V Twin

get some of this and sail a normal boat??

Originally posted by G.R.F. Got my first Cad renders today, they'd been in the junk mail since yesterday hopefully not trying to tell me something...

From the OP- honestly, it's not funny. At least you gave it a go... now get out there and tell us all what a travesty it was the EPS flopped under the weight of competition/lack of marketing clout.

... is there a buggy out there today in deepest Kent  ... you know surrounded by a wide range of chewed up and discarded toys ...?    They seem to be coming out thick and fast again !

I'd get it out of the sun and just go sailing quick ....  A bad day in the 'whatever' crappy old dinghy design (that works)  is better than a good day in the office / pram perhaps dreaming about that 'perfect' alternative that 'those idiots' cannot already see.

Dream on ....  Seriously though take the positives out of it - you learnt a great deal (if not humility!) and did what so few will ever do, gaining satisfaction in the process perhaps - No not many will ever develop and build a new whatsit, .... and provided the nearest thing to a 'boat development soap' this forum has ever witnessed.  

Mike L.

The design and build ideas I was referring to weren't really for the big stuff - you have made it quite clear that neither old designs or the current crop of new designs are what you like, so the big stuff you'll have to come up with yourself - but the little stuff; why boats have string where they do, why sails are cut as they are, rather than windsurfer style, why some fittings are made as they are. Things that a couple of years ago you would rant about for hours, but now maybe, just maybe, you can see might work?

The trouble I can see is that you rather like the all round abilily of some of the older designs, but because they are old, and heavy, they don't tick the boxes. Faster more modern designs are faster because less compromise has been made for seaworthyness, so they become harder to sail, and are therefore branded impossible.

Your design is a fantastic attempt at a "third way" as Blair liked to put it. I do wonder, though, whether you'd have been better off going the Alt0 route - choosing a proven design, experimenting with it, lightening it, but always having a benchmark with which to compare the changes.

Hi Grf
if you look at the Phantom website there are pictures of little monsters New Ovington hull being fitted out by James Jarvey, also in the photos section some new boats are seen with numbers over 1400. Not many I admit but still a few trickling in so your source is not correct.