337 replies to this topic

[Doug Lord]

These are some boats I designed- and produced for a while-they aren't being produced now but were ahead of their time in 2001. Lets see whats going on now in RC Multihulls-like the guy that built an RC Tri with curved main foils and put T-foils on the rudder to fly it-there must be others.....
Note: for an indication of the size of the Flyer 3 look at the picture of the two boats on the dock and notice the man standing in the upper left corner of the picture.
pixs from www.microsail.com:

Attached Files

•  flyer3hydro3_small.jpg   10.64K   285 downloads
•  mfoilerf3_14a_small.jpg   15.04K   253 downloads
•  my125cvrs.jpg   45.02K   227 downloads
•  flyer3redfull_small.jpg   13.93K   258 downloads
•  flyer3sdock_small.jpg   9.65K   98 downloads

[Dark_Horse]

Here it is again - my RC Tri that I'm "developing". This is it up on the foils - Bannana bd's forward and "T" foils on the rudders.
The hull length is 1.5m and beam of 1.43m. Mast height 2m and approx 1 sq.m of sail area (excluding mast).
All up weight if 6kg which is a bit heavy but I'm about to build another to improve on what I've learned so far and reckon 5kg is a good target.
 Tri_Foiling.jpg   903.67K   399 downloads

[Dark_Horse]

Here's some more Pics from the recent Queensland State Multihull titles.
 Tri_f.jpg   487.52K   520 downloads
 Tri_g_sml.JPG   492.17K   299 downloads

[Oxygen Mask]

Got a wild hair and built one a couple years ago.

With experimental wingsail fitted (actually built for a landsailer) and while mocking up sail rig.
(Rudder is too long, it was since shortened...)

Attached Files

•  P4270049.JPG   92.36K   232 downloads
•  P5070101.JPG   121.76K   212 downloads

[hannibalhouse]

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=LmakeKMG-1s

[Cats Rule]

I really want a radio controled multi, thought about sticking some floats and taking the keel off my 1m for the min just as a start.

Hopefully i will try and build one sum time, got 2 many boats to fiddle with at the min and a inter 18 comin so i think its gonna be a little while till i get round to building it.

one day one day.....

[Doug Lord]

Here it is again - my RC Tri that I'm "developing". This is it up on the foils - Bannana bd's forward and "T" foils on the rudders.
The hull length is 1.5m and beam of 1.43m. Mast height 2m and approx 1 sq.m of sail area (excluding mast).
All up weight if 6kg which is a bit heavy but I'm about to build another to improve on what I've learned so far and reckon 5kg is a good target.
 Tri_Foiling.jpg   903.67K   399 downloads

-----------------------------------
You're doing a fantastic job but you might want to lower your target weight:
The F3 was 7-8lb(3.18-3.64kg) all up
LOA 60" (1.52m)
Beam 72" (1.83m)
SA upwind 1600sq.in.(1.03 sq.m)

Attached Files

•  mfoilerf3_14a_small.jpg   15.04K   88 downloads

[Doug Lord]

From Adam May's blog here are pictures of Mike Cookes Mini 40 foiler:

Attached Files

•  Mike_Cooks_foiler_adam_May_site.jpg   61.27K   156 downloads
•  Mike_Cooks_mini_40_foiler_adam_may__s_site.jpg   85.41K   200 downloads

[deano]

ok. I'm convinced I need an R/C foiling tri to thrash around.

Looks like its pretty experimental what people have been doing, but can anyone suggest some plans or something as a basis to start building from?

Can you just use standard 2 channel servo setup? ie does the foiling arrangement look after itself?

thanks for any help

[Dark_Horse]

ok. I'm convinced I need an R/C foiling tri to thrash around.

Looks like its pretty experimental what people have been doing, but can anyone suggest some plans or something as a basis to start building from?

Can you just use standard 2 channel servo setup? ie does the foiling arrangement look after itself?

thanks for any help

I'm Just about to put my second boat in the water - will be finishing the painting this week so hope to get it on the water after work one day next week.
The boat will come out at aprox 4.2 kg after a lot of effort to minimise weights - I weighed the 3 hulls and crossbeams bolted together last night and they came in at 2.6kg, the rig I'm using weighs about 750 grms and I use a 4 channel radio.
With the sailing I did with my first boat ( pictured in an earlier post) I find that you need no control on the foils but I am using seperate controls on the Mainsail and headsail as well as Mast rotation - the mast I've built has a 50mm long section.
I'll post some pics once the new one is sailing next week..
Cheers

[toads]

Hi team,

just started in the fast lane of sailing here in adelaide... Managed to obtain some old hulls poss snap dragon/ ghost train 'ish' in design ???... the hulls came with a couple of 38mm foil masts along with the mould for them ... will have photos shortly... the intitial test run indicated a lot of lee helm and I have observed the mast flexing forward and are presuming this is as a result of the rear beam in particular bending up wards ??? any thoughts ????

I am in the process of re building and extending a set curved beams from an american designed formular 48 tri..that will hopefully rectify the problem ???

Any info re tri set ups will be appreciated...

To Doug Lord....

Shame about the F3 not being produced any more. I came across an article on the foiler Tri many moons ago that got me interested in R/C multi hulls.

To Scalple in Melbourne game on buddy show us the photos...........

cheers all

toads

[Doug Lord]

Hi team,

just started in the fast lane of sailing here in adelaide... Managed to obtain some old hulls poss snap dragon/ ghost train 'ish' in design ???... the hulls came with a couple of 38mm foil masts along with the mould for them ... will have photos shortly... the intitial test run indicated a lot of lee helm and I have observed the mast flexing forward and are presuming this is as a result of the rear beam in particular bending up wards ??? any thoughts ????

I am in the process of re building and extending a set curved beams from an american designed formular 48 tri..that will hopefully rectify the problem ???

Any info re tri set ups will be appreciated...

To Doug Lord....

Shame about the F3 not being produced any more. I came across an article on the foiler Tri many moons ago that got me interested in R/C multi hulls.

To Scalple in Melbourne game on buddy show us the photos...........

cheers all

toads

============================
Glad you're getting involved in RC Multihulls-lots of fun! Don't forget to consider movable ballast and/or foils. I'm considering(a couple years or so down the line) an RC A-class or F18 cat using movable ballast. Really powers up a cat-and movable ballast is just plain fun. Foils can virtually eliminate pitchpoling.
Good Luck!

[deano]

Hi team,

just started in the fast lane of sailing here in adelaide... Managed to obtain some old hulls poss snap dragon/ ghost train 'ish' in design ???... the hulls came with a couple of 38mm foil masts along with the mould for them ... will have photos shortly... the intitial test run indicated a lot of lee helm and I have observed the mast flexing forward and are presuming this is as a result of the rear beam in particular bending up wards ??? any thoughts ????

I am in the process of re building and extending a set curved beams from an american designed formular 48 tri..that will hopefully rectify the problem ???

Any info re tri set ups will be appreciated...

To Doug Lord....

Shame about the F3 not being produced any more. I came across an article on the foiler Tri many moons ago that got me interested in R/C multi hulls.

To Scalple in Melbourne game on buddy show us the photos...........

cheers all

toads

============================
Glad you're getting involved in RC Multihulls-lots of fun! Don't forget to consider movable ballast and/or foils. I'm considering(a couple years or so down the line) an RC A-class or F18 cat using movable ballast. Really powers up a cat-and movable ballast is just plain fun. Foils can virtually eliminate pitchpoling.
Good Luck!

ok already stop teasing. Give me a place to start! I'm not intelligent enough to scratch build a carbon fibre foiling tri with rotating wing mast, movable ballast, furling kite and 19 channel servo. that all weighs less than 2kg when its wet.
deano

[toads]

Glad you're getting involved in RC Multihulls-lots of fun! Don't forget to consider movable ballast and/or foils. I'm considering(a couple years or so down the line) an RC A-class or F18 cat using movable ballast. Really powers up a cat-and movable ballast is just plain fun. Foils can virtually eliminate pitchpoling.
Good Luck!
[/quote]

ok already stop teasing. Give me a place to start! I'm not intelligent enough to scratch build a carbon fibre foiling tri with rotating wing mast, movable ballast, furling kite and 19 channel servo. that all weighs less than 2kg when its wet.
deano

Deano,

I can help you with a set of plans for a "snap dragon", they are also available from Float a Boat in Melbourne (you can name drop if you contact them).. the hulls I acquired were made out of balsa strips and then covered with 2 oz cloth. even with the rotating mast it is still around 3 kgs total .. so using a very basic technique you can get them quite light... you don't need a rotating mast to start just a standard alloy section from a major national hardware chain will do at the start just to get you in the water... plus if you get enough of it you can even get away with using it as the cross beams at a stretch.... what city/town/state are you...

Doug,

Hi yes have started on a slightly different path to others and are making "V" foils for the front of the outer bows and obviously having "t" foil on the rudder... What are the advantages of having the foil mounted near the C of L.R. and not at the bows....other than it will allow you to make smaller outer hulls...

I was also curious has any one evaluated the performance difference between a "double luffed" mainsl verses the rotating wing mast of equal size ???

cheers
[/quote]

[deano]

I can help you with a set of plans for a "snap dragon", they are also available from Float a Boat in Melbourne (you can name drop if you contact them).. the hulls I acquired were made out of balsa strips and then covered with 2 oz cloth. even with the rotating mast it is still around 3 kgs total .. so using a very basic technique you can get them quite light... you don't need a rotating mast to start just a standard alloy section from a major national hardware chain will do at the start just to get you in the water... plus if you get enough of it you can even get away with using it as the cross beams at a stretch.... what city/town/state are you...

