Steve and Dave Clarks Unidentified Foiling Object

Captain Ujack

Captain Ujack

New member
40
22
Southeastern Connecticut
Getting a little too quiet on the old UFO channel.

How about a little chatter?

Here we go…

1. Can anybody recommend a good dry suit for UFO sailing in New England?
I puled my UFO out and put it in the backyard covered in salt and sand. I’m going to have to sail at least one more time after Thanksgiving, just to clean it up before I put it to bed for the season.

2. I’m looking for people in the New England or adjacent areas, interested in going to Kelly’s thing in March. Perhaps we can ride together in a big truck with our boats all on a big trailer? All I have right now is the boat, but if there is interest out there, I can put the rest together. Let me know!
 
L

Ledge

New member
29
15
USA
Captain Ujack said:
Getting a little too quiet on the old UFO channel.

How about a little chatter?

Here we go…

1. Can anybody recommend a good dry suit for UFO sailing in New England?
I puled my UFO out and put it in the backyard covered in salt and sand. I’m going to have to sail at least one more time after Thanksgiving, just to clean it up before I put it to bed for the season.

2. I’m looking for people in the New England or adjacent areas, interested in going to Kelly’s thing in March. Perhaps we can ride together in a big truck with our boats all on a big trailer? All I have right now is the boat, but if there is interest out there, I can put the rest together. Let me know!
Click to expand...
I live in MA and plan to go, but I might be coming from FL for this particular event. where are you located?
 
J

Joseph Lapp

New member
37
14
Duluth MN
Did I miss it ? Did anyone answer the question regarding a good drysuit? I just ordered a Gill Pro drysuit from West Coast sailing for $500 which is $150 off the best I've seen elsewhere. My wetsuit is not cutting it up here with water temps below 40°

Capt uJack hope you have a great sail before Thanksgiving!
 
S

Sun

New member
29
5
Rojoyinc said:
Having fun for the summer. I FINALLY got a decent wind day at 3-14. So I foiled...I fell off and the boat sailed 200 ft before it stopped.
I was stressed about a crash.
It did STOP and not drift after it turned into the wind. That was okay. But I crashed 5 times and turtled 4 out of the 5 times.
I thought it would be easy to right...but I was wrong again. IMPOSSIBLE for me to right it. Actually each time my son-in-law had to beach his hobie to get the wave runner and using a rope- we managed to right it. (NOT EASY even with this beast of a wave runner.
So I see there is a righting line for it? Does this provide some magical levitation? I can't imagine a line working since I used a righting line I attached to one of the loops under the hulls and there was NO BUDGING IT. Not being able to right it myself means I can't sail it.
PLEASE tell me the righting line system WORKS? from a turtle? I saw a righting demo video, which I will now go watch again with my new knowledge. It appeared easy when I first watched it.


Anyway when not upside down, I had fun.





View attachment 541871
Click to expand...
Where do you sail?
 
Captain Ujack

Captain Ujack

New member
40
22
Southeastern Connecticut
Joseph Lapp said:
Did I miss it ? Did anyone answer the question regarding a good drysuit? I just ordered a Gill Pro drysuit from West Coast sailing for $500 which is $150 off the best I've seen elsewhere. My wetsuit is not cutting it up here with water temps below 40°

Capt uJack hope you have a great sail before Thanksgiving!
Click to expand...
Thanks for the tip Joseph! I’ll look into it. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
 
Kelly Federal

Kelly Federal

Member
89
183
Savannah, GA
Kelly Federal said:

SAVE THE DATE: 9-12 March 2023​

Early Spring Foiling Rally (ESFoR 23) hosted by the Savannah Yacht Club​

Hey, Y'all!
I've been working on getting something like this set up, and I finally have enough momentum to announce this event. While the schedule below is subject to change between now and then (perhaps dramatically), here's what I can tell you that you can expect:
  • Flat water.
  • Moderate air and water temps.
  • Dock launching from a floating dock.
  • Secure overnight parking of your boat within feet of the water, and room to stow a trailer on the grounds if needed.
  • Up to three chase/support RHIBs for on-water gear, food and water, coaching, and swap-out of sailors.
  • Full access for you and your travel companions to all Savannah Yacht Club amenities including pool, tennis courts, dining. Plus, SYC Sunfish will be available for use in case you or your travel mates want to get out on the water but don’t want to foil.
  • Catered breakfast and lunches at water’s edge (or on the water if you don’t want to give up foiling time).
  • In the event of inclement weather, or you just want a break from foiling, we’ve got a vibrant city with lots of activities and a good food scene just 15 minutes away.

