Steve and Dave Clarks Unidentified Foiling Object

[Tom4FunOnly]

 

[Claire1000]

Spent some good time with the boat in the garage. Mostly looked at how to carry the spars and the struts (we don’t have a yacht club here). 

We have yet to figure out how to handle the wand holder and the elevator control rod for transport. The attachment for the metal rod to the wand holder is tough. So we don’t want to undo that. The metal rod flops around when not in the strut. Any ideas?

For the foils and spars we made ghetto foam wrappers out of th shipping foam  I’ve got a truck  not sure what you would do in a car other than take the foils off every time.

Anyone thought about quick pins for the shrouds? 

Hoping for wind by the end of the week.

Also we chipped the coat on our front foil. Bounced on a rock near the boat ramp. Dumbass award #2 goes to me. 

Once you drop it, how do you get the pin in? And which hole is a good learning default? 

After some QT with the components it’s a good little boat  

Thanks- Claire

 

[Claire1000]

I've always clipped the struts and never the foil. Never had the instinct of doing it the other way.
Dremeled the tip of the clip off and put in a v-grove so that the trailing edge corner rests in it.
I'll try and take a picture of it later today.

Also here's a way to create enough friction to keep the rudder from sliding all the way down without the clip. Just some progrip offcut and some bungee.

View attachment 244966

Do you remove the bungee? Where did you stick the pro grip?

 

[Randy]

Yeah hope they get that rigging video out soon. Sounds like there are a few tricks to know. 

 

[Spanish_Captain]

Dear all. I am new to this forum and came searching for some info about the UFO.

Could you please confirm to me what are the materials for:

-Hull (from the pics I have seen it seems like fiberglass, but I was wondering if it could be plastic)

-Foils and rudder (Carbon fiber? or alu???)

It has such a great price. I wonder if it´s just being sold in the US atm or if they have had any orders from elsewhere. I wonder if in Europe there is any other foiling dinghy at this price, or close!

 

[Spanish_Captain]

Dear all. I am new to this forum and came searching for some info about the UFO.

Could you please confirm to me what are the materials for:

-Hull (from the pics I have seen it seems like fiberglass, but I was wondering if it could be plastic)

-Foils and rudder (Carbon fiber? or alu???)

It has such a great price. I wonder if it´s just being sold in the US atm or if they have had any orders from elsewhere. I wonder if in Europe there is any other foiling dinghy at this price, or close!

Ok, I´ll answer to myself, I have just watched the video above and yes, the hull is made out of fiberglass

 

[wsailor]

Dear all. I am new to this forum and came searching for some info about the UFO.

Could you please confirm to me what are the materials for:

-Hull (from the pics I have seen it seems like fiberglass, but I was wondering if it could be plastic)

-Foils and rudder (Carbon fiber? or alu???)

It has such a great price. I wonder if it´s just being sold in the US atm or if they have had any orders from elsewhere. I wonder if in Europe there is any other foiling dinghy at this price, or close!

The vertical struts are made of extruded Aluminium. The actual foils are a composite mix.

The company, Fulcrum Speedworks takes orders from anywhere UFOs can land.  

http://www.fulcrumspeedworks.com/UFO/buy-now/

 

[True North]

Spanish, I have one, and the hull and deck are vinylester with some carbon reinforcement.  Wsailor is spot on regarding the struts and foils.  People have ordered from overseas -- the boats are manufactured in Rhode Island, USA.

 

[Claire1000]

I am making a tip list. Anyone can edit. Just a rough draft work in progress. Please check it out and add to it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q1W-dATx_QTq5XPyLWv7PcFnwU4EbmFOBxnck7PQJwU/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Randy]

That's brilliant Claire, thanks.

 

[Reht]

Do you remove the bungee? Where did you stick the pro grip?

You leave it there while sailing. Soak the progrip when you launch and it's slippery enough that you can push down the rudder and it'll just slide down.

 

[Merde2]

You leave it there while sailing. Soak the progrip when you launch and it's slippery enough that you can push down the rudder and it'll just slide down.

Essentially the progrip provides enough friction at the ramp that the rudder doesn't drop all the way down when in shallow waters.
When coming back in, just need to give the rudder downhaul some slack and the rudder rises as you sail and doesn't drop when you paddle into a windless harbor.

 

[True North]

Question.  How do you tie the boat to the dock or tow it?  Thus far I have tied to the mast base.  Other ideas?