Toads, I am in Geelong.
I'm ok with the alum mast and doing rigging, and can get broken kite poles from local kite shop as a cheap source of lightweight glass and sometimes carbonfibre poles. I'd probably look to use these as crossbeams. Is the snapdragon a standard multi, or does it have foils? either way, sounds like its somewhere to start.

[F15 AUS]

Its a fairly standerd tri. A fairly concervitive boat, that is fairly easy to get going.

Im Building my own boat from foam at the momant. The main hull is a coppy of an ex World Champ marbelhead hull, with most of the flair removed. The floats are my own design, 60mm wide, 1,2 long, and round the bottom.

The Queensland champs have been dominated by the boys from Balana, with Bill winning a few in a row, His is the boat with the yellow main hull and black floats in Post 3. The others are catching with marbelhead stile hulls, with the Billet boats coming realy close this year. (the yellow with red bow's and the whit and black one)

[Dark_Horse]

Its a fairly standerd tri. A fairly concervitive boat, that is fairly easy to get going.

Im Building my own boat from foam at the momant. The main hull is a coppy of an ex World Champ marbelhead hull, with most of the flair removed. The floats are my own design, 60mm wide, 1,2 long, and round the bottom.

The Queensland champs have been dominated by the boys from Balana, with Bill winning a few in a row, His is the boat with the yellow main hull and black floats in Post 3. The others are catching with marbelhead stile hulls, with the Billet boats coming realy close this year. (the yellow with red bow's and the whit and black one)

Hi F15,
Do you have any contacts for Bill or the other guy's that were racing in the Qld multi titles last year - I went to have a look and took a number of photo's like the few I posted above that I'm happy to share.

Also, In the new few months I'll be starting to look at scale A-Class, I've been working on a design and soon will be getting the hull 3d routed, but we will make a "scale" test blank first which I will set up at 1.2m long first - which will give me accurate blanks to take moulds off. Will probably take a while for me to get this happening since I'm going to be testing my bigger tri quite a bit in the next few months...
Cheers
Dave

[Doug Lord]

Hi yes have started on a slightly different path to others and are making "V" foils for the front of the outer bows and obviously having "t" foil on the rudder... What are the advantages of having the foil mounted near the C of L.R. and not at the bows....other than it will allow you to make smaller outer hulls...

I was also curious has any one evaluated the performance difference between a "double luffed" mainsl verses the rotating wing mast of equal size ???

cheers

---------------------------------------------
One thing about surface piercing foils (see aardvarks and others): The F 3 used submerged foils with dual independent wand altitude controls. That gave the boat virtually unlimited RM whereas a surface piercer is limited to the RM it can generate by the movement of its center of lift vs its CG like a "normal" multihull. The difference is HUGE in models. If you're determined to go the surface piercer route make sure that your beam is substantially greater than your length-hydroptere is 80' wide and 59' long. On rigs: the planform(more rectangular than triangular) is one of the most important considerations on a model.

[Rapscallion]

http://www.youtube.c...re=channel_page

thought this was kinda neat

[F15 AUS]

Its a fairly standerd tri. A fairly concervitive boat, that is fairly easy to get going.

Im Building my own boat from foam at the momant. The main hull is a coppy of an ex World Champ marbelhead hull, with most of the flair removed. The floats are my own design, 60mm wide, 1,2 long, and round the bottom.

The Queensland champs have been dominated by the boys from Balana, with Bill winning a few in a row, His is the boat with the yellow main hull and black floats in Post 3. The others are catching with marbelhead stile hulls, with the Billet boats coming realy close this year. (the yellow with red bow's and the whit and black one)

Hi F15,
Do you have any contacts for Bill or the other guy's that were racing in the Qld multi titles last year - I went to have a look and took a number of photo's like the few I posted above that I'm happy to share.

Also, In the new few months I'll be starting to look at scale A-Class, I've been working on a design and soon will be getting the hull 3d routed, but we will make a "scale" test blank first which I will set up at 1.2m long first - which will give me accurate blanks to take moulds off. Will probably take a while for me to get this happening since I'm going to be testing my bigger tri quite a bit in the next few months...
Cheers
Dave

Ill send you a PM with my Email.

I had the box section one there

[toads]

Hi yes have started on a slightly different path to others and are making "V" foils for the front of the outer bows and obviously having "t" foil on the rudder... What are the advantages of having the foil mounted near the C of L.R. and not at the bows....other than it will allow you to make smaller outer hulls...

I was also curious has any one evaluated the performance difference between a "double luffed" mainsl verses the rotating wing mast of equal size ???

cheers

---------------------------------------------
One thing about surface piercing foils (see aardvarks and others): The F 3 used submerged foils with dual independent wand altitude controls. That gave the boat virtually unlimited RM whereas a surface piercer is limited to the RM it can generate by the movement of its center of lift vs its CG like a "normal" multihull. The difference is HUGE in models. If you're determined to go the surface piercer route make sure that your beam is substantially greater than your length-hydroptere is 80' wide and 59' long. On rigs: the planform(more rectangular than triangular) is one of the most important considerations on a model.

Doug

Hi thanks for that advice re foils and rigs

Re rigs: one's gut feeling was leading me to the same conclusion.

Re the foils: Is it posible to get some Tech advice on how to manufacture/produce the independant wand altitude controls ( from the videos I have seen it appears to be a system that the "Int. Moth class" uses ??? )

cheers

toads

[Doug Lord]

Toads, the system was pioneered by Dr. Sam Bradfield on his multifoilers before it was borrowed for the Moth. The basic thing is that the wand and flap must move freely: I used ball bearings on the wand axle and very thin mylar for the flap hinge. You want to set it up with as much altitude is possible so it doesn't bottom out. My vertical struts were 10" on a 59" hull and might have been 2-3" longer. Set the wand up so that it is 45 degrees when the flap is neutral. From that position the flap should go down 20-25 degrees and up 15 degrees. Set up the main foils to carry 80% of the weight of the boat, rudder foil 20%. All the foils should be symmetrical with the main foil at +2.5 degrees(relative to the static waterline) and the rear foil 0 degrees.
Watch this video from Dr. Bradfields site: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=yuFwDm8t3IM

[Doug Lord]

You can make the attachment point of the bungee or spring about 1.2"-1.5" from the CL of the wand axle and the cl of the pushrod( to the flap) .3125"-.375" from the same point. Good luck!

[toads]

You can make the attachment point of the bungee or spring about 1.2"-1.5" from the CL of the wand axle and the cl of the pushrod( to the flap) .3125"-.375" from the same point. Good luck!

Doug ,

Hi, u legend

Yep grasp all you have said no worries it's a lovely system for altitude adjustment. Thanks for the techy stuff, it will really come in handy

I know the following Q's might be a little frustrating for one that is familiar with the physcal mechanics of the system but unfortunately I haven't seen a layout drawing or any very close up photos of how the system/bits all come together eg does the push rod travel outside of the fin, how is the wand attached/linked to the pushrod etc..

sorry to be a pest but now I know how the system works, would really love to get it on my tri

I loved the idea re the mylar on the flap I was wondering how I was going to get around that amongst the many other things.....

cheers
toads

[Doug Lord]

You can make the attachment point of the bungee or spring about 1.2"-1.5" from the CL of the wand axle and the cl of the pushrod( to the flap) .3125"-.375" from the same point. Good luck!

Doug ,

Hi, u legend

Yep grasp all you have said no worries it's a lovely system for altitude adjustment. Thanks for the techy stuff, it will really come in handy

I know the following Q's might be a little frustrating for one that is familiar with the physcal mechanics of the system but unfortunately I haven't seen a layout drawing or any very close up photos of how the system/bits all come together eg does the push rod travel outside of the fin, how is the wand attached/linked to the pushrod etc..

sorry to be a pest but now I know how the system works, would really love to get it on my tri

I loved the idea re the mylar on the flap I was wondering how I was going to get around that amongst the many other things.....

cheers
toads

----------------------------------------
Check out the video I posted..... the push rod should run in the fin.

[deano]

From Front page, M40's might be a bit of fun.

At 1.5m and 8 knots boatspeed if it's true, may make things interesting at the local puddle.
At least it would be something to start with before the jump to folis etc.

Any more info or plans? I suppose you'd need to pack either a dingy or bathers anytime things picked up...
deano

[The Squareman]

From Front page, M40's might be a bit of fun.

At 1.5m and 8 knots boatspeed if it's true, may make things interesting at the local puddle.
At least it would be something to start with before the jump to folis etc.

Any more info or plans? I suppose you'd need to pack either a dingy or bathers anytime things picked up...
deano

In the US the F-48 is being built in minimal numbers, and there is also a MultiONE (1 Meter) if the other is too big for transportation.

Not to open old arguments, but unless you are sailing the foiler in a large, open body of water, weeds will definitely take the fun out of the boat when it snags them in the middle of the lake and you have to figure out a way to get out there to it to untangle.

[Doug Lord]

After close to 12 years of sailing rc foilers I can say that weeds are definitely an annoyance but a very infrequent one. In Florida, if weeds are growing up to the surface around the shore of a lake you can probably forget that lake. On the coast much less of a problem. Foilers aren't the only rc boats susceptable to weeds:anything with a vertical, deep fin keel/daggerboard will catch weed as well.

