V Twin

As to me wishing there would be hundreds of these things, that's poppycock, if this had been a serious commercial venture, do you think I would have shared it, honest and open the way I have to date? It was never going to be anything other than what it is from word go. If I'd wanted commercial it would have to have been something of the Project X ilk and at that price level in this current market.

This thing's main unique feature and the feature everyone initially debunked because of the worries of foils without end plates, was the tunnel hull, and we still don't know if it would have been better or worse with a solid hull, or the gap wider, the fact it goes at all was a (pleasant) surprise. What let it down was the build, the build time, the build weight and the costs that accrued beyond my expectation, then even in my madness I wasn't going to spec a left field idea like this with full carbon nomex, all though I did ask for bamboo, it isn't available over here at this or that time.

It's all very well Chris 249 going on about the great tech there is about, er just give me the name of the class of dinghy that has adopted it and I'll go right out and buy one, back handedly he has already made my point. The stuff is around and the UK in other sectors is way head of the field in say F1 or aero space, but all the time the classes have their luddites and the market performs the way it does why would anyone in their right mind risk building super light, you only have to go back a few pages and we needn't revisit, but it comes round to the same thing, wanting super light or high end isn't in the culture. That is reserved only for Americas Cup attempts and the like.

Whereas other sports do want hi tech and as there is a bigger demand prices of the higher performance stuff inevitably drop, so dinghy designers are hamstrung by that culture and of course I recognise there are excellent examples of new stuff one only has to look at the Aura, but where is that going now?

So who's to blame? Dinghy Sailing culture is to blame and that I shall continue to torment as long as I draw breath, or it changes which is extremely unlikely anytime soon and i shall continue to mess and meddle whilst bantering that evryone else is crap but me, which of course I totally believe..

 

+1

 

Originally posted by G.R.F. ... there are excellent examples of new stuff one only has to look at the Aura, but where is that going now?

 

I am surprised by your continued praise for the Aura, with which I agree ... when I spoke to the builder at the Dinghy Show he described it a a Musto Skiff for two lightweights, very similar under water shape he said ...

Give us facts to show that it is greener to take diesel and petrol to power machinery to drive loads of bamboo into a factory powered by coal-fired electricity, where it is processed and driven by diesel truck to a diesel ship manufactured from thousands of tons of metals (mined in an energy-intensive way) and then drive it across the world to a dock where a crane driven by fossil fuels will load it into a truck driven by fossil fuels to a factory where it will be combined with chemicals derived from fossil fuels and then also refined and transported across the world and then put into small plastic containers and then used to build a boat....

compared to just enjoying and relishing the sailing to be had with craft we already have. 

The vast waste in taking non-degradable plastic boats and chucking them into land fill is surely one of the reasons that we shouldn't be sl*gging off existing classes, instead of enjoying them. The waste involved is horrific - everyone seems to complain about boats mouldering in dinghy parks or taking up scarce mooring space but surely one way to get around it is to stop telling people they shouldn't be using such older boats!

Imagine how many more people could be gainfully employed in the boating industry if more of the cash was being used to renovate old craft, rather than throw new ones together on a production line that churns up priceless non-renewable resources. Yes, under current economics it's not viable, but neither are your fantasies. And re-using old boats to save materials is probably a lot more innovative, as a vision, than just more calls to destroy more of the boats on which our sport is built.

Yes, bamboo's tensile strength is impressive but then again kevlar's tensile strength is very high and it's largely been abandoned in boatbuilding.  I've got no engineering knowledge but as I understand it, bamboo has major problems in variability and flex strength. Comparison of tensile strength with carbon is not necessarily valuable as carbon has fairly moderate tensile strength (lower than even E glass AFAIK) but it is valuable because of its compressive strength etc, which is a problem with bamboo. So we are back to the issue that you are giving out abuse, not facts.

Yes, on the one hand bamboo could perhaps be a great material but (1) whether it will create the ultralight craft you are demanding is completely unproven, and SUPs are not much of a test bed; (2) racing dinghies were there 90 years ago (as proven by documented history) and the facts show that they have since been up with all other comparable sports in high tech construction and we are back once more to the fact that yo are throwing around insults without facts.

At no time is an Englishman expected to back any comment he may have made to an Australian, the Australian should simply accept the wiser and superior words of the Englishman and be humble, in fact be happy he is even being acknowledged as anything other than a convicted felon or a bush dwelling aborigine.

This is the Law.

So now to the facts.

The factory I recently visited sits adjacent to the Bonneville Hydro electric plant on the Columbia river the electricity is free.

The resin I told you of's formula is secret it is being kept in the US to protect their intellectual property from thieving Chinese (and Australians).

The wood used in blank construction as well as Bamboo is from managed forests from within a 50 mile radius.

The Sports that like light stuff as well as Windsurfing, which no longer has the sun filled uplands of a better tomorrow in which to bask in the fires of progressive innovation, are SUP ( a hollow race board), kite twintip and surf boards and wake boards capable of being both light yet capable of sustaining punishment in cable parks. I've no doubt that somewhere along the Gorge folk are using similar stuff to build sailboats and all manner of stuff, but those are the instances that have prompted my latests rants.

You may now go to your room and reconsider your position.