Well here's the thing...if the purpose of the curved daggers is "Lift", wouldn't it be better, lift wise, to sail the boat 'flatter' with both (curved, lifting) boards full down? ie. try to foil it up wind on two boards (hulls), vs. one board, on one hull only?

Of course if you did sail it flat and up in the air on two boards, I'm guessing you'd also have a lot of side slip, and since getting upwind to A mark is the priority, over outright speed, I guess you'd want to sail it on one hull upwind.

The boat would sail flatter with the windward boat up because the wind is already lifting the windward hull and it does not need any more help. The leeward hull is being pushed down in the water and needs the lift. The boat is not a foiling boat as it does not have any built in control to keep it level.

Unlike curved foils in tris, curved foils in cats are in their early development stage. A few years will pass before we know how to best use them in each point of sail, even more to understand why.
Sails are less complex and it always takes years to develop the best setup for a given class.

It is a beach catamaran....if you look closely though it is sitting on pads, doubt it ever touched the sand.

Looks like its sitting on sand to me?




Sexy rudder stocks. Glad to see they're getting away from the cam lock hold downs.

Oh booo frigging hooo

Its a beach cat. If it can't take a little sand then it needs to HTFU.

It's a NACRA. It OOZES HTFU! That's why they are always a step ahead!!! You guys must have not gotten the memo that was posted years ago....

Your blood will be thoroughly curdled after the Great Texas. You're in for a rude awakening.

Karl's doing the Great Texas? On what boat?

Maybe next year on the Wiper. I'm going to float around in a RIB with Jeremy possibly this year so he can be picture man.


The perverse side of me wants to hit the beach at full tilt with the kite up. Kinda like doing demolition, there's something strangely erotic about smashing a toilet with a sledge hammer. The smart side of me doesn't like wet sanding and polishing an expensive toy for no reason

but there's your reason!

I look at the N17 and think to myself, that is a pretty hot looking boat. Would love to have a sail on one.

I look at the F18 class and think to myself, this is a class I would want to be involved in.

BTW, if it was a choice between an N17 and a T, then it would be a T. An N20C might be a different story though.

"The perverse side of me wants to hit the beach at full tilt with the kite up"


Done that already, boat can take it.

However, it is smarter to pull all your boards up before doing so, I was unlucky and my windward board slided down on me.

Even so I was without damage except for a small gap in my daggerboard skirt. This was on my homebuild boat and boy does Phill Brander build quality stuff.

You' ll be surprised how well a beachcat can withstand regular contact with the beach.

I have some other thoughts on the subject actually.


When I look at the new N17 and some of the specs that are floating around on the various blogs, I think " it is basically a carbon masted F16 with curved foils"

The hullshape is a scaled copy of the nacra F16, that is very clear if you look past the distracting paint job.

The length, according Mischa de Munk who is there is exactly 17 feet instead of 17.6. If so then it is 5.18 meters against 5.0 meters of the F16. Or indeed only 7 inches longer. Indeed a length difference of a wooping 4%, you'd actually have to put the boats side by side to see the difference in length. Note that all of nacra's earlier 17 footers were all 5.25 mtr long = 17 foot 3 inches. It seems weird to go for 17.6 or 17 foot 7 inches now. Why not go for the full 18 foot and milk the marketing predjudice that is related to these numbers ?

I gether it is 2.6 meters wide against the 2.5 of the F16's. Again a difference of 4 inches and 4%.

Its mansail is 16 square meters in surface area against 15 sq. mr. for the F16. 7% difference.

The mast doens't appear to be much taller then the F16's but no hard data is available on that. I guess the mainsail luff is about 8.75 mtr on a 9.25 mtr mast (based on predecessors) so I can put a Texel rating to the boat. Compare this to 8,5 mtr by 8.5 mtr for the F16's. Less then 3%.

The overall weight is rumoured to be about 130 kg which is heavier then even the alu masted Viper despite the use of a carbon mast and a possible 5kg reduction because of it. Of course the F16 class allows caron masts to those who want one. So when pushed the viper will grow one very quickly. 130/107 = 21% difference, none in relation to Viper and indeed (130+135)/(107+135)= 9.5 % difference regarding combined overall weight, no difference with the Viper.

Its texelrating on these specs will be 101 whereas F18's is 100 and F16's at 102 with the Viper at 104. No big differences there, all less then 3% which is bugger all on the water as the Viper is proving.


It seems to me that the new nacra 17 is basically a Viper / F16 with enough of the specs slighly altered to be a totally separate class of boat but without being in a different class of performance.