[TomTest]

Good Morning,


I'm the photographer of yesterdays title Pic. We are a smal group here in Germany as well. I suspect that there are 15 M40s arround here in the germany speaking area. In France there are about 10.
Well, these boats are a hell lot of fun to sail. Who never sailed or at least saw one, won't understand this. On our pond we usually chase all the man carrying sailbots, occasionally also the f16 cats as long as they don't pull the genackers .
The 8 knots were meassured on hand stopping time on a gps meassured track. So these boats must be quicker on certain courses. This year I can report much more accurate about possible speeds, since I've found a GPS tracker small and lighe enough to leave it in the boat.

Main problem, is to my opinion not weed, but the wind. To have fun with these kind of boats, you need constant wind. Normal Modellboat ponds usually provide to unsteady winds. For keelboats this is no problem, but for a multihull.... since a windshift of more then 90 degree (normal on a lot of modell boat ponds) usually means, you can go paddling with your rescue boat. But this is also part of the fun. Well under current weather conditions (about 3-6 degree celsius) this is no fun, so the boats stay at home.
Wind speed is no problem. We sail these boats at up 25 knots of wind, as long as it is steady. Heavy gusts and shifts can be tricky.

In regards to foilers. There are currently three projects going on in Germany. Mainproblem, is to my opinion is weight. Most of the boats will be to heavy. Just one, will imho be light enough (he plans a total weight of below one Kilo for the m40 sized foiler) to come close to an allround foiler.
This is the reason we stay with normal multihulls at the moment. But let's see how our three foiler projects workout, probably next year we go on with foilers, who knows.

Another thing are the 2m class multis. There are also a couple out there here in Germany (3 I know) and about 14 in france. Should be even faster. But last year a friend sailed a race in france with his M40, and bet all the 2m Tris in one race. Well very tricky wind conditions, and he is a fairly good RC racing sailor. But the video he brought home, does not realy show the potential of 2m boats.
Another friend got one weighing arround 6 Kg.... Much to heavy I think.

We have a anual meeting here for the m40 in July. If there is interest, I'll report. If someone is arround and has interest to come and see, please contact me for details.

Best regards


Jens
Best regards

Jens

From Front page, M40's might be a bit of fun.

At 1.5m and 8 knots boatspeed if it's true, may make things interesting at the local puddle.
At least it would be something to start with before the jump to folis etc.

Any more info or plans? I suppose you'd need to pack either a dingy or bathers anytime things picked up...
deano

In the US the F-48 is being built in minimal numbers, and there is also a MultiONE (1 Meter) if the other is too big for transportation.

Not to open old arguments, but unless you are sailing the foiler in a large, open body of water, weeds will definitely take the fun out of the boat when it snags them in the middle of the lake and you have to figure out a way to get out there to it to untangle.

[deano]

Good Morning,


I'm the photographer of yesterdays title Pic. We are a smal group here in Germany as well. I suspect that there are 15 M40s arround here in the germany speaking area. In France there are about 10.
Well, these boats are a hell lot of fun to sail. Who never sailed or at least saw one, won't understand this. On our pond we usually chase all the man carrying sailbots, occasionally also the f16 cats as long as they don't pull the genackers .
The 8 knots were meassured on hand stopping time on a gps meassured track. So these boats must be quicker on certain courses. This year I can report much more accurate about possible speeds, since I've found a GPS tracker small and lighe enough to leave it in the boat.

Main problem, is to my opinion not weed, but the wind. To have fun with these kind of boats, you need constant wind. Normal Modellboat ponds usually provide to unsteady winds. For keelboats this is no problem, but for a multihull.... since a windshift of more then 90 degree (normal on a lot of modell boat ponds) usually means, you can go paddling with your rescue boat. But this is also part of the fun. Well under current weather conditions (about 3-6 degree celsius) this is no fun, so the boats stay at home.
Wind speed is no problem. We sail these boats at up 25 knots of wind, as long as it is steady. Heavy gusts and shifts can be tricky.

In regards to foilers. There are currently three projects going on in Germany. Mainproblem, is to my opinion is weight. Most of the boats will be to heavy. Just one, will imho be light enough (he plans a total weight of below one Kilo for the m40 sized foiler) to come close to an allround foiler.
This is the reason we stay with normal multihulls at the moment. But let's see how our three foiler projects workout, probably next year we go on with foilers, who knows.

Another thing are the 2m class multis. There are also a couple out there here in Germany (3 I know) and about 14 in france. Should be even faster. But last year a friend sailed a race in france with his M40, and bet all the 2m Tris in one race. Well very tricky wind conditions, and he is a fairly good RC racing sailor. But the video he brought home, does not realy show the potential of 2m boats.
Another friend got one weighing arround 6 Kg.... Much to heavy I think.

We have a anual meeting here for the m40 in July. If there is interest, I'll report. If someone is arround and has interest to come and see, please contact me for details.

Best regards


Jens
Best regards

Jens

From Front page, M40's might be a bit of fun.

At 1.5m and 8 knots boatspeed if it's true, may make things interesting at the local puddle.
At least it would be something to start with before the jump to folis etc.

Any more info or plans? I suppose you'd need to pack either a dingy or bathers anytime things picked up...
deano

In the US the F-48 is being built in minimal numbers, and there is also a MultiONE (1 Meter) if the other is too big for transportation.

Not to open old arguments, but unless you are sailing the foiler in a large, open body of water, weeds will definitely take the fun out of the boat when it snags them in the middle of the lake and you have to figure out a way to get out there to it to untangle.

Hi Jens,

there's a traditional welcome you are likely recieve around here as a newb, i'll leave that to the others.
Have you got any more shots of M40 you can post?

[Johannos]

or any drawings, class rules, etc? I wanna build one!!

[aardvark_issues]

UK site is here - not a lot of activity online but there is about 25 active members with boats in the UK

The Mini40 rules are linked from this page.

I built the green and white boat in the pics further up in a freestyle session with a load of blue styrofoam, a longboard and some lightweight carbon weave. All up inc RC gear is 1.65KG. Needs refinement (read flips over, a lot - reserved for mk2) but has provided much amusement for me and the other Mothies I have inflicted it on.

[TomTest]

Hi Everybody,

sure I've got zillions of shots. Attached there are a couple of the better ones.

In regards to plans, drawings, or kit boats, there is little choice. Here is a page with a couple of free designs:


http://members.chell...wema/Plans.html


The most detailed one is the Ghost Train. A fairly old design. It has some problems, but it's a working boat, and a good starting point for own explorations. I can't really say much about the other designs. Never saw them in action.

If you want to build a Mini40, it's pretty much a jump into cold water. Just do it. It's rewarding!!! There are no other RC-Boats like this.... But be careful if you've got a waek heart ...


Here are shots from some of the Boats on our place:

 2007_06_07_16h19m52s_NIKON_D50_1265.jpg   173.77K   202 downloads

 2007_06_07_16h19m52s_NIKON_D50_1265.jpg   173.77K   202 downloads

 2007_07_08_11h14m12s_NIKON_D50__2138.jpg   135.9K   115 downloads

 2007_07_08_12h17m40s_NIKON_D50__2187.jpg   166.03K   71 downloads

 2007_09_30_15h48m26s_NIKON_D50__2657.jpg   203.31K   72 downloads


Best Regards

Jens

Attached Files

•  2007_07_07_10h44m51s_NIKON_D50__1690.jpg   161.16K   42 downloads

[TomTest]

And another couple of pictures...:

 2008_03_29_15h39m57s_NIKON_D50__3401.jpg   185.32K   61 downloads  2008_03_29_16h08m48s_NIKON_D50__3417.jpg   216.6K   50 downloads  2008_04_26_13h57m07s_NIKON_D50__3462.jpg   131.83K   57 downloads  2008_05_10_15h58m30s_NIKON_D50__3599.jpg   125.86K   102 downloads
 2008_07_06_12h57m56s_NIKON_D50__3854.jpg   161.52K   43 downloads

Regards

Jens

[TomTest]

UK site is here - not a lot of activity online but there is about 25 active members with boats in the UK

The Mini40 rules are linked from this page.

I built the green and white boat in the pics further up in a freestyle session with a load of blue styrofoam, a longboard and some lightweight carbon weave. All up inc RC gear is 1.65KG. Needs refinement (read flips over, a lot - reserved for mk2) but has provided much amusement for me and the other Mothies I have inflicted it on.

Hi,

Cool I didn't know that there are so many active RC-Multihullers arround in UK. That's pretty cool.
Here in Germany there are arround 12-20. The number is uncertain, since I know a couple of boats out there, but I suspect these guys are actively sailing them.

Your Foiler looks fairly good!!!!

We're having an event/meeting on the 1st weekend of July at our lake. Since we are guests at another club, I need to be a bit careful with invitations, but I would be glad an honoured if someone from UK or anywhere else, would join us!!! At the moment we are arround 12 boats from Germany and Austria. There will be a couple of M40s, some (at least one) 2m, and three Foilers which are all currently under construction. More or less all german speaking designers and developers will be there. It's not a regatta to be honest, butwe will be sailing some races if the conditions, and the mood allows it but main focus, is on Fun, sailing and discussion.

So if there is interest. Please feel free to contact me.


Best Regards

Jens

[Doug Lord]

Nice picture(s)- and the boat looks good too! Do you have any details on the foilers: are they fully submerged foils with altitude control systems or are they surface piercers?

[deano]

ok ladies, the interest is gathering...

what are we going to build????
I don't think for me foils are going to happen realistically, so M40?
S/A M40?

keep sending links, seems like documented plans of soemthing that works and it pretty recent are hard to come by.
don't really want to just recreate something that was done x-many years ago and had faults then..

