'Bacco
Member
That's like complaining "My wife got new tits, but has the same old bones." Upgrades made the boat more functional and usable. Without them, who knows if this historic boat would still be around. I.e, Evergreen.
Want a classic race boat?
- Thread starter Bristol-Cruiser
- Start date
12 metre
Super Anarchist
I believe that is referred to as a scimitar rudder. Several others used a similar concept.
The scimitar rudder has a few points of merit - mainly reducing interference drag. But also generated induced drag at the root as well as the tip. IMO the shape doesn't have much overall merit - but such was the thinking at the time.
Whitby YC enjoys ‘privilege of anchorage’ but doesn’t have RCYC reciprocity. The Country Club reserves actual reciprocity for such notable sailing institutions as the Mansfield Ski Club, the Rideau Club, the University Club of Chicago and the New York Athletic Club (plus all the Canadian ‘Royal’ clubs, and the Kingston YC).
Better comparison would be an E-type where someone replaced the Lucas wiring, installed working climate control and a stereo and then sealed the leaks compared to one that numbers matches.
One is a nice drive, the other is valuable but useless.
billy backstay
Backstay, never bought a suit, never went to Vegas
Exactly the way I feel about a numbers matching classic car that is a fully insured garage queen, versus a balls out resto-mod meant for me to drive daily!!
SloopJonB
Super Anarchist
IIRC all yacht clubs with Royal warrants have reciprocity.
SloopJonB
Super Anarchist
Those rudders were one of those design things where the designer should have sat back, pondered it and then said "Naahhh - that's just not right."
Sort of like Mariner's stern and the weirdness that overtook 6 Meters.
I remember reading something (I am old, and can't remember where) about the scimitar shape showed good results in a tank test, but it didn't pan out in full size. They did use it on a few C&C production boats though.
SloopJonB
Super Anarchist
I owned a Series One 4.2 E-Type and I can tell you that Lucas was a very small part of what ailed them.
The real problems were inadequate radiators, inaccessible trans fasteners that required dropping the engine & trans out the bottom to change the clutch, Smiths instruments and the inboard rear brakes - theoretically a bit of a help when driving at 10/10ths but only a huge expense for brake jobs on the street - had to entirely disassemble the rear suspension for a brake job.
The only actual Lucas problem I ever experienced was the "park" function on the three wipers failing which turned on the wipers on a sunny day and only pulling the fuse would stop them.
A couple of examples of where Lucas was unfairly blamed for the failings of others -
wiring chafing through where it went through an ungrommeted hole in the firewall.
Hard starting from a wet distributor - which was situated right under the thermostat housing on the XK engine so condensation would drip on the cap.
Ever see an E-Type with more than about 50K miles? Right, they don't exist because the Smiths speedos only lasted that long so you got a zero odometer with the new speedo.
All of these things got blamed on Lucas.
SloopJonB
Super Anarchist
So did Mariner's stern.
12 metre
Super Anarchist
Possibly this interview with CG?
A Visit With George Cuthbertson - Professional BoatBuilder Magazine
George Cuthbertson and C&C Yachts built Red Jacket, said to be the first boat ever built with a balsa core.
www.proboat.com
DS: What are some other highlights besides Red Jacket?
GC: Red Jacket defined the direction we were to go for a variety of reasons. Not just fin keel and spade rudder. Spade rudder is a story in itself. Most designers, including Olin Stephens, hung the rudder on a skeg. We did not. We had a pure spade. The reason is it came out of tank-testing from Stevens Institute [of Technology]. There were hard reasons for it.
DS: Does that explain the scimitar-shaped rudder. How did that evolve?
GC: Red Jacket was tank-tested at Stevens Institute. The model was showing a very strong weather helm, which I couldn’t understand. So Peter Desaix said, “Why don’t you tuft the model and have a good look at the water flow?” So we tufted it with strings and so on, and it was obvious there was a strong cross flow under the counter as the boat heeled. It was from the windward side to the leeward side, because the rudder was impeding the cross flow, and the cross flow was driving the stern to leeward and the bow to windward and giving the appearance of weather helm. We took the rudder off the model, ran it again, and the cross flow was just the same, but the boat balanced fine. That told me to absolutely minimize the connection between the rudder and the hull. That’s why for years we had a scimitar-shaped rudder to minimize the breadth of rudder at the hull to allow the cross flow to pass under the counter unimpeded.
Sounds like tank testing - or at least the ones performed on Red Jacket at the time were more qualitative than quantitative in nature. Not sure I agree with GC's analysis and conclusion. I was under the impression most designers wanted to minimize crossflow. Although perhaps I am not interpreting what he said properly.
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Bristