Why is the Tornado so fast, its an old design yet still manages to beat the competition.

Whats so good about about it? is it just that it attracts the best crew being an olympic boat, or is it something about the boat itself, length, beam, sail plan etc.?

Gareth

In my opinion:

1: 30 years of refinement of the platform
2: Olympic-class development of sails
3: Olympic-class crews
4: Olympic-class research on how to sail the boat fast

No doubt, many boats could have been as fast or faster, but they have not been subject to the same intense research as the T. It doesn't hurt that the design was fast from the start as well, even if there are faster hull shapes today. The 10 foot beam is a 'must' when the wind increases.
I think it could have been even faster with daggerboards instead of centerboards.

Edit: A more interesting question for me is "what could make the Tornado faster/better"

Yep, I would agree with all that.

Some expirements with daggers have been done and the boat is quicker up wind, but no-one decided to jump and make a hull with just daggers. William Sunnocks has a set of inserts to make a standard T box take daggers !

Fully agree with Rolf.

But, in addition I would add that as a design, RM-D managed to come up with a boat that, right from its earliest days, was fast, sweet to sail and beautifully balanced. This allowed some fairly radical sailing techniques and/or rig adjustments that you possibly couldn't have got away with on another boat.

I agree

I would like to stress:

The crews have excellent sailing technique. All thos little things make a big difference For example watch how they trap going to weather, it's textbook.

The current Tornado's, Marstroms, are strong. You can push them hard without worrying about breaking anything. It makes a difference in the way you sail.

Yep ,agree with Rolf also and as others noted particularly the calibur of sailors on them .

Place these teams on any type of cat --{like f-18hts for example} --in any event --{little AM Cup } in Italy --and they sail them faster than ever previously recorded at higher speeds around the course.

The only negative aspect I,ve heard about the T from T sailing teams is the tendancy of the narrow knife like bows to dive into waves when overpowered with the added spin .

This makes perfect sence as the original design intended a main and small jib only , and the class wished to maintain the original tolerances for hull design ,which was often in wood or stressed skin plywood method of construction in previous decades.

I would like to see more innovation in rigs -sail plans -etc in the 20 ft size range ,--The Marstom 20 seems a beautiful functional lightweight design as well .

Real innovation will best develop if there are more open racing type events and classes available for the innovators ,-the speed sailing trials are always fasinating for example .

In the 20 ft range there are numerous cat design choises now .The new H-20 is supposed to debue soon ,-the Ventilo 20 designs seem excellent -the Marstom of course -and several others seem comperable to the T or potentially faster with the same calibur sailing teams on them .

CDR

New H-20? what is this?

My opinon is that Tornados can sometimes be faster than other 20' cats because of weight and width. Tornados are lighter than many other 20 footers and also wider than many.

GARY

Hey Jake

hope I,m not continueing rumor of a mythical new H-20 version Fox -
A lightweight larger beam version may be exactly the modification the base design needs .
it was on this thread --you noted people are only guessing --rightly so -http://www.catsailor.com/forums/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=Test&Number=50431&page=2&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

Well it would have to come from EU. It's my undestanding any Hobie Cat produced in the US has to have a comptip. Can you imagine a carbon mast with a plastic comptip... makes my head hurt just thinking about it. (joke)

Now if Hobie makes a carbon rocket oh say made in China, and delivers the boat all up for 19K... All other 20 footers are toast! If it's to be yet another 30k dollar multihull, I just don't see much demand, especially when the M20 and Eagle have been available for a couple of years now.

Dave

Hi Dave

Didn,t realize the Marston or Eagle were 30 k --whew !

Wow -I,m gettin old ,-I remember{way back} buying my first then brand new state of the art H-18 for about 25 hundred --

The comp tip is a disaster ,-{another old sailing recollection} --they need one of these little faces with a long grey beard on it --After racing a Hobie 21 with 33 ft mast with comptip we were packing up ,---about half way down in lowering the mast the base slipped out and one of the crew tryed catching it ,--it was so heavy it broke his wrist ..--

Rather than China building it maybe just one of the smaller excellent build shops here ,---or perhaps some brilliant chemical engineer can develop C F or similar lightweight method of const. material that does not conduct electricity for H-US . Or best solution ,-import it just as the Tiger and market the new larger beam lightweight version FOX as a HT Formula 20 Class cat .Believe there is a set of rules outlined that the Morreli -Melvin design Ventilo model fits into among others .
http://www.morrellimelvin.com/page29.html


For 30 k catsailors might just as well go all out ,put a racing group of 3 or 4 togetherb--split costs ,-trade off as navigator helm and spin crew at events ,spend a little more and get the 33 footer . Mike at SAILMAX is attempting to put together several of these for next season .
R-33 sailing video --realtime player --zztop music
www.r33.com/video/R33.mpg

Granted, we don't have much to go on - but my brief impression was that this 'experiemental' fox, whatever the configuration, is not a production model.

Not a fan of it but, plastic comptip. I thought it was epoxy-glass lay up.

It's really all about the beam width. There are other boats with similar hulls, sail area and weight but lacking the T's beam width they are proportionately slower. The P19 is a perfect example. Hurricane 5.9 is another.