The schedule below is notional only, just to show what we could do. We will of course tailor events to whatever the group wants to do. If it’s just high-fives as we rage back and forth on beam reaches, so be it. If we want to race, we’ve got marks and experienced officials standing by to set up a course. If it’s focused on just getting folks on foils for the first time, fantastic! Bottom line: this will be whatever we want it to be, but we'll do it with top-notch support and facilities.

In that regard, you can greatly help my planning by completing this short questionnaire if you think you might make it to Savannah for this event. It doesn’t commit you to the event — I realize plans change and you ultimately may not be able to make it — but having a rough idea of numbers, including your travel companions helps me with some catering and other logistics decisions. There will be an official registration later, probably a few months in advance, during which we’ll also collect some money.

Please reach out to me if you have any questions or suggestions. Please mark your calendars accordingly, and feel free to forward this information (including the questionnaire) to any UFOers who may not be on this forum. I’m not well equipped in the social media realm, so would appreciate any help in spreading the word.

View attachment 531280


In the meantime, so nice to be back on the water after some unscheduled upgrades…
Click to expand...

A little update on the planning effort for the Early Spring Foiling Rally down here in Savannah:

Instead of being a private event, this will be hosted by the Savannah Yacht Club Sailing Committee. This is good for a number of reasons with the main one being that the costs (lunches each day, the group dinner, fuel for the launches, etc) will be at club prices versus what we'd pay if I were hosting. Because of that, they will be posting the event on Regatta Network and attendees will need to register and pay for the event there. I'm meeting with the club again soon to finalize the pricing, after which the event will go live on Regatta Network. As soon as that happens, I'll be sure to post the link to registration here. The price will cover lunches and the dinner for any accompanying friends and family. You will also have access to all the SYC amenities during the event.

As a reminder, this is the week before St. Patrick's Day which is HUGE in Savannah. So I recommend booking your lodging as soon as possible. If you'd like recommendations or have questions on where to stay, please feel free to call me: 559-381-1909.

In the meantime, I'll keep testing the waters until y'all arrive...

 
J

Jolly Roger

New member
12
2
NYC
Hi, I need some off season repair suggestions. My rudder foil attachment took some damage this year and it has sort of loosened up. Also the metal T took a hit and I can't seem to straighten it with a hammer Any ideas on how to fix these? I think I saw a photo where there were steel inserts in the rudder attachment point. Does anyone have a link to that?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

PXL_20220918_212034277.jpg


PXL_20220918_212053666.jpg
 
martin 'hoff

martin 'hoff

Super Anarchist
2,215
1,077
Miami
Jolly Roger said:
Hi, I need some off season repair suggestions. My rudder foil attachment took some damage this year and it has sort of loosened up. Also the metal T took a hit and I can't seem to straighten it with a hammer Any ideas on how to fix these? I think I saw a photo where there were steel inserts in the rudder attachment point. Does anyone have a link to that?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

View attachment 557822

View attachment 557823
Click to expand...
Wow that's a big hit on the rudder!

- a bigger hammer, a vice -- but at that level of bend, maybe get a replacement from Fulcrum?
- also from fulcrum, the small metal bits that go in there, glued in place with gflex

you must have hit it hard - I am going to suggest you check a few more things, based on my experience on depth-mapping biscayne bay with my rudder

- check the whole rudderhead, in detail - the square inserts (for the vertical parts – on the bottom plate of the rudderhead deserve extra scrutiny

- check the bottom gudgeon, surely will deserve some love

- tip the boat and check the underside of the hull. there's a bulb where the rudder gantry starts – thin/long gelcoat cracks/crazing forward-aft are normal, but a "smile" around the front of the bulb might not be.

We need a trophy for most aggresive grounding methinks
 
J

Jolly Roger

New member
12
2
NYC
martin 'hoff said:
Wow that's a big hit on the rudder!

- a bigger hammer, a vice -- but at that level of bend, maybe get a replacement from Fulcrum?
- also from fulcrum, the small metal bits that go in there, glued in place with gflex

you must have hit it hard - I am going to suggest you check a few more things, based on my experience on depth-mapping biscayne bay with my rudder

- check the whole rudderhead, in detail - the square inserts (for the vertical parts – on the bottom plate of the rudderhead deserve extra scrutiny

- check the bottom gudgeon, surely will deserve some love

- tip the boat and check the underside of the hull. there's a bulb where the rudder gantry starts – thin/long gelcoat cracks/crazing forward-aft are normal, but a "smile" around the front of the bulb might not be.

We need a trophy for most aggresive grounding methinks
Click to expand...
Cool, thanks for the quick response. Yes, had one or two unexpected surprises. One has to balance the tradeoff between probability of grounding and probability of being stuck in irons.

I'll try Fulcrum again for the parts. Thanks!
 
P

P Flados

Anarchist
716
282
North Carolina
Wow! A definite award winner from the "visible boat carnage" point of view.