[Dark_Horse]

I'm about to launch my new 1.5m Tri in the next week so will post some pics once sailing.
Having just finished a full design and build I can't believe I'm intersested in Designing and building an M40 now...
But I think I'll have a go this winter...
Who knows, we could end up with some good Multi RC racing happening...

[deano]

I agree D.H. its addictive.

oh well another r/c set to buy, another sail winch...


thanks guys for the links. I will print out the plans from below and see what they look like.
model is 1200mm.

2m version may not do too good for domestic harmony at home.

http://water.resist....is/Partager.htm

[TomTest]

Nice picture(s)- and the boat looks good too! Do you have any details on the foilers: are they fully submerged foils with altitude control systems or are they surface piercers?

Hi Doug,

there are two wave piercers, here is one of them, with a interesting futuristic rigg. coments are in German.

http://www.rc-networ...p;postcount=612

And one fully submerged one:

http://www.rc-networ...mp;d=1237195862


The thrid is a wave piercer as well, in M40 size and RG65 Size. But no usable pictures yet.

There are some more interesting threads, and building pictures in this forum... well unfortunately in German only.


http://www.rc-networ...splay.php?f=166


Regards

Jens

[TomTest]

Hi Daeno,

you're mentioning the big problem with this class, but also the biggest challange. Whatever you do, you start a developement....
There is not much of experience out, at lest if you are not Irens, VanPeteghem, Prevost, Farrier, Lombard or the likes.
So you start copying the big ones, or one of the existing M40s.... But from there it's pretty much your learning curve what makes these boates so interesting... at least to me....

My Story....: 4 Years ago, I saw an invitation for an multihull event in my area. It was Gerd Rasch who was inviting, mainly to market his designs (http://www.rcmultihullsail.de/). I thought... well I want something like this as well, but Gerds Prices didn't make me rush for one of his boats. Then another mate with similar whish built a Ghost Train, with very mixed results. After some diskussions with other gentlemen arrround, I sat down on the drawing board and designed my first M40. It was a fairly good design for a No. 1!!!!
But a bit heavy. I did know I a cant achieve less then 2 Kg from my building skills, so It was designed for arround 3Kg and after changes she was at 3,5Kg. Tehrefore she did not show the exhilerating acceleration of lighter boats I admired, but she was pure pleasure to sail, when a breeze built up. Getting her over the whole lake while flying two hulls at 20kn of Wind were never a problem. Design number 2 was made for 1,8-2 Kg. Well I can assure you, to get under 2Kg requires years of building experience. So it got to heavy as well (arround 2.2 -2.5 Kg). But I haven't designed for some reserve volume, so the hulls were sitting quite deep. With some other changes, she was a rocket ship under certain conditions, but on others she behaved fairly unspectaclar. Well at the moment I'm working on design number 3. In a couple of weeks I know how good she will be...

And it's exactly this design process which makes it so interesting.

Best Regards

Jens

[Johannos]

thanks for the class rules, aardvark_issues
time to get thinking, sketching and drawing haha.

[Doug Lord]

Jens, have you seen any Mini 40's(or others) using movable ballast? I heard that a guy(maybe Pierre Gutelle?) used such a system on a tri. My new sorta A class will use it and I was curious about that area of development in Europe.
PS-thanks for the foiler information!

[aA]

i plan on doing a tri after the current build, but one question regarding rigs; it looks like swing rigs are the standard. why is that? is it faster than conventional rig? having never done a swing, it would be completely new territory

thanks in advance

[TomTest]

Jens, have you seen any Mini 40's(or others) using movable ballast? I heard that a guy(maybe Pierre Gutelle?) used such a system on a tri. My new sorta A class will use it and I was curious about that area of development in Europe.
PS-thanks for the foiler information!

Hi Doug,


no, no one of the Guys here is using movable balast. There were some talks about it, but finally we all agreed, that it would simply be to slow. The problem is, that capsizing, happens way to quick for the electronics.... or better, the gyro would recognize it but no servo in the world could move the required weight quick enough to where it would be needed.... If it is just as counterweight. There have been some tests going on with additional weight at various position. And after a while it became clear, that no additional weight performs better.
More interesting to see would be a removeable genacker/Code0, for real fast downwind/reaching courses. But again the additional weight makes it impossible on a M40. Maybe on a 2m boat....

Best Regards

Jens

[TomTest]

i plan on doing a tri after the current build, but one question regarding rigs; it looks like swing rigs are the standard. why is that? is it faster than conventional rig? having never done a swing, it would be completely new territory

thanks in advance

Hi aA,

I wouldn't say that swingriggs are the norm... The reason for it: It's easy to habdle.
Many French are using it. But they are using it on any other boat as well. Biggest drawback: Gybing.
And downwind is the most tricky cours for a Multi. In the end it's personal taste. I would opt for a classical rigg.


Best Regards.

Jens

[mattchew]

anyone tryed putting a canting rig into one of there yet or would that be to heavy and hard to set up?

[TomTest]

anyone tryed putting a canting rig into one of there yet or would that be to heavy and hard to set up?

Hi Mattchew,

I'm not aware of. But let's see what the season brings..

Mainproblem, is to find a whinch, light enough, fast enough and strong enough for the job. The RMG wouldn't be to bad, but in conjnction witha Gyro, it missbehaves a bit.

Best Regards

Jens

[Doug Lord]

Jens, have you seen any Mini 40's(or others) using movable ballast? I heard that a guy(maybe Pierre Gutelle?) used such a system on a tri. My new sorta A class will use it and I was curious about that area of development in Europe.
PS-thanks for the foiler information!

Hi Doug,


no, no one of the Guys here is using movable balast. There were some talks about it, but finally we all agreed, that it would simply be to slow. The problem is, that capsizing, happens way to quick for the electronics.... or better, the gyro would recognize it but no servo in the world could move the required weight quick enough to where it would be needed.... If it is just as counterweight. There have been some tests going on with additional weight at various position. And after a while it became clear, that no additional weight performs better.
More interesting to see would be a removeable genacker/Code0, for real fast downwind/reaching courses. But again the additional weight makes it impossible on a M40. Maybe on a 2m boat....

Best Regards

Jens

=======================
Jens, I agree that extra weight on a boat not designed for it would be slow. And any extra weight is slow in 5knots of wind and below. But I've done extensive experiments with sliding rack movable ballast in two boat testing and it is clearly faster in 8knots and up. I use Guyatt winches that allow 2lbs(.91kg) to move from the cl to 2.5'(.76m) to weather in about 1.5 seconds or faster. One thing is for sure: on many of the ponds where these boats are sailed the wind is generally light and also very shifty so the system has to be fast moving. In the stronger winds the movable ballast is a lot of fun to use especially on a cat.

[TomTest]

=======================
Jens, I agree that extra weight on a boat not designed for it would be slow. And any extra weight is slow in 5knots of wind and below. But I've done extensive experiments with sliding rack movable ballast in two boat testing and it is clearly faster in 8knots and up. I use Guyatt winches that allow 2lbs(.91kg) to move from the cl to 2.5'(.76m) to weather in about 1.5 seconds or faster. One thing is for sure: on many of the ponds where these boats are sailed the wind is generally light and also very shifty so the system has to be fast moving. In the stronger winds the movable ballast is a lot of fun to use especially on a cat.

Hi Doug,

sorry, my fault. I assumed you wanted to use it as anti Nose Dive device. For weight trim purpose, well even the RMG is quick enough.
Will it be movable in longitudinal direction as well? Anyway 0.9 Kg more is a big number.... depending on how big your a-Cat will be. We experimented with 0.02 to 0.08 Kg. on different positions, and the we thought, that the change was not all to positiv. The boat was designed to carry 2Kg, but weighed just 1.8Kg, so the additional weight was no big penalty. But the behaviour changed slightly, and not to it's advantage. Well tests were carried out in winds above 18kn. Reducing sail area was much more effective in regards of handling an behaviour, and didn't have any speed disadvantages. So a decent number of different Riggs might be essential. But "reefing early" is not new to Multihullers, isn't it?

Best Regards

Jens

[Doug Lord]

Jens, while movable ballast is fun it is expensive requiring two Guyatt winches. That tilts the balance of the fun/speed ratio bigtime toward foilers which can be 30% or more faster at half the cost of movable ballast.
My personal opinion is that a fully submerged foil system with wand based altitude control is faster on models because it develops unlimited RM where the surface piercer is in about the same RM category as a "normal" tri(touchy). And the fully submerged wand based foiler seems much more resitant to pitchpole. It will be interesting to see as more guys get into foilers.

[TomTest]

Hi Doug,

Jens, while movable ballast is fun it is expensive requiring two Guyatt winches. That tilts the balance of the fun/speed ratio bigtime toward foilers which can be 30% or more faster at half the cost of movable ballast.

That's an interesting number... 30% more speed. Is it an average number or just on certain courses? How about general perfomance compared to an equal sized "normal" multi? How good in sailing upwind?

I never saw a foiler live. This will happen in July latest but I've no real idea. All I saw are foilers sailing with wind from abeam...

My personal opinion is that a fully submerged foil system with wand based altitude control is faster on models because it develops unlimited RM where the surface piercer is in about the same RM category as a "normal" tri(touchy). And the fully submerged wand based foiler seems much more resitant to pitchpole. It will be interesting to see as more guys get into foilers.

As I said, I'll see some foiler this summer. And beofre this, I'll have some more accurate speed data available.

Best regards

Jens

[Doug Lord]

Hi Doug,

Jens, while movable ballast is fun it is expensive requiring two Guyatt winches. That tilts the balance of the fun/speed ratio bigtime toward foilers which can be 30% or more faster at half the cost of movable ballast.

