Buzz Singlehanded Project

Always amazes me how hard people think about sailing a doublehanded dinghy singlehanded.  It occurred to me about half a second after I saw a photo of Paul Elvstrom steering his 505 from the trapeze.

The answer is that long tiller extensions are very easy to build/ aquire. Most boats will tolerate being sailed a little high and light while you get the jib trimmed, and it isn't that big a deal to grab the sheet and swing out. Been doing it for years.  Something like a 29er, which in my mind is a really small doublehanded boat ( ie requires really light teams to be competitive) make a pretty nice singlehander. To be really nice, add a mainsheet head knocker cleat and two sheet cleats for the kite. Oh, use a double tiller extension.

Any other assymerical dinghy can get the same treatment, the caveat being that if the rig is really big, ike a 49er or 14, one guy isn't enough to stand it back up after tipping over...  Other than that, geeze.

SHC

I usually try to avoid these forums, however, this one seems civilized and you guys are asking some good questions.

Regarding weight:  The Swift has a higher power to weight ratio than any of the other single handers.  We clearly found the point where lighter is not better.  USA 001 weighed 235 lbs all up and with USA 002 I decided to use hybrid and s-glass to pull 30 lbs out of the boat without sacrificing any stiffness.  It was clear that USA 002 was more difficult to tack in a breeze.  As we discovered, the problem with power is that it typically becomes drag when the boat is head to wind and if you don’t have enough inertia to keep the boat going you end up with a layline boat (not efficient enough to be tactical).  We solved much of this problem by going to a much lighter rudder / rudder cassette, mast. and spinnaker pole.  In addition we made the mast smaller in diameter and eliminated the lower spreaders.  If you build a Swift to the class rules, it is now legally possible to bring the boat in just under 200 lbs or about 20 lbs heavier than a Musto.  The Swift loses much less distance tacking than a Musto.  We could pull out at least 20 lbs by going to Nomex core with likely only a small sacrifice in top end competitiveness.  The result would be a boat that is faster in a straight line, harder to sail, and much slower tacking and gibing. 

Regarding choice of composites:  We are in the middle of some extensive composite testing and should have the results ready soon.  We are testing foam, Nomex, and cedar cores with various skins (all epoxy matrix but with s-glass, carbon, and carbon Kevlar hybrid).  The idea is to find the composite that changes the least after undergoing thousands of small flex cycles.  You will often hear about boats in various classes that have been sailed for years and are still competitive, however, if you look at the results in classes that are dominated by professional or semi professional sailors, you’ll find that few boats place in the top 25 after they are 18 months old.  The simple way to test boats (all other things being equal) is to pull all of the rigs on until you have a common forestay reading—say 23 on the new Loos gauge.  Next, pull all of the forestays on another ½” and see which one has the highest second reading.  That will be the fastest boat we believe.  You will almost always find that it will also be the newest boat unless the class being tested is made with wood core.  Top quality ski manufacturers have nearly all gone back to wood core after years of trying honeycomb and foam.  Wood cored skis are heavier, but they will typically flex the same for a number of years.  Boats are not skis, however, there are a number of unsupported out—of—column areas in nearly every design that are susceptible to the same forces—especially where those curves are under compression.

I hope this helps explain our thinking on these matters.  Look for Hydromat test results soon from Gougeon Brothers on these composites.  On our website, we’ve already completed some puncture and water absorption testing that is pretty interesting.  Also, there is some preliminary computerized static flex test results posted.

Bram Dally

Thought the swift was a mono.

 cats get to use their full beam in righting moment as their pivot point is the leeward hull or centerboard

I'm sure the Swift designer knows what he's talking about .

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When you trapeze your centre of gravity is about 1m above your feet. 

2m beam divided by 2 = 1m

1m beam + 1m of legs = 2m

Is that clear??