 

[Randy]

Get all kind of weird hits for Pro Grip. So what kind do you mean? 

 

[Merde2]

Get all kind of weird hits for Pro Grip. So what kind do you mean? 

closed cell eva foam.
But I used that since I had some off cuts at hand.

You can probably use neoprene to the same effect. A beer coozy from the dollar store might work.

 

[Charlie P Mayer]

TN: mast base.

 

[Randy]

Thanks Merde.

 

[Claire1000]

Question.  How do you tie the boat to the dock or tow it?  Thus far I have tied to the mast base.  Other ideas?

Towing from the side did not work. I just held a rope and that worked semi ok. Rudder does nothing when all the way up. 

 

[Claire1000]

We do not have a problem with our rudder being too loose. We have the opposite. Maybe it will loosen.

Got #20 on the water for about 3 hours. We never figured out how to get the main foil pin in. We gave up and used a screwdriver. We had 8kts wind. 

Never got it on the foils but had some up pressure. Learned a good bit. Bear in mind we have zero clue what we are doing, no idea how to set the boat up, and I’m a so-so sailor. Husband is a bit better. We needed more lift from the foils. Will adjust and play. Not sure if we should start with more wand height or more rudder angle. Rigging went much better. Tacking I’m a mess. Fun evening and can’t wait to try it again.

I was surprised how much Theo “sinks” the boat when sitting still. He’s 185. Moving no issue.

 

[Bill's Sock Puppet]

We do not have a problem with our rudder being too loose. We have the opposite. Maybe it will loosen.

We never figured out how to get the main foil pin in. We gave up and used a screwdriver.

Tacking I’m a mess.

in my experience the Rudder foil will loosen as well as the main foil pin.

Tacking in displacement mode is a bit of an art, I have done it successfully a few time without realizing how it happened.

Here is what Dave suggests:

There's a lot of guidance and support on this that I'll pass on at a drop of a hat to resolve this stuff, but I'd like to focus my efforts right now on a fundamental technique primer which is long overdue in being written out and I'll be reposting this elsewhere: Tacking

The maneuver that passes the boat through the breeze in displacement mode at speed is a maneuver I call the Heisman Tack. Here's how it goes:

Steer into the tack with speed on. Don't bother reaching off or anything so drastic, but be footing for sure. Get into a kneeling position on your present weather side with your knees facing in, roughly touching your hiking straps or slightly outboard of there. Thinking of it as sitting on your feet is a good way to visualize it. As you steer into the tack, there are two things of maximum importance to remember. 1. Through the eye of the breeze, the sail is a way bigger rudder than the rudder itself. 2. spending too long in the back of the bus with the bows up in the air will throw off all the flow on the blades as the boat catches on its sterns, stops and rests nicely in irons. Those are the two things to beat.

So here's what you do: Steer into the tack with the rudder-punch through it with the sail. Steer into the tack without attempting to go across the boat. You have plenty of stability to play with. Reach down and grab the foot of the sail about a foot aft of the white fillet-bulb, using your mainsheet hand. Pull the main over hard. Get it over your head and shoulder and cross under it while continuing to pull it across. By now you should be roughly in the center of the boat with your body weight a tad aft. Push the sail out onto the new leeward side HARD. This is why it's called the Heisman Tack. You need to stiff-arm the sail out to drive the boat through the wind quick. If you drop the tiller during this procedure, it usually wont even matter. You're working with a far larger foil at this point. 

If you've done this fast, all you need to do is sheet in and go. If you've done this slowly, you can be on the cusp of a stall. The first thing to do is get your bodyweight forward-nearly alongside the main-beam. This cuts the bow up problem out of the equation. Another neat trick is to simulate flow on the foil by "fishing" the rudder. This is distinct from sculling in that it doesn't exceed ~20 degrees from center and happens at a higher frequency. You're fluttering rather than flapping. 

Another thing to note is that sheeting in very hard once you're through the eye of the wind has the reverse of the intended effect, since the main foil is forward. Sheet on very slowly and aim to gain flow before doing anything aggressive. It's far better to get through the tack in one quick turntable spin and then build speed than bite off more than you can chew and try to plane through the tack.

All this said, the optimal way to tack is on foils, but that's a whole separate technique based primarily in resisting centripetal force as you turn and getting shot overboard like Nate Outerridge. But also, with about two foil tacks under my belt, I'm no authority on those.