That's an interesting number... 30% more speed. Is it an average number or just on certain courses? How about general perfomance compared to an equal sized "normal" multi? How good in sailing upwind?

I never saw a foiler live. This will happen in July latest but I've no real idea. All I saw are foilers sailing with wind from abeam...

My personal opinion is that a fully submerged foil system with wand based altitude control is faster on models because it develops unlimited RM where the surface piercer is in about the same RM category as a "normal" tri(touchy). And the fully submerged wand based foiler seems much more resitant to pitchpole. It will be interesting to see as more guys get into foilers.

As I said, I'll see some foiler this summer. And beofre this, I'll have some more accurate speed data available.

Best regards

Jens

===================
Jens, my 59" LOA by 72" Beam F3 could sail circles around my F48 PBS(Power Ballast System) cat. I raced against two mini 40's in about 10knots of wind
and the speed of the foiler was over double(100% faster)the tris-higher and much faster. Never raced against another foiler but did race against two 2m tri's in about the same conditions:speed 20-40% faster for the F3.
The 30% figure is a guestimate of what a fully submerged foiler the same length as a mini 40 could do against a mini 40. There is a MAJOR problem for foilers in the mini 40 rule and that is the beam restriction: for a foiler to be at its best it MUST be significantly wider than it is long. Another thing to look out for: my boat would foil in 5-6mph of wind(4.34-5.21knots) measured with a Davis windmeter and would do twice windspeed in those conditions easy.
Fun boats!

[deano]

someone mentioned foam was hard to source?
I've done the M40 plans at 1:1, but also having troubles getting foam.
Local supplier will sell 2400x1200 sheets and thinkness you want, but considering we only need around 1300x160x300 for all 3 hulls, it works out pretty expensive. Despite being on the'surfcoast' seems shapers begin with reasonable 'shaped' blanks anyhow.
our version of Walmart (?) Bunnings didn't have anything similar.
anybody know of another foam or got any other ides?

[Dark_Horse]

someone mentioned foam was hard to source?
I've done the M40 plans at 1:1, but also having troubles getting foam.
Local supplier will sell 2400x1200 sheets and thinkness you want, but considering we only need around 1300x160x300 for all 3 hulls, it works out pretty expensive. Despite being on the'surfcoast' seems shapers begin with reasonable 'shaped' blanks anyhow.
our version of Walmart (?) Bunnings didn't have anything similar.
anybody know of another foam or got any other ides?

Deano
I found some foam at Clark Rubber here in Capalaba - the biggest size was 1200x600x150 which is close.. but cost about $60

Also here's a pic of my "Mk2" 1.5m Tri. It has weighed in at 4.5 kg all up and should be sailing by next weekend..
For a bit of fun I calculated the OMR for the model and it's come out at 0.72, which seems high considering no kite or screacher...

 DS_RC_Tri_Mk2_01sml.JPG   755.48K   267 downloads

[Clipper]

Also here's a pic of my "Mk2" 1.5m Tri. It has weighed in at 4.5 kg all up and should be sailing by next weekend..
For a bit of fun I calculated the OMR for the model and it's come out at 0.72, which seems high considering no kite or screacher...

 DS_RC_Tri_Mk2_01sml.JPG   755.48K   267 downloads

Love the squaretop main.

Does it have rudders on the amas? and a centre hull daggerboard?

[Dark_Horse]

Hi Clipper,
It has Rudders on the Amas but no rudder on the center hull, a smallish (for a model) center hull daggerboard and bannana boards 2/3 forwards on the amas.
The mast is rotating and controlled by servo so the amount of rotation can be adjusted while sailing.
The Square top main works really well to be able to de-power the head when it starts to pitchpole (By coincidence I'm naming this one "PitchFork"). I tend to give my models a hard time and intend to sail this out in the open water of Morten Bay - 3ft chop kinda stuff - and see if I can get it launching off waves... will have to get video of it then too..

[deano]

Hi D.H.

thanks for the foam suggestion, i'll give them a try (tri?)

pretty nice job by the way.
What are the sails made from?

[Dark_Horse]

Hi D.H.

thanks for the foam suggestion, i'll give them a try (tri?)

pretty nice job by the way.
What are the sails made from?

The sails are made from a sail cloth that's used for the Skiff moth sails and similar. Marginally on the heavy side for a model but it looks the part with the Carbon lines through it.

[TomTest]

Hi Doug,

many thanks for the infos. This is pretty convincing. Let's see how our mates perform this summer... If they're really so quick, I know what I've to do next winter But another question.... How about behaviour in waves?


@Deano,

here in Germany the DiY superstores sell material called Styrodur. It's being used for insulation of buildings. A lot of people are using it here for modelling tasks. It's still quite expensive, but can easily be sanded. Biggest drawback... press your thump a bit to hard, and you'll have a hole...


@D.H.

Looks great.... Absolutely. Would you like to report about your experiences?
I was experimenting with Foils in the ama's last year as well. They're working!!! You can push your boat way harder then without. But they're introducing quite some additional drag, tacking became very difficult. And there was a nother problem... The threshold became very hard. If the rigg forces are getting a tick, just a very small tick to heavy which easily happens in a gust, the "pitchfork" followed instantly , while without, I was able to react much easier, and save it. Speedwise, there might have been an advantage but the reduced maneuverablility cut it away again. I can't exclude that I didn't have the right profiles, or size but radio controled up/down movable foils would have been my choice... impossible for me. The tacking problems made me stop following this path.

But your mast looks great!!! Hod did you make it? How heavy is it? Up to now I'm using 10mm (0.393700787 inch) carbon fiber tubes. They're flexible enough to depower, and are light, and easy to get. But I'd really like to know the difference between a round and profiled mast..... But for real good and light (carbon) mast profiles there is to my knowledge only one source... Janusz Walicki, the Marblehad Champ.... But his profiles are much to expensive just for an experiment.

Best Regards

Jens

[Doug Lord]

Jens, if you do a foiler consider what I said about beam-the mini40 rule is NOT a good foiler rule-the foils become over loaded at the legal beam and surface piercers become really twitchy. Wave performance is directly related to the design clearance that the boat has-the F3 was fairly poor in that it would bottom out in the intercoastal with fairly small waves. Its the same old same old about design compromise: if you make the foils on a three foil boat deeper the boat won't foil as early in light air but you'll bottom out later(bigger waves). The best all round model foiler( and LEGAL in the m40 rules ,I think) ,is a monohull foiler with just two foils-but they're tricky and expensive since they need movable ballast and most people would need at least one gyro. A monofoiler can have a 2' daggerboard(with ballast,even!) whereas the F3 foils were 10" below the boat. So the monofoiler will sail in much bigger waves.

[deano]

Given this is a pretty development type of class, I had been planning to use something like the free plans for Mini 40
at http://water.resist....is/Partager.htm, as a starting point.

Would anybody have any suggestions as modifications that may would be worth doing?
I'm not really fussed about any class rules, and size would remain at suggested scale (1220mm long)
The stern profile looks ok to me , I was thinking possibly reverse rake on arma bows.

Also, it looks like I may come into some carbon fibre, but haven't used it before, only conventional cloth.
Any tips to watch out for? I heard you can still use the same polyester resin and catalyst as normal.

deano

[Dark_Horse]

Given this is a pretty development type of class, I had been planning to use something like the free plans for Mini 40
at http://water.resist....is/Partager.htm, as a starting point.

Would anybody have any suggestions as modifications that may would be worth doing?
I'm not really fussed about any class rules, and size would remain at suggested scale (1220mm long)
The stern profile looks ok to me , I was thinking possibly reverse rake on arma bows.

Also, it looks like I may come into some carbon fibre, but haven't used it before, only conventional cloth.
Any tips to watch out for? I heard you can still use the same polyester resin and catalyst as normal.

deano

If you're using Polystyrene to shape the hulls then you need to use Epoxy resin as polyester resin eats Polystyrene for breakfast.
The carbon cloth I've been using is 220 gsm twill weave which is far better than plain weave because it doesn't end up with pin holes in it like the plain weave does.
As for hull shapes - I have my own ideas that I'm playing with that seem to work quite well but I haven't raced against others as yet..

[deano]

If you're using Polystyrene to shape the hulls then you need to use Epoxy resin as polyester resin eats Polystyrene for breakfast.
The carbon cloth I've been using is 220 gsm twill weave which is far better than plain weave because it doesn't end up with pin holes in it like the plain weave does.
As for hull shapes - I have my own ideas that I'm playing with that seem to work quite well but I haven't raced against others as yet..
[/quote]

thanks DH. Im pretty sure the foams going to be ok, Polyethylene, but the carbon cloth sounds like it will end up being plain weave. Ideally I had hoped my glassing job would be something to be proud of, and was going to leave it unpainted. Any problems with clearcoating instead to seal over any pinholes to and to protect the carbon fibre?

[deano]

Dark Horse, any news on test sail?
I'm interested to see how the arma rudders worked, and if it worth changing from the centre hull one.
Given that it is likely to be up one one hull most of the time where I sail also, i think a centre hull mounted rudder will have hassles being long enough.
Do you have any closeups of how you linked them to centre servo?
deano

[TomTest]

Dark Horse, any news on test sail?
I'm interested to see how the arma rudders worked, and if it worth changing from the centre hull one.
Given that it is likely to be up one one hull most of the time where I sail also, i think a centre hull mounted rudder will have hassles being long enough.
Do you have any closeups of how you linked them to centre servo?
deano

Hi Dark Horse, Hi Deano,

yes, I'm interested as well in your experience!!! You also did not ansert my qeustion aove :-( E.g. how you made your mast...?

