Knee friendly Single Handers?

The centre tank will be a key part of the float low but come up reasonably dry concept, plus also gives something to sit on. A boat with a stern tank will tend to come up with much more water in and also accumulate much more water, plus you have a whole world of hassle with getting water through them to transom drains, and it leaves a huge amount of free surface for water to swish about on, making the boat unstable when swamped.

There's little more irritating than a double bottom that's too shallow, because water tends to come in when you tack and pool, especially in light airs with bow down trim, and you end up with some of the most irritating disadvantages of both self draining and non self draining.

Provided the centre tank isn't too wide to readily step over its not really going to be any more challenging than a centreboard to step over as soon as you are used to the boat.

Nothing's perfect, but there are some formidable advantages for that arrangement to set alongside the obvious disadvantages.

Nope, the Alto is a recent design but it sucks in that department, self balers are an anachronism in this day and age, sorry they're a deal breaker for me, one of the reasons I won't go near a Streaker that and its dagger, it was also the baler that contributed to my decision to give the Zero a drive by as well much as I loved it and it's manners, that thing would've eventually caused problems for me.

Edited by Woodburner - 25 Apr 15 at 7:48pm

I wouldn't get too hung up on self drainers vs non self drainers. There have been good and bad examples of both, e.g. anyone remember those Wayfarer SDs? They could be exhausting; came up with a load of water on the false floor and the free surface water effect rolled them straight back over before you had a chance to get sorted.

I seem to recall our old 505 didn't take much water on after a capsize and it wasn't self draining but had open transom ports which were very effective. A very comfortable boat too.

With a bit of design integrity, I am sure you can have the best of both worlds.

Originally posted by PeterG Originally posted by Woodburner How does the water drain back out after a capsize? Those infernal self baler things? The reason I ask is, and it may be an optical illusion but it looks like he's standing up to his ankles in water at rest. If you stand too far back in a stationary Contender water will come in the transom drains, but as soon as you start trimming the boat and moving it goes straight out - I'd imagine the same applies here.

Not quite.  A Contender is double bottomed and all of the water will drain out after a capsize.   Well, it did on mine.   The trouble with single bottom boats is if you are heavy and standing on the plate with the boat is on it's side it will scoop up a huge amount of water when it is rightend.  I'm guessing here but I think it would easy to get it deeper than ankle deep in the Hadron.

Saying that I like the look of the boat.   An unstayed carbon mast, a double bottom and a 60kg hull would be nice.    A more stable RS300