The above reminds me why I worried when I was sailing solo more than a short distance from my launch point.

I sailed home "limp along mode" after my worst hit. Main foil hard into a sand bar at foiling speed. The entire boat rotated around the impact point and catapulted me a good distance (more distance than the length of the mast anyway). The damage was not as ugly, but the cost of a replacement main foil was not fun.

Assuming both the the boat & foil were not hurt, Kelly's repair cost should not be outrageous.
 
Kelly Federal

Kelly Federal

Member
89
183
Savannah, GA
This happened this past July. Cameras weren’t running when it happened.

I was just getting set to take off. Knew I was angling toward shallow water, but thought I could pop up and carve away before getting too close. The wind was healthy, so the main foil was in slot 2 (slower take-off but at higher speed). As soon as the hulls were clear of the water I started my carve downwind away from the shore. At about 12 knots of boat speed, I nicked the bottom. Immediately, the rudder foil trim rod buckled (as expected); but also the bottom of the rudder pintle bent. This imparted even more nose-up trim to the boat, so even as I was trying to de-power the boat and get it back down to the surface, it was climbing higher and still accelerating. In the next half second, the ring at the bottom of the pintle gave out (see it straightened in one of the photos), the rudder foil turned into a brake, and the spine of the rudder head crunched. The whole event lasted less than three seconds.

Yes — because I don’t use the rudder lanyard, I did almost lose the entire rudder. While I was arranging for a tow, I saw that the rudder was slipping out of the rudder head and quickly just pulled the whole thing onboard using what I could find to lash pieces to the boat.

In hindsight, if I had bailed immediately upon feeling the bump — either jumping off the boat or allowing it to capsize — I might have limited the damage to just the rudder trim rod. Unfortunately, I couldn’t disengage my brain from foiling mode quick enough; and the two seconds after impact did the most catastrophic damage. I think that in the future, though, now with this experience under my belt, that I could do that. And perhaps by sharing, some of you out there might file this away and give you a chance to preserve some boat parts.

The good news: that rudder gantry repair that I did in the Spring didn’t budge, so I was very happy with that. Also, I’m very much the weird, fringe sailor at the staid Savannah Yacht Club; so it was with pride when I arrived back at the docks on a busy weekend afternoon, under tow, with a heap of carnage lashed to my decks. And I was out and foiling a week or two later with a fancy new tiller. You might have seen me refer to “unscheduled upgrades.” This was one of them.
 
Dave Clark

Dave Clark

Anarchist
914
872
Rhode Island
Meanwhile- this monster is heading down route 95 as we speak. Two going to guys near kelly!


We are POUNDING out UFOs right now as we're both handling a lot of domestic UFO orders and another full container to Seachange in Italy. https://www.sea-change.it/en/about-us/
If you're a European and following this thread- I can't shout this loudly enough- buy a boat from them. Marcella and Aldo are an ideal team for the job and frankly better than the sailing world deserves.

UFOs keep getting built better every day, while hanging on doggedly to the most aggressive price point in the sector, and supposedly cheaper other sectors.


DRC
 
Last edited:
Stank

Stank

New member
13
0
Florida
Dave Clark said:
Meanwhile- this monster is heading down route 95 as we speak. Two going to guys near kelly!


We are POUNDING out UFOs right now as we're both handling a lot of domestic UFO orders and another full container to Seachange in Italy. https://www.sea-change.it/en/about-us/
If you're a European and following this thread- I can't shout this loudly enough- buy a boat from them. Marcella and Aldo are an ideal team for the job and frankly better than the sailing world deserves.

UFOs keep getting built better every day, while hanging on doggedly to the most aggressive price point in the sector, and supposedly cheaper other sectors.


DRC
Click to expand...

Thanks Dave!

Nelson just dropped off #486 for me.

Getting it unpacked now. Any reference thread on how to rig the shrouds? The rigging video doesn't show much, and I don't see anything in the unofficial guide.

Been combing this forum to no avail.

I've got the 4 spectra loops at the base, but not sure how to attach the ronstan rings or how to run the purchase system.

And what size pin (or part #) connects the foil flap control rod to the wand assembly?

I'm just across the alley from martin...

Jay
 
Stank

Stank

New member
13
0
Florida
Stank said:
Thanks Dave!

Nelson just dropped off #486 for me.

Getting it unpacked now. Any reference thread on how to rig the shrouds? The rigging video doesn't show much, and I don't see anything in the unofficial guide.

Been combing this forum to no avail.

I've got the 4 spectra loops at the base, but not sure how to attach the ronstan rings or how to run the purchase system.

And what size pin (or part #) connects the foil flap control rod to the wand assembly?

I'm just across the alley from martin...

Jay
Click to expand...
Wow. That was fast... thanks for the email! Off to finish rigging....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


Latest posts



Top