Anyway, Deano, I can give you my experience with ama hung rudders:

They're working pretty well!!! Flying the main hull leaves you with loads of control, and they help you eliminate the typcal lee helm.
Anyway, there are also some drawbacks....
- They need to have some size, can't be as small as on the big ones. That means, the weather hull ruder will tip the water when sailing on two hulls and therefore introduces drag.
- If the rudders are small, they don't develope enough power to tack the boat at slow speeds.
- If rudders are to small you'll sufer from early flow deattachement.
- The additional rudders are heavy..... well depending on how you work... I used servos out in the amas. Introduced arround 50g per ama... well 100g I could have used somewhere else.

So one day I left the ama rudders at home again and tried it without, and the difference was not all to big and in the new boat there are no ama hung rudders anymore.

But as said, I'm interested what Dark Horse reports. Maybe my rudders where simply not good enough for the Job. So it is definitively worth a test.



Best Regards

Jens

[TomTest]

@ Doug,


we've got a realy working foiler here in Germany:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=CKs0EAxEnXA

a funny boat, but flie impressively quick. It just wheigs below 400g.... Intersting is the PET bottle at the stem....

The other are sill experimenting.

Regards

Jens

[Dark_Horse]

Dark Horse, any news on test sail?
I'm interested to see how the arma rudders worked, and if it worth changing from the centre hull one.
Given that it is likely to be up one one hull most of the time where I sail also, i think a centre hull mounted rudder will have hassles being long enough.
Do you have any closeups of how you linked them to centre servo?
deano

Hi Dark Horse, Hi Deano,

yes, I'm interested as well in your experience!!! You also did not ansert my qeustion aove :-( E.g. how you made your mast...?

Anyway, Deano, I can give you my experience with ama hung rudders:

They're working pretty well!!! Flying the main hull leaves you with loads of control, and they help you eliminate the typcal lee helm.
Anyway, there are also some drawbacks....
- They need to have some size, can't be as small as on the big ones. That means, the weather hull ruder will tip the water when sailing on two hulls and therefore introduces drag.
- If the rudders are small, they don't develope enough power to tack the boat at slow speeds.
- If rudders are to small you'll sufer from early flow deattachement.
- The additional rudders are heavy..... well depending on how you work... I used servos out in the amas. Introduced arround 50g per ama... well 100g I could have used somewhere else.

So one day I left the ama rudders at home again and tried it without, and the difference was not all to big and in the new boat there are no ama hung rudders anymore.

But as said, I'm interested what Dark Horse reports. Maybe my rudders where simply not good enough for the Job. So it is definitively worth a test.



Best Regards

Jens

Hi Guy's
I've given the "Mk2" Tri a brief sail yesterday, the twin rudders work fine - I use a central Servo with carbon rods out to the armas. The rudders are made from RC Helicopter blades - carbon ones - so they are quite light. The biggest issue I've found with slow speed tacking is actually the size and placement of the main hull centre board.
I'm making a couple of different ones to try this weekend which will give me more info to get an optimum figured out..
Sorry about the lack of response so far, Raced in Brisbane to Gladstone last weekend and had some major drama's which meant I needed some recovery time before getting back into the model - will post some pics this weekend..
Cheers
Dave

[Doug Lord]

@ Doug,


we've got a realy working foiler here in Germany:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=CKs0EAxEnXA

a funny boat, but flie impressively quick. It just wheigs below 400g.... Intersting is the PET bottle at the stem....

The other are sill experimenting.

Regards

Jens

===================
Pretty damn impressive! Still think fully submerged foils would be faster as the wind increases since they generate their own RM with dual independent wands.

[deano]

Dark Horse, any news on test sail?
I'm interested to see how the arma rudders worked, and if it worth changing from the centre hull one.
Given that it is likely to be up one one hull most of the time where I sail also, i think a centre hull mounted rudder will have hassles being long enough.
Do you have any closeups of how you linked them to centre servo?
deano

Hi Dark Horse, Hi Deano,

yes, I'm interested as well in your experience!!! You also did not ansert my qeustion aove :-( E.g. how you made your mast...?

Anyway, Deano, I can give you my experience with ama hung rudders:

They're working pretty well!!! Flying the main hull leaves you with loads of control, and they help you eliminate the typcal lee helm.
Anyway, there are also some drawbacks....
- They need to have some size, can't be as small as on the big ones. That means, the weather hull ruder will tip the water when sailing on two hulls and therefore introduces drag.
- If the rudders are small, they don't develope enough power to tack the boat at slow speeds.
- If rudders are to small you'll sufer from early flow deattachement.
- The additional rudders are heavy..... well depending on how you work... I used servos out in the amas. Introduced arround 50g per ama... well 100g I could have used somewhere else.

So one day I left the ama rudders at home again and tried it without, and the difference was not all to big and in the new boat there are no ama hung rudders anymore.

But as said, I'm interested what Dark Horse reports. Maybe my rudders where simply not good enough for the Job. So it is definitively worth a test.



Best Regards

Jens

Hi Guy's
I've given the "Mk2" Tri a brief sail yesterday, the twin rudders work fine - I use a central Servo with carbon rods out to the armas. The rudders are made from RC Helicopter blades - carbon ones - so they are quite light. The biggest issue I've found with slow speed tacking is actually the size and placement of the main hull centre board.
I'm making a couple of different ones to try this weekend which will give me more info to get an optimum figured out..
Sorry about the lack of response so far, Raced in Brisbane to Gladstone last weekend and had some major drama's which meant I needed some recovery time before getting back into the model - will post some pics this weekend..
Cheers
Dave

Hi DH,
since when are you allowed out of the garage/house and sailing the real thing? Hope your drama's weren't to bad on the hip pocket. Actually I am going down to the boat tomorrow, if I can just remember where I last moored it.

Thanks for the feedback too Jens. I think I will begin straight as the plan intended, just to keep things simple as a starting point and only run I servo.
deano

[TomTest]

Hi Everybody,

my new black beauty got readdy the last couple of days, and we had the first outings here. Little wind with just some heavy gusts. Lot's of fun. I had my small GPS in the boat, and got top speeds arround 17-18 Km/h...!!! The GPS log also contained some values arround 30 to 50 km/h, but I rate them as unreliable.
Top Windspeed in the gusts at arround 6knots, everage arround 2-3knots. Not bad, isn't it.


 2009_04_19_14h35m27s_NIKON_D50_5344.jpg   110.19K   57 downloads

 2009_04_19_15h40m43s_NIKON_D50_5367.jpg   108.26K   64 downloads


Three Generations of my designs close by:

 2009_04_19_16h26m34s_NIKON_D50_5380.jpg   108.18K   57 downloads


Best Regards

Jens

[Doug Lord]

Looks good, Jens-great work!

[deano]

Forums gone quite, I've got some hulls just about ready to glass up, but has anybody got suggestions on mounting the arma's so the're removable for transport?

DH- any close up shots? how did the trials go, can you pm me or post some more photo's on your rig.

cheers
deano

[2speedy]

Hi All,
I'm intrigued by this thread. I race a Formula 40 (Shadow) in SF Bay, and also have a mini AC RC boat. Seems I should combine my love of RC and MH together, but don't have time to build my own. Does anyone know of an RC multihull for sale. Particularly a foiler style?
Thanks,
Peter

[The Squareman]

There is starting to be some more U.S. activity with the F-48/Mini40 multihulls sized class. The MultiONE (1 meter class) is "quiet", and there are a few 65cm /25-1/2 " multihulls popping up.

A fellow posting on the RCSailing.NET forums has popped off a prototype that has sailed well in light winds - nothing heavy yet, and has also built/sailed the Mini40 size boat. Rumors are there may be a set of hulls - or complete kit - soon available.

Since we were "teased" back in 2001 by a couple of "builders" who couldn't seem to get any production out the door ( ) if you have an interest in production, go to the forum and indicate your interest so he can judge if tooling is worth the cost.

I'm in no way related to person/project - but am building a 65cm version. Seems that conventional wisdom - (SO FAR) - that small multihulls won't sail well., may be dis-proven. If they do sail in stronger winds, the issues of transporting a half sheet of plywood (F-48/Mini40 platform size) will no longer be an issue. Heck - even my 1 meter takes up a lot of interior room.

[Dark_Horse]

Forums gone quite, I've got some hulls just about ready to glass up, but has anybody got suggestions on mounting the arma's so the're removable for transport?

DH- any close up shots? how did the trials go, can you pm me or post some more photo's on your rig.

cheers
deano

Hi Guy's, Sorry about the long delay in getting some pics posted, My Computer at home had some issues and I've been too snowed down with work. I have takebn some pics so will try and post them tonight.
I've been working on a A-class design with a few guy's and will have the hulls ready for 3d routing to make moulds by the end of the week. We're gonna make a scale version of the hull first so I'm gonna set it up to fit with the mini 40 rules and may try making 3 of these scales a-class hulls to set up a mini 40 tri. Could be a bit of fun...
Cheers

[deano]

size is a big issue.

I've done the mini 40, and at 1200mm long, and about the same in overall width, it is starting to look pretty massive even on the garage floor. I'd ideally like ideally to split the armas from the aka's (?) and have them all seperate, making a pretty compact size for transporting, but are unconvinced about making sure the whole thing remains stiff.
Other idea was to leave the crossmembers glassed to the hulls, and split them in the centre of the main hull.

you don't want to see my photo's yet

[Doug Lord]

Forums gone quite, I've got some hulls just about ready to glass up, but has anybody got suggestions on mounting the arma's so the're removable for transport?

