Tim Bohan recently told me (and showed) me that the Nacra F18 has come back from very long and slender boards to shorter and wider boards. Seems the trend is reversing a little now. Mind you the Taipan boards are way shorter and wider.

I have considered longer and more slender boards for my boat (Taipan 4.9 based F16) and I could easily modify my wells to take the new boards, but I don't feel uncompetitive upwind with the current boards. I seem to hang in there just fine. So I think I will put this modification of for a while.

Wouter

The original Nacra F18 had the long slender boards (about 8 to 10" wide) as can be found on the Nacra 20. Aparently they work great when the boat has decent forward speed. In light air, however, I hear that the slimmer boards tend to allow a little more leeway and not develop as much lift.

I heard that the new Auscat has long/small daggerboards.
Bimare also uses this kind of boards.

Sorry, small should be read as "slender"

I have sailed the Capricorn and the std taipan and I can't really pick any difference with the boards, I sometimes thing that it more of a trend than a real performance gain. I like the fact that I can leave my std 5.7 boards in the down position when I go downwind, where as the Capricorn boards need to be lifted to stop them breaking....

Macca, since you have both sailed the Capricorn and the 5.7, can you share your opinions on other similarities and differences between the two boats? How is the "feel" with the C compared to the 5.7 in terms of upwind performance, downwind speed etc? Did the "new" hull type make a big difference? The 5.7 does have quite large volume below in the bows.

The Capricorn feels like a much bigger hull, it seems to be sitting on top of the water and with the very straight rocker the boat sometimes feels like it's planing upwind.

The 5.7 feels like a smaller hull but it still feels like it is on top of the water, it has more rocker which makes it much better in waves.

Other than that there are too many differences to make them comparable in a real terms.

Ok, So after sailing the super taipan a few more times (been very busy with work..) we decided that the stock rudders were shithouse. whilst the helm was ok uphill it was [censored] scary downhill. heaps of lee helm and load. we tried different tricks like different rake on the blades, then we tried different pivot axis on the stocks but none worked as well as I had hoped.

So after some calls and emails to Marstrom a set of M20 rudders were ordered, they were meant to be ready at for shipment with my Tornado after the Europeans, but they got a bit busy and didn't have them built in time. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise cause the Tornado is still on the way here and the Rudders were airfreighted last week and today was the first day sailing with them.

Now the boat steers like it should! The tiller arms are shorter so it is very jumpy but I will adapt to that in no time. The helm is perfectly neutral uphill and down. the rudders feel awesome through the water. Oh and they look way cool (most important part)

some pics (wouter might want to put them in the post, cause I don't know how to. I own an IT consultancy too.....)

another angle

rudder head closeup

Which stock rudders did you have ?

The ones with the alu stocks ? The NACA profiles.

Or the newer ones of AHPC (since 2002) with the DACA profiles.

Personally I dislike the older standard rudderboards and think the newer DACA sections to be significantly better. Still the Blade uses an even better profile (no noice as the AHPC ones) and I'm thinking about upgrading to those.

What profile are the M20 ones. NACA or DACA ?

Wouter

I'm not sure which profile the old rudders were, but they were built about 2000, so must be the NACA section. The Alu sock is a [censored] design also, heaps of play in the blade/stock fitting.

I think the M20 blades are an NFI section (No [censored] Idea!!) they look a lot like the T blades but with less chord and a slightly less prominent hollow in the rear 1/3 of the blade.

Hollow in rear 1/3 of board = DACA profile. NACA don't have that.

I understand what you mean. I like the DACA profiles alot better. Board don't stall easily and you really turn them and pull the boat around without much fear of stalling them. It feels like the grip (bite) the water much better. That is unless the cord on them is too small. I think the I-20's suffered from that last issue before they went to the newer and larger cord rudder boards.

Wouter

Any on-line references to DACA profiles?

Nice rudderheads on the foils you bought, all carbon foils I assume? Wonder what the principle for the kick-up system is..

Macca, have you been able to compare straight line speed for the super-taipan vs. an equally skilled Tornado?
Cool to hear that you are getting back on a Tornado! (I assume you are going to sail the boat you ordered from Marstrøm yourself).

Ref: http://www.catsailor.com/bb_files/58299-P1320500.JPG
In the background, what are the fabric-samples hanging on the wall doing there??

We are racing the boat against an OK tornado today I hope, so should have a good idea shortly. But I expect that it will be quicker, it just feels like it is accelerating much more through the gusts.

I bought a 2 year old Tornado of a mate (Jojo Polgar) and ordered a new carbon rig from Marstrom, the whole lot gets here in a few weeks.

The fabric is the background is from my Taipan crews work. Hence I have the most expensive rudder covers you can imagine!!

No tornado today, but there was a well sailed capricornand some A class too.

in a 40 min race (10 - 14kts) we beat the Capricorn by nearly 5 mins, same story in the second race.

We used the T hcp of 65 and the Capricorn was on 70 so it was a big difference. we won on hcp in both races.

Macca, how about a report from the Forster Wildcat regatta?

I understand that you have some tuning/teething issues from your post on the F-16 forum.

How do you like your Maxx carbon sails after some sailing? Still holding their shape and good leech control?

We have been playing with the mast to get a wider range in which the boat is quick. The basic issue is that the mast is very stiff and we have limited luff curve to play with so we have tried running with a slightly softer diamond setting and also with less spreader rake, both resulted in improved performance in certain conditions but reduced in others. It has been hard finding a happy medium but I think we are getting closer. When the boat is in the groove it is very quick it just takes a bit to get it there. I guess it's to be expected with such a new thing.

The sails are still very nice, super smooth and easy to trim. hard to say how they are lasting as we have only really sailed the boat half a dozen times. Interestingly I did the Sydney 38 state titles on the weekend just gone, I have all Maxx sails on the boat now (used to have jibs only but just took delivery of a new Maxx mainsail) and we had heaps of boatspeed (we won the regatta) The amazing thing is that all the other boats had new jibs and ours were exactly one year old! from that I would think that the Taipan sails will last very well.

Thanks, please keep us posted! I would really like to see you succed with this project.

We have all Maxx sails on our T now, but I think the Pen09 cloth is a bit on the light side for the mainsail (T-class rules doesn't allow heavier Maxx cloths). Agree on the trimming comment, very nice to trim and soft enough to show eventual backwind etc.

Here we are, mixing it up with some leadswingers with our new 'cross-cut' Maxx sails.
http://www.moldeseilforening.com/resultat05/hoststormen014.jpg