Frankenboat - what's yours?

Originally posted by Cirrus The Blaze was one of the Howlett shapes .. at least some of you know.   The sole purpose of  'Hybrid' is to assess the potential for a winged (and very possibly with a spinnaker next) boat using a rather different hull form - with much more in common with the underwater profiles you find in NS14's, derivatives and similar.  It is purely a test bed (but a heck of a lot of fun !) using many used Blaze bits and pieces (that are to hand and can be re-used again usefully ).   With a standard Blaze rig it is a tad faster already as you would expect particularly offwind and slices through waves rather than 'rattle over the top' until fully planing upwind.  In full carbon as one builder has proposed (wings and hull) and with a more ergonomic developed deck it would be a total flyer.    It is longer, a bit wider and carries 'heavies' with the greatest of ease .. and we think it can therefore carry a bit more sail than the Blaze whilst still being 'easy' - so with a Halo sized sail will be similar to a Phantom and D1 area .. so that is the next test stage.  And yes - after that maybe we will see about a spinnaker....and whatever happens I myself will not be building them it is does get productionised !! (but I do get to do much of the 'fun' bit ;-) )

nothing wrong with the musto- it has the righting moment to make sailing with the kite a pleasure.  It's numbers show it's status and it respects it's a niche boat.  Nothing to really dislike other than the red trim on the sails which look a tad dated. 

Edited by turnturtle - 10 May 18 at 1:15pm

Originally posted by Cirrus The Blaze was one of the Howlett shapes .. at least some of you know.   The sole purpose of  'Hybrid' is to assess the potential for a winged (and very possibly with a spinnaker next) boat using a rather different hull form - with much more in common with the underwater profiles you find in NS14's, derivatives and similar.  It is purely a test bed (but a heck of a lot of fun !) using many used Blaze bits and pieces (that are to hand and can be re-used again usefully ).   With a standard Blaze rig it is a tad faster already as you would expect particularly offwind and slices through waves rather than 'rattle over the top' until fully planing upwind.  In full carbon as one builder has proposed (wings and hull) and with a more ergonomic developed deck it would be a total flyer.    It is longer, a bit wider and carries 'heavies' with the greatest of ease .. and we think it can therefore carry a bit more sail than the Blaze whilst still being 'easy' - so with a Halo sized sail will be similar to a Phantom and D1 area .. so that is the next test stage.  And yes - after that maybe we will see about a spinnaker....and whatever happens I myself will not be building them it is does get productionised !! (but I do get to do much of the 'fun' bit ;-) )

On Spinnaker vs crew: have seen many good sailors over the years be very mid fleet in boats like vareos and then step into a well sorted una rig and take a big leap forward up the fleet. Perhaps if you took the top 5% of sailors you would have a point but I am fairly sure that for the majority its really hard to get the benefit of a spinnaker on a pond. (Edit: at our club we have altered the PYs over the years and as a general rule assym boats have had to be given a boost and una rig singlehanders have had to be sandbagged in the handicaps due to this effect)

Edited by H2 - 10 May 18 at 3:33pm

Yeah speed is fun - but then it you just want some speed in your life why not get a foiling moth (Edit: or a race car...which is what I did)

Edited by H2 - 10 May 18 at 4:05pm