dinghy design questions

These are not the straightforward answers that the OP was hoping to get, but they do serve to illustrate why one boat will win one day, and another in different conditions.

I certainly struggled to beat a mirror on restricted water in light winds in my Dart 15...

I've had what I think is the answer doodled alongside my original drawings for the V2 before I started down the planing hull route.

Trouble is I've run out of space, cash and bread knife goodwill when it comes to anything further boat shaped littering up Fuller Towers.

If someone would be kind enough to make me a half decent offer to take version 1 off my hands, I could start version two, this time it would be suitable both for the lake and the sea, but wether I could make it light enough out of wood, I don't yet know, but it's still on the cards, V3 will one day hopefully do the job.

Basically with wave piercing instead of planing surfaces, but the same concept and minimal wetted surface when static with a bloody big gap of nothing in the middle, this time that will flood if it goes over.

Its probably fairer to say that pointing ability is affected by drag and speed.

Its damn complicated, but lets say you have a rig that will set at 15 degrees to the the apparent wind. The pointing angle will be directly affected by speed: because the apparent wind comes back with speed through the water then the faster the boat goes the lower the boat will point: if the boat is stationary the sails will set just fine with the boat pointing only 15 degrees off the true wind, but as soon as it starts moving at all then the apparent wind will come back and the boat will have to bear away a little to get the sails to fill. So that's one factor: the ability of the sails to fill with wind.
The second one is power: the sails may be full of wind, but can they generate enough power to move the boat along when sheeted in that tight? That's where the drag of rig and hull come in. If you look at, say, a modern International Canoe the jib will be sheeted in astonishingly closely compared to something like an Albacore. That's because the boat has such a low lift/drag ratio that it will move upwind with the sails sheeted like that. You could sheet in the sails on an Albacore that close too, and it would sail, and point higher than a Canoe, but because the lift/drag is so much worse it would sail very very slowly, and you're better off sheeting the jib out a bit and pointing lower, but with more power.

Originally posted by iGRF I've had what I think is the answer doodled alongside my original drawings for the V2 before I started down the planing hull route.  [...] Basically with wave piercing instead of planing surfaces, but the same concept and minimal wetted surface when static with a bloody big gap of nothing in the middle, this time that will flood if it goes over.