We have been working on our rig setup, particularly confirming that we have the right stiffening on our top mast. When we first set the mainsail we have excessive bend in the top section which meant we couldn’t get leech tension. This was due to the RS800 mast being designed from the ‘auto rig’ concept from the late 1990’s. We … Read More
Freebooter – Two sail reach in 16-20 knots of wind
A couple of weeks ago we were out tuning Freebooter’s rig, post the work we did to stiffen the top section. We are happy with the work we did the mast is bending nicely and now we are getting the main to set better. On our way back in we hooked up some great waves, on a fast trapeze reach.
Data Driven Decision Making – I14 Handicaps – The RYA’s response and the Rickmansworth results
The RYA have now come back to us with a set of Experimental PYs for the I14 sub classes, many thanks to Adam Parry for his efforts on this. The PYs had been derived from the dimensional data we sent them and their analysis of similar boats. The final handicaps are below: Modern – 758 published on limited data list Penultimate – … Read More
Classic I14 – Where we are & how we got here – The Mast
This unsurprisingly has proven to be the most controversial part of the project. ‘Freebooter’ came with an old Procter Beta mast. It was in great condition for its age, but it is still an old aluminium mast. As we upgraded the equipment on the boat breaking loads move to the next weakest point. The Challenge Our concern was whether the … Read More
Data Driven Decision Making – How to develop a fair handicap for all 14s, especially those in the Vintage and Classic fleets
The challenge The International 14 class celebrates 100 years in 2027, the oldest dinghy class in the world! There are a staggering range of boats, designs and technologies classed as an International 14. Trying to define a handicap system which allows all these dinghies to sail off a level playing field is obviously quite difficult. Combine this with the fact … Read More
Classic I14 – Where we are & how we got here – Fitout
Starting point At the beginning of this project we needed to decide what our end goal was. Bring the boat to its original spec or bring it up to modern standards. The first sail of the boat was made hard as nothing worked properly, then during the strip down fittings broke with no obvious replacement. With no other Classic 14s … Read More
Classic I14 – Where we are & how we got here – Exterior
Preparation Before Christmas 2024 we had completed the initial sand of the hull. Although we were going from traditional varnish to AWLGrips’ AWLWood, we didn’t want to go down to bare wood. The objective was fair the hull by long boarding with 280 grit sand paper. We were working down through the existing layers, we found one layer which hadn’t … Read More
Classic I14 – Where we are & how we got here – Interior
It is a year since our last post, we got into the final charge to get the boat ready to sail and just ran out of time & motivation to do the blog. This post covers the work on the interior of the boat. We will do the Exterior, Foils, Fit Out and Rig in separate posts over the next … Read More
Striping, sanding and more sanding
Starting to race finish the hull We left the third coat to harden for ten days over Christmas and the gave it its last 240 grit sand. The surface was noticeably harder to sand, it took about a day and a half in total to get the surface completely flat and fair. It also gave us the opportunity to look … Read More
Classic I14 – Preparing and doing the first three coats.
We are finally at that point where we’ve done the sanding, done the test coats and now we have to do the first coat. Being honest we were quite nervous as we’ve never worked with AWLWood before and not worked with wood in a very long time. But The time was upon us to walk the walk. Preparation Proper, Preparation, … Read More
Classic I14 – Test varnishing the hull
Because we’ve never used AWLWood and we aren’t going down to bare wood, if we can avoid it, this is all a bit of an experiment. So we decided to a couple of test runs on different parts of the hull to make sure that everything works as expected. For AWLWood going over existing varnish you have to sand down … Read More
Classic I14 – Stage 1 – Sanding the hull
The first stage, as ever, involves a lot of sanding, the boat has been varnished on a regular basis so in order to put the new AWLWood on it we need make sure we have a solid foundation. It is also an opportunity to fair the hull and work the deeper dents out. Because the boat is wooden and we … Read More
Classic I14 – Stage 1 and the plan
We’ve started work on “Freebooter” while we are going to modernise the boat, we also want to retain its provenance. Overall the hull is in great condition and has been well looked after, having been regularly varnished. This means that we can focus on fairing and revarnishing the hull. In terms of fittings, they all work and in on the … Read More
Data based decision making – Angel Mast – Part 2
We’ve had four sails since we put the Angel mast on instead of the SuperSpar, in wind ranging from zero to 16-18 knots. So far it is performing well, we set the diamonds tight to reduce sideways bend and to keep the mast straight. The objective is to keep the mast as straight as possible and see how it performs. … Read More
Classic International 14 – Our new project
Our last three projects have all been relatively modern boats, ranging from our all carbon fibre modern I14 to the polyester/glass Wildcat F18. In the back of our minds there has always been the memory of a plot we had with Nick Harvey when the National Maritime Museum was auctioning off its collection of classic/historic dinghies. Nick was keen to … Read More
Data based decision making – Trying different RS600 Masts
To date there have been two official mast makers in the 600 class, the original Angel Masts, apparently 60 – 80 of these were built and SuperSpar masts. While at the Euro Cup in Riva this year we got talking to different people about the challenges of mast supplies. SuperSpar have orders but aren’t delivering, not to mention the cost … Read More
RS600 – Mini Refit Pt2
When we did the mini refit in the summer we also gave the hull a bit of a spruce up. Didn’t take any photos then but thought we would follow up now. It was looking rough with chips out of the hull and big dents. We only had a short amount of time to tidy up the hull, so it … Read More
RS600 – A mini refit
With the Wildcat on the water we decided to give the 600 a quick work over. The underside of the hull had some damage which we needed to fill and fair, and we wanted to get rid of the old blue Pro-Grip on the wings and the deck. Below is the result of the work, before to the left and … Read More
Wildcat F18 – Old sails compared to new sail
We realised early on that if our intent was to race this boat, we needed to replace the sails. While the sails were in ok condition, they are old and on the point of starting to delaminate. The kite in particular was probably letting more air through it than it was holding. The spinnaker sock was literally falling apart in … Read More
Wildcat F18 – Our Refurbished Foils
In order to minimise drag on a race boat the need for the hull and foils to be ‘fair’ is most important. Fair in this case means that the hull/foil is smooth and water can move across/around it with the minimum of changing of direction. Obviously a hull has shaping so the water can’t travel in a straight line, which … Read More