That in it self is a good move by nacra. It has all the benefits of the F18 / F16 line of boats without interfering with either class.

However I don't expect it to be a game changer in the way of performance. I expect it to adhere to the Texelrating just as much as the Nacra 20 carbon appears to be doing despite its curved foils. That boat was launched in 2010 so did have sufficient time to get dialed in.

So if the new nacra 17 is to be selected then it should be for its non-interference, not for its hyped quantum leap forwards in design or performance. The data doesn't seem to support such claims at all. That is my point.

Wouter

I helped carry it from the trailer to beach, and beach to water... it didn't touch sand

I had a chat with Gunnar Larsen prior to him leaving for Thai Regatta and following the announcement of Nacras Olympic evaluation entries. I asked what spec he had available for the new 17ft Nacra 17. He immediately corrected me and stated that it was in fact 17.5ft long and is a scaled down F20 Carbon rather than a stretched 16 or shrunk Infusion with curved boards. I did ask him beam width and I believe he stated it is 2.6m. He described the hull construction as being glass,epoxy and carbon with a projected weight of 130kg. When I asked about sail area he said the main was a little less than the F18 (16.3m2), but didn't have the figures with him for the jib and spinnaker sizes. As I mentioned all this data came from a very brief conversation whilst he was waiting to board a flight to Thailand so apologies if it turns out there are any errors in these spec details.

I do disagree with your thoughts on whether a curved foil boat is a game changer with respect to performance. Having attended the Weston Cat Open in the UK at the end of 2011 and seen the F20 C (sailed by Peter Vink) racing against the best of the UK F18 and Tornado fleets, as well as Gunnar on an Infusion, it is clearly a gamechanger. In a number of the races (which were sailed in force 3 to 5, sometimes gusting more) it sailed of into the distance lapping the Tornados and many of the F18 fleet. What I would say is that the Texel Rating System as well as SCHRS rating system used in the UK clearly reflects accurately the comparative performance of the latest catamaran designs although does put older designs at a disadvantage (this is not a surprise though as I think we can all agree that is just a reflection of the advances and innovations that are occurring in modern catamaran design as can be seen in the evolution that has happened within the F18 class). Many would agree that the A class is probably at the forefront of catamaran development and performance and it is clear that curved foils with related hull designs is the direction this fleet is going in at this time. I do feel that curved boats are only going to increase in performance over the next few years as sailing techniques develop to get the most out of the boards. Time will tell if curved boards remain in the domain of development classes, like the A class, and smod's or whether a multi manufacturer box rule class with curved boards comes into existence. Please remember this is my opinion based on my observations (and remember that opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one and they all smell apart from your own!!!!) and is not intended to offend anyone, but only to stimulate constructive and thoughtful discussion!

Indeed, I too am trying to make sense in what is still a bit of a chaotic situation. The various blogs en press releases seem to conflict sometimes. I just picked what seemed most likely at this moment.

With respect to game changing, whether the nacra 20 c. Is a game changer in elapsed time or not is largely meaningless with respect to curved foils. Right now it does appear that the clear performance of the nacra 20 c. is far more the result of typical specs like sail area hull length etc. then the curved foils. Otherwise the texelrating wouldn't be doing a good job of scoring the fleet, as evidenced again by the Thai regatta corrected results.

For those readers who don't know the texelrating system will give exactly the same rating to a boat with curved foils as one with straight foils. As such a curved platform should outperform its rating if indeed it these improve overall performance relative to old school straight boards.

Another point to take into consideration is the claim that the nacra 20c uses ASYMMETRICAL curved boards whereas other makes like F18 and F16 still use symmetrical boards. If so that will explain the length of these boards and the need to each time raise the windward one. It is doubtful whether the speed gain will offset the time spend working the boards in a crowded fleet race. Of course these things change in a distance race.

Indeed, all to advance an enjoyable discussion.

I do agree that the F20 C's performance is about the whole rather than an individual aspect of the design, but as far as I am aware that initial board development came first and the rig and hull shape design followed to work in unison with the boards.

I heard the foils on the f20c in the gt300 last year where a hindrance and that the boat seemed slow because of the curved foils.

this makes me wonder if the curved foils have a specific range where they work and other wind ranges where they do not.

The F20 C's boards are symmetrical NOT asymmetrical as some people claim.....I will have a chat with Gunnar Larsen and Peter Vink when they return from Thailand next week about the full reasoning for lifting of the boards upwind (particularly the windward board) and will post their response here..