Hi all.

My friend and his friend are buying a 12ft skiff from australia, he has never sailed on before, or a cherub or anything like it really. He has a laser 4000. I said I would be a crash test dummy and helm it if he wanted someone 2, hopefully i can do something using my limited cherub experience! Has anyone got any tips or adive for them so they don't end up in hospital with too many injuries? Are there going to be any modified cherubs around this year that they could have a blast against?

p.s apologies to him about how this post sounded in the first place, I didn't mean it mate!

As much as he can, but he's a busy man.

Do you know which boat he is getting ? he will probably pay as much for shipping as he pays for the boat.

He would be much better off getting a Cherub as he will have other people to help him, without the support of other 12 sailors I can guarantee he will spend a lot of time upside down

I think it may be more difficult to convert a 12ft skiff to UK Cherub rules than to beef up a cherub to take a 12 rig.

Converting a non retracting pole to retracting wont be easy plus possably needing to add some chines

UK Cherubs have big rigs......  Aussie Skiffs (12s and 18s atleast) have bloody HUGE rigs.

Jumping into a skiff you will spend a lot of time swimming.  All Skiffies have been there and it is part and parcel of becoming a true skiffy.  The more you sail it the less time you will spend in the tide and will find it a very rewarding experience.

Best advice apart from build yourself up slowly to the fresh winds.........  would be........  Learn to laugh at yourself.

When you go ripping past the rest of the fleet like this......  you will have the final laugh.

I don't think they do. In a boat that travels as fast as a 12 footer why would you want them? Just creates more interesting ways of breaking yourself than you had before. 

Bit of filler up near the shear line for a chine and an off-centre pole and bob's your uncle...as long as you don't mind still having a bag kite putting a chute or sock in would be rather more drastic surgery I guess.

But the worst thing would be the lack of the false floor and not being self draining...

No Mate,

Thats just how Aussie Skiffs sail.  Don't need hydrofoils atleast downwind.

British crewed and maybe built?????  But Aussie 18

The only true Aussie skiffs left are the 12, 16 and 18.

14 footer amalgamated with the International 14s a long time ago and tightened up the restrictions.

16s and 18s are very strick designs now, leaving the 12 as the only true development skiff.

I was looking at the 16 foot skiff class rules a while back and they had build tollerences for the hull but you were banned from designing a hull within those tollerences which might be faster than current hulls.

All changes from current designs must be pre aproved and any changes that might make the boat go faster are banned. all seemed a bit heavy handed to me.

Yes but y I think boats belongs to the club and are using many masts and sails.

If they need to upgrade every year it can be very expensive. It was the same when 18 footers were belonging to the australian league

There are very few rules in twelves the following are not allowed to be changed other than this ANYTHING goes

Length 12ft, Width 6ft, Minium weight 45kgs sail Area UNLIMITED NO RULES if you what bigger you can have it. Big rigs are between 26 and 31 ft mesured from the keel and big spiniker pole are 11 to 14 ft from the bow. Now you may be able to see why we sail like we do.

Self draining boats are legal, however it is faster to stay upright, and are slower than non false floored boats.

Check out the twelve site http://www.skiff.org.au - www.skiff.org.au there are links with pic vids and Our entire rules on the site

No we do not reef. we take with us different sized rigs generally three to four complete with masts or you can have 2 masts with a stumping arrangement similer to an inter 14. follow the link http://www.skiff.org.au - www.skiff.org.au to see more

The reason that we sail 12's like that is because they are prone to nose diving becuase of the amount of sail area that we carry.   See. 

Originally posted by timnoyce thats a nice example of a pitchpole. next time i expect to see it a bit straighter with the tip of the mast hitting the water first in a perfect line

First off we don't call it a "pitchpole" we call it "going down the mine" or just "mining". This wins you and you crew a beer, which must be skulled, this boat got fourth in the series and nearly won the "Underall Trophy", Yes there is a BETTER photo which is of the Australian boat that won the Interdomions.

Cherubs are WIDER than 12's at least the Ozzie one are, lines for the Woof Hull, current design, are on our web site. I have seen posted on the pic of the week, lines for a UK Cherub.