DH- any close up shots? how did the trials go, can you pm me or post some more photo's on your rig.

cheers
deano

Hi Guy's, Sorry about the long delay in getting some pics posted, My Computer at home had some issues and I've been too snowed down with work. I have takebn some pics so will try and post them tonight.
I've been working on a A-class design with a few guy's and will have the hulls ready for 3d routing to make moulds by the end of the week. We're gonna make a scale version of the hull first so I'm gonna set it up to fit with the mini 40 rules and may try making 3 of these scales a-class hulls to set up a mini 40 tri. Could be a bit of fun...
Cheers

------------------------
Are you going to use movable ballast? I've been working on a 60" A Class prototype using a sliding ballast rack like the pix on the front page-slides side to side and F& A.....The system is ideal for a cat but does add some cost. The boat will fold in half for transport after you remove the Power Ballast System.

[7.9 sailor]

There was some catamaran development going on in the Footy Class. hard to fit them inside the box rule, though.

[TomTest]

size is a big issue.

I've done the mini 40, and at 1200mm long, and about the same in overall width, it is starting to look pretty massive even on the garage floor. I'd ideally like ideally to split the armas from the aka's (?) and have them all seperate, making a pretty compact size for transporting, but are unconvinced about making sure the whole thing remains stiff.
Other idea was to leave the crossmembers glassed to the hulls, and split them in the centre of the main hull.

you don't want to see my photo's yet

Hi Deano,

a freind of mine has documened it with some fotos. He has some nice curved beams, but it also works that way, when working with round beams. The nuts to use are drive in nuts.

http://www.rc-networ...art_127-01.html

The beam mounting starts from picture-line: 23.

The glasfilament is wet, the screws are not covered by coverd, then scrwe the drive-in nuts on, and cover it with now, thick resin (micro ballons or similar) and on top of this another small patch of glasfiber woven.


Best regards

Jens

[deano]

great link Jens, your friend is doing a very neat job.

I wish I studied german instead of french at school.

doug, not ballast at all, just the weight it end up as. At the moment in foam its still pretty light for its size, and so long as I go easy on the glass and talc, hopefully it should stay that way.

send pics of the ballast system though, good to see there's other options
deano

[Dark_Horse]

------------------------
Are you going to use movable ballast? I've been working on a 60" A Class prototype using a sliding ballast rack like the pix on the front page-slides side to side and F& A.....The system is ideal for a cat but does add some cost. The boat will fold in half for transport after you remove the Power Ballast System.
[/quote]

Hi Doug, Only just starting to think about moveable ballast - Is the system you have controlled by a gyro or similar?
I'm wondering how to simplify the control of movable balast by either setting it up as a 3rd channel on radio - but wonder if the Sailor will be able react before it's too late. Or some sort of "cusioned pendulim" that works a 2 direction switch. not sure of this one either.
Anyway, here's a image of the A-Class I'm working on...
 Hulls_V3_04.JPG   60.64K   31 downloads
If I get the chance tonight I'll upload the my 1.5m Tri Pics
Cheers
Dave

[aardvark_issues]

Other idea was to leave the crossmembers glassed to the hulls, and split them in the centre of the main hull.

I've got a Mini 40 that I ended up with this set up on, while its easy to make it stiff it isn't really very small! If you are going to the effort of making it removeable, make it come apart entirely in my opinion.

[Dark_Horse]

This is a 1.5m long x 1.45 wide Tri. It has a seperate winch for the mainsail and head sail to allow easier tacks and gybes. Also a servo controlling the mast rotation.
Themast section is 10mm x 50mm
Mast Construction
- made from a balsa core with 3mm aluminium tube glued up the trailing edge.
- then vacuum bagged Uni carbon/epoxy and thin outer glass layer.
- lastly I cut a slot in the aluminium tube to form the sail track.

I've only managed to sail the boat a few times so far and only problem I've had is breaking a rudder pivot off. This happened when the boat was up on foils - the rudders on each hull have tee foils and each ama has a curved foil. When the rudder broke the windward curved foil was 90% out of the water so must have put a very big load on the leward rudder.
All hulls and cross beams are made from vacuum bagged carbon.
All up sailing weight came in at 4.5 kg.
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Cheers
Dave

[Doug Lord]

------------------------

Hi Doug, Only just starting to think about moveable ballast - Is the system you have controlled by a gyro or similar?
I'm wondering how to simplify the control of movable balast by either setting it up as a 3rd channel on radio - but wonder if the Sailor will be able react before it's too late.

------------------
Dave, looks like a beautifull design! A Power Ballast System must be fast-I'll use a Guyatt 380 for side to side and a smaller winch for F& A. With a fast system and some practice it is fun to use-don't need a gyro. Adds a lot to speed as the wind comes up-take it off when its too light.

[TomTest]

Hi Dave,


looks really nice. Thanks for the mast infos. But seems to be heavy...? In the meantime I've got a chance to get some Walicki masts. They're pretty expensive, but really, really stiff.
How did you build the curved foils? How do your foils work in general?
As said, I've tested with straight foils, while they worked great in the sense of their aim (lifting the bows of the floats) I didn't find them to usable in general. Tacking became difficult, and with not to much wind, they were hindering...

Many thanks.

Regards

Jens

This is a 1.5m long x 1.45 wide Tri. It has a seperate winch for the mainsail and head sail to allow easier tacks and gybes. Also a servo controlling the mast rotation.
Themast section is 10mm x 50mm
Mast Construction
- made from a balsa core with 3mm aluminium tube glued up the trailing edge.
- then vacuum bagged Uni carbon/epoxy and thin outer glass layer.
- lastly I cut a slot in the aluminium tube to form the sail track.

I've only managed to sail the boat a few times so far and only problem I've had is breaking a rudder pivot off. This happened when the boat was up on foils - the rudders on each hull have tee foils and each ama has a curved foil. When the rudder broke the windward curved foil was 90% out of the water so must have put a very big load on the leward rudder.
All hulls and cross beams are made from vacuum bagged carbon.
All up sailing weight came in at 4.5 kg.
 DSC00959_sml.JPG   354.95K   144 downloads
 DSC00962_sml.JPG   377.09K   157 downloads
 DSC00965_sml.JPG   250.56K   101 downloads

Cheers
Dave

[Dark_Horse]

How did you build the curved foils? How do your foils work in general?
As said, I've tested with straight foils, while they worked great in the sense of their aim (lifting the bows of the floats) I didn't find them to usable in general. Tacking became difficult, and with not to much wind, they were hindering...

Many thanks.

Regards

Jens


Hi Jens,
To make the curved foils I shaped a flat strip of 5mm Rigid PVC using a router to get the required foil.
Next I made a cradle that had the required curve in it for the lenght of the board.
Then Bent the PVC blank into the cradle and taped it down - doesn't have to touch the cradle fully.
Put the cradle into an oven and raise the temp slowly until the PVC softens and sits into the cradle
Then remove and cool. This should give a good foil blank that can be used to take a female mould off.
Then make the foils using the female moulds..

There's a bit in the setup but the result is good.
I tried shaping a curved blank but it's next to impossible to get it right.

As for sailing using the foils, I've found them useful in good breeze but too much drag in light breezes so I take them off.

Cheers
Dave

[TomTest]

Hi Jens,
To make the curved foils I shaped a flat strip of 5mm Rigid PVC using a router to get the required foil.
Next I made a cradle that had the required curve in it for the lenght of the board.
Then Bent the PVC blank into the cradle and taped it down - doesn't have to touch the cradle fully.
Put the cradle into an oven and raise the temp slowly until the PVC softens and sits into the cradle
Then remove and cool. This should give a good foil blank that can be used to take a female mould off.
Then make the foils using the female moulds..

There's a bit in the setup but the result is good.
I tried shaping a curved blank but it's next to impossible to get it right.

As for sailing using the foils, I've found them useful in good breeze but too much drag in light breezes so I take them off.

Cheers
Dave

Hi Dave,

thanks for this tip. Good Idea to use PVC. I hat some Aluminium Helicopter Blades, and bend them, but after the mixed experience I had with the straight once, I never tried them. In a good breeze The straight one s were a good thing, but tacking became difficult.. Well the boat had heavy lee helm. So I placed the main fin far forward... That means, if there is no movement forward the drag of the foils is low, and the boat has heavy waether helm... Yeah well... The new one tacks perfectly.

Best regards and a nice weekend.

Regards

Jens

[Doug Lord]

How did you build the curved foils? How do your foils work in general?
As said, I've tested with straight foils, while they worked great in the sense of their aim (lifting the bows of the floats) I didn't find them to usable in general. Tacking became difficult, and with not to much wind, they were hindering...

Many thanks.

Regards

Jens


Hi Jens,
To make the curved foils I shaped a flat strip of 5mm Rigid PVC using a router to get the required foil.
Next I made a cradle that had the required curve in it for the lenght of the board.
Then Bent the PVC blank into the cradle and taped it down - doesn't have to touch the cradle fully.
Put the cradle into an oven and raise the temp slowly until the PVC softens and sits into the cradle
Then remove and cool. This should give a good foil blank that can be used to take a female mould off.
Then make the foils using the female moulds..

There's a bit in the setup but the result is good.
I tried shaping a curved blank but it's next to impossible to get it right.

As for sailing using the foils, I've found them useful in good breeze but too much drag in light breezes so I take them off.

Cheers
Dave

============================
Dave, about how much wind does it take for your boat to foil?