True, and this is one area where newer boats like the P19 have improved over the T's original design. Though a tiny bit shorter (P19 is actually 19' 3") the P19's hulls are much 'fatter' forward of the front beam than a T. They exhibit a high resistance to nose diving because of all that extra buoyancy in front where you need it. You have to make some big mistakes to get a P19 to dig in badly. I have sailed along for miles solo reaching with the tip of the lee bow a couple of inches under water without a care(I was too light to keep the boat balanced even hiked out with my toes on the transom). And the P19 is still a 'flat top' hull like the T. The really modern boats have elliptical cross-section hulls like a u-boat, so are happier than a seagull at a landfill sailing with a hull buried.
But without that extra beam width, you just don't have the righting moment to keep the heel angle down to a reasonable amount, especially upwind, like a T can. So you never really get to take advantage of the sail power you have.

Jimbo

Not to get too far off topic but I'm pretty sure it's a fiber (glass) reinforced plastic (not epoxy or a polyester variety).

Hi Grob
a follow -up question along the same lines on catamaran sailors ideal 20 ft cat -it's design and features sailors would like to see -

Improvements from the standard benchmark Tornado design of a 20 ft cat may be a good place to start as the length and beam ratio seem close to ideal at 20 and 10 ft .

Here are mine -

Weight --as light as modern tech allows consistant with strength to race in surf and extreme conditions --
There are no standard stantlings for cat design loads -they vary with each designs various specifications .

Sail Area --the trend towards larger flat top mainsails continues ,-this is good . Some design sails per the rating measurement proceedures which rates this type of high aspect sail configuration faster ,which is correct ,-but it is a shame to add sail area where it is less effective to meet a rating rule .

Suggested a pure rating system for cats that uses only actual L B W SA measurements in a TEXEL type base power formula with a P handicap feature and same SIMILAR NUMBERS in P scale of relative time to distance traveled added to this basic pure design measurement number .--The only thing needed then would be top ranked T sailors of equal ability to spend a week or two switching boat types and racing each type to record comparative times, and we would all have a near perfect rating system .
sorry --off topic -

With the basics of L B W and SA established -that leaves specific features -
SAILS -jib no jib --preference -small self tacking jib
SPIN -higher aspect ratio -set further out on an extended pole -the longer luff dim .and higher angle is more efficient and creates more lift ,--via Aussie 18 type kites
A mid pole snuffer or snail type spin retriever --and would like to see a winch handle type devise used in the spin system to ease ware on hands and increase ease and speed of sets and spin take downs .
An internal type spin halyard system .

Would like a reef system for the mainsail -

Mast -CF LIGHTWEIGHT -in as areodynamic a section as possible --check out the current A Class cats --whew

Hull shape --canted hulls --deeper bow sections --eliptical top decks forward .

CROSSBEAM -radiused -higher off the water -in eliptical shape to avoid wave slap --the H-18 -designed in 77 is a good example -

BOARDS - canted -type --would not mind for and aft boards to help balance the spin --the forward boards angled to assist lift w spin --semi foiler type .

Rudders --larger -possibly a thru hull stern type design to help eliminate the cavitation problem .T foil shapes seem popular but have yet to sail with one .

TRAMP --more open areas for racing in seas --more storage areas and areas thought out for tools flares-extra marine radio -food water etc along with hardware leads and placement options .

Hardware --leads for control lines lead aft to stern trap crew positions -downhaul -rotator -etc
Forward location for spin blocks -center main sheet -
added cleats for temporary holding on spin sheet or others

built in electronic compass location on spin-pole

there are numerous other options -preferences and design aspects catsailors would like ,-sure I,ve not thought of numerous features and ideal options for a twenty footer - --Carl

It's here already. It's called basalt fiber; ~80% of the strength/stiffness of carbon (e-glass has about 50%), electrically and thermally non-conductive and oh yeah, it costs only a little more than e-glass since they mine it rather than synthesize it like carbon fiber.
Right now carbon is still sexy but some day soon some bright new company will figure it out. It's about the performance/cost, bang/buck however you want to slice it! If we go through another carbon fiber "shortage" ($$$) like back in the eighties, it will probably happen sooner rather than later.

Jimbo

It would be interesting to read what John Forbes would have to say. If anyone knows why the old boat is fast, he would be the man.

hello,
you can't really compare the tornado with production 20' boats. the stifness of the tornados these days is the main difference. they used make tornados more flexible in the beggining. $2600 for a brand new boat imported from England. H14 was $1195 by comparison. the stiffness/low weight thing is the main reason tornados cost so much more than say an I20, and the main reason they are faster.
all the other stuff people wrote is true too.
As for carbon, the shortage is already here. Our suppliers told us no new carbon for 3 years. the military gets it all. that basalt fiber should be getting real popular. if anyone has a replenishable source for carbon i'd sure like to find out where it is.

Is the Tornado especially low-weight for a 20 footer? Between 130 to 145kg's platform weight (sans mast/standing rigging) to be class legal. What does e.g. the I-20 weight?

Perhaps I should ask, is plywood really that good as hull materials (the T was designed for tortured ply construction)