As for sail area, we take 3-4 distinct rigs to a race with some people having reef points and/or other jibs to create the perfect rig for the race or regatta. If you don't like you sails you may change them overnight and race with them without any kind of penalty. We also "rig for the holes", that is pick a rig to get you "powered up" in all conditions expected in that race. We can be powered up in 5 knots & up to about 25-30 knots, after that you are "in the lap of the Gods".

For the UK Cherub guys, check out the NZ R Class http://www.rclass.org/ - http://www.rclass.org/  These are kind of a restricted twelve. The rig size listed is about 4th rig, in fact you will see NZ 12's racing as R Classes & those boats use their R Class rigs as a 4th (the smallest)

Did you know we have a bloke who admits to being 70( however I think is much OLDER ) steering a twelve. Maybe its because they are additive.

Thats why skiff sailors are alcoholics.

Or should I say alcoholism turns you to skiff racing

• 3.0 Beam
  • 3.1 The extreme beam measured to the outside of the hull must not be less than 1.4 metres measured between perpendiculars to the waterline.
  • 3.2 The full width of the forward section of the boat, measured across the boat, 300mm back from the stem must not exceed 700mm.

Is it just me, or my eyes, or is the kite actually goose-winged in the first picture at the bottom of page 3?   Must be one mother of a gust to have to go that deep!

Is 'skulling' a beer just tipping it over your head?

Mike

To my knowledge the r class is 1800mm wide with no wings. The 12 guys who want to really compete, I've been told, have tried "clip-on" hull extensions. I don't think it worked. This Nuplex is the same boat the  the mining Pic, it just won the Leander Trophy, their National, I think. As you can see there are no hull mods. 

You might spell it this way,Skoaling, is just drinking a beer in the quickest time(5 sec has been done) as possible

what other class can you see almost 100 years of development?

some more pics from the inters for ya.

How to deal with manly ferries: give them the finger

...and then keep going

That series of shots was on the Favourite Pics thread about 6 weeks ago!

re R-Class - you can go as wide as you like, but the limitation is on extensions to the width that might be dangerous to people or boats to the satisfaction of the measurer (Rule 4.2).  That is a nice subjective rule for you.

The length difference between the R's & 12s doesn't seem to make much difference - 3% ish difference in theory based on the waterline length.  R's are a much smaller fleet though so the pace of development may well have been slower, so although the 12s are smaller I think the hull shape has progressed to a more refined state giving very little difference in performance. (just my humble opinion which is rarely influenced by facts).

There are all shapes. Chord lengths of about 120mm -250mm. the short chord lenght is to stop cavitation at speed.they are all a bit of a one off.

Once again I think it a case of people taking pics and not giving credit where credit is due. Way to go to rubbish the actual person who took the pic!!! 

Their difference in PY between the I14 and B14 is interesting...

The narrow section is there to specifically reduce the drag due to the surface piercing effect.  It uses exactly the same principal as the foils made by a certain Mr. Paterson at Bloodaxe for the 470's.  The waisted section has narrower chord, finer radius leading edge and the maximum thickness further aft.

That particular foil is made by Alex Vallings of C-tech and he can mould you a nice shiny new one at a very reasonable price. (at least, the quote he gave me was reasonable).

Yeh sorry about that. Only just started looking at this forum. I noticed that when the pics were originally posted people were asking questions as to why someone would have tried to beat the ferry. I took the photos...so I can tell you - they were coming down from the top mark on the first lap in 4th place. The mark they were aiming for was past a point that was to windward of their heading. If they had gone behind the ferry they have lost 10 places as a big pack was right behind them, as can be seen in the photo below, which was taken about 10 seconds later.

It took that pack about 1 minute to reach the spot where P&O was.

cheers

The 12 is a hard boat to handicap as the variety of rigs allow it to be at maximum speed in any breeze, where most boats are slow in the light stuff and get faster as the breeze comes in.

As an example we have some older 14ft skiffs sailing with us and in the light breeze with our biggest rigs we would beat them by over 15-20 minutes in an hour race. When the breeze comes in we are only about 5-10 minutes faster. These boats would be about 20 minutes slower than a top 14ft skiff.

As another comparison we raced the same course as the Flying Dutchmen  fleet, which included ex World champions so were top notch and we were on  average 7-8% faster around the course.

No worries - I take it they made it?