[TomTest]

============================
Dave, about how much wind does it take for your boat to foil?

Hi Doug.

don't think the boat is about foiling. It's more what you called Foil Assist... Am I right Dave?
The main Problem with foil assisted tris is not that this technologie is not working, but the damned wind conditions we are sometimes sailing in.
Yesterday e.g. we had extremely harsch conditions on our lake :-((
The windspeed sprang from 2kn to 16kn within a fraction of a second. The most heavy gust we had was arround 22kn. Wherever the wind funnels through it hits the boat with full strenght. Foil assist is grat when the area exposed hit's the force requirement from the rig. The acceleration is great, and your nose is liftet perfectly. But whenever a gust (or the forces generated by the rigg due to the gust) exceeds the threashold, then a capsize is the obvious result.... And tacking remains also tricky with foils.... The reason is easy... The induced drag from the foils is speed dependent... So the spedier the boat sails, the more lee helm can be expected.... To counteract ageinst the lee helm, you place the main fin far forward. But this means if there is just little speed, the boat get wetherhelm like hell... So as soon as you passed through the wind, the boat luffs back.... So you have to loosen sheets and wait until the boat has turned down to wind from abeam before you can sheet in again.
That's why I gave up this path for now. Maybe I'll pick it up someday again.

Regards

Jens

[Dark_Horse]

============================
Dave, about how much wind does it take for your boat to foil?

Hi Doug.

don't think the boat is about foiling. It's more what you called Foil Assist... Am I right Dave?
The main Problem with foil assisted tris is not that this technologie is not working, but the damned wind conditions we are sometimes sailing in.
Yesterday e.g. we had extremely harsch conditions on our lake :-((
The windspeed sprang from 2kn to 16kn within a fraction of a second. The most heavy gust we had was arround 22kn. Wherever the wind funnels through it hits the boat with full strenght. Foil assist is grat when the area exposed hit's the force requirement from the rig. The acceleration is great, and your nose is liftet perfectly. But whenever a gust (or the forces generated by the rigg due to the gust) exceeds the threashold, then a capsize is the obvious result.... And tacking remains also tricky with foils.... The reason is easy... The induced drag from the foils is speed dependent... So the spedier the boat sails, the more lee helm can be expected.... To counteract ageinst the lee helm, you place the main fin far forward. But this means if there is just little speed, the boat get wetherhelm like hell... So as soon as you passed through the wind, the boat luffs back.... So you have to loosen sheets and wait until the boat has turned down to wind from abeam before you can sheet in again.
That's why I gave up this path for now. Maybe I'll pick it up someday again.

Regards

Jens

Jens is correct, my design is a "foil assist" style. The pic I posted earlier in the year of the Mk1 (White) version fully up on foils actually caught me by suprise and was in about 6-8 knots of wind.

I've learn't how to tack the boat with the foils but that is why I have seperate winches for headsail and Mainsail plus a servo on the mast rotation. What I do is as I round up I ease the mainsail a bit and going through the eye of the wind I sheet the headsail in fully to the centreline.. just after going through the eye I then flip the mast to the other tack, as it picks up on the other tack I ease the headsail to it's normal setting and sheet the main in fully. Sounds a lot to do but it get's through tacks without losing too much speed. I guess another help is that I have set the Tri up with the ama's with good ckearance from the water when the boat is flat. This means on one tack the windward foil is almost completely out of the water. My reason for this is that I enjoy sailing it in rougher water and if the ama's are too low then it keeps tripping on the windward ama when it hits waves slowing the boat heaps..
Cheers
Dave

[TomTest]

Hi Dave,

ypu got your Foil Assist TRi on two foils??? Pretty cool, isn`t it???
Well the described method to tack, is the same as with the big ones... We were discussing whether a butterfly (from the Walicki Marbleheads) would do it, since two whiches are pretty expensive (We found the HiTecs to be to slow), and heavy.
Well without the foils, I didn't miss to much. But as said, maybe I try it again.

Best regards.

Jens

Jens is correct, my design is a "foil assist" style. The pic I posted earlier in the year of the Mk1 (White) version fully up on foils actually caught me by suprise and was in about 6-8 knots of wind.

I've learn't how to tack the boat with the foils but that is why I have seperate winches for headsail and Mainsail plus a servo on the mast rotation. What I do is as I round up I ease the mainsail a bit and going through the eye of the wind I sheet the headsail in fully to the centreline.. just after going through the eye I then flip the mast to the other tack, as it picks up on the other tack I ease the headsail to it's normal setting and sheet the main in fully. Sounds a lot to do but it get's through tacks without losing too much speed. I guess another help is that I have set the Tri up with the ama's with good ckearance from the water when the boat is flat. This means on one tack the windward foil is almost completely out of the water. My reason for this is that I enjoy sailing it in rougher water and if the ama's are too low then it keeps tripping on the windward ama when it hits waves slowing the boat heaps..
Cheers
Dave

[Oxygen Mask]

Last weekend, racing an F-27....

Attached Files

•  C3sm.jpg   139.34K   82 downloads

[Gary Morse]

Hi Guys, after many months of searching I have finally found a thread which fits right in with my foil assist plans and so registered immediately, a big thankyou to Doug Lord for pointing me towards this site. Once I have had time to digest all the info in this thread I will post a few questions and thoughts.

In the mean time here are a couple of pics of my MINI 40 plugs under construction...very loosly based on Banque Pop styling and modified from Ernst's nightmare VIII plans.

Cheers.......Gary

Bye the way....great to see the Multi class is alive and well in Australia...seems fairly dead in NZ.

Attached Files

•  IMG_6246_2_1.JPG   419.41K   104 downloads
•  Float_planked_3.JPG   111.68K   97 downloads

[deano]

Hi Guys, after many months of searching I have finally found a thread which fits right in with my foil assist plans and so registered immediately, a big thankyou to Doug Lord for pointing me towards this site. Once I have had time to digest all the info in this thread I will post a few questions and thoughts.

In the mean time here are a couple of pics of my MINI 40 plugs under construction...very loosly based on Banque Pop styling and modified from Ernst's nightmare VIII plans.

Cheers.......Gary

Bye the way....great to see the Multi class is alive and well in Australia...seems fairly dead in NZ.

welcome Gary, there's a traditional greeting here that your sure to get shortly.
Good to see another Mini 40, I've got one now about 80% done, hopefully launching in around 1 months time.
Jens and Dave any updates?

deano

[deano]

Hi Guys, after many months of searching I have finally found a thread which fits right in with my foil assist plans and so registered immediately, a big thankyou to Doug Lord for pointing me towards this site. Once I have had time to digest all the info in this thread I will post a few questions and thoughts.

In the mean time here are a couple of pics of my MINI 40 plugs under construction...very loosly based on Banque Pop styling and modified from Ernst's nightmare VIII plans.

Cheers.......Gary

Bye the way....great to see the Multi class is alive and well in Australia...seems fairly dead in NZ.

welcome Gary, there's a traditional greeting here that your sure to get shortly.
Good to see another Mini 40, I've got one now about 80% done, hopefully launching in around 1 months time.
Jens and Dave any updates?

deano

[Gary Morse]

Thanks Deano, I have enjoyed reading thru this thread,a world of knowledge coming together is a great thing.

I have been considering experimenting with many of the ideas in this discussion and it seems there is a lot of development opportunities to play with.

I understand you started your build a few months ago and are working with the Water resist plans, started my build about the same time as you but I do not expect to launch until October. I look forward to an update on your build.

I have a build log thread on another forum and do not want to run two, however if you are interested I will post a few pics as by build proceeds.I am building a set of female moulds and will use epoxy / carbon Vartm lamination for most components in build.

Are you up in the Gold Coast Deano?.

Cheers

Gary

[deano]

Hi Gary,
no I am down south near melbourne.
My water resist has been done prettymuch as suggested, shaping from solid foam, and epoxy over. Only deviation has been to use 10mm aluminium tube for armas which will be glassed over at least on ends. its pretty rugged, first time I have used epoxy instead of polyester. Carbon would have been nice, but I needed to keep costs down.
I weighed it the other day, as the designer mentioned on his site it will sail on one hull ok if overall weight is under 4Kg. At the moment, I was just under 3kg, inc rig, sails, battery, winch servos etc.

2 hulls are in spray putty stage, just trying to make a jig to get the hulls aligned correct before finishing the armas.
other links/photo's always welcome.

I'll post some in about 2 weeks all going well with a test in the pool.

deano

[Gary Morse]

Hey Deano,

yea , I hear you on the cost thing..it can get outa control real easy..your build method is pretty efficient costwise..and fast.

If you are close to 3kg then you are doing well, I was hoping for under 2.5 kg...we'll see!!.100 grams here and 100 grams there..it all adds up real fast.

I have pretty much switched to epoxy for everything now after many years of polyester and getting sick of the stink and fast cure times..its nice to have a slow mix to work with.

I've got the hull alignment jig thing on my mind as well, picking it need to be spot on. Course the other thing is to make sure it fits inside a 1.22 mt box so if you are building close to max specs then you gotta make sure there's no twist in the hulls.

Heres a couple of pics of my build..haven't posted these on my build log yet but taken yesterday after the second coat of duratec surface primer with a 30% mix of Duratec clear high gloss. Hull plugs are damn near finished.

Cheers..........Gary

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[deano]

Ah, so thats what its meant to look like...

looks good Gary.

Anybody have any advise on getting the hulls aligned correctly?
These plans indicated arma's are inclined inwards 10 degrees, but I can see more problems ensuring all the waterlines are set to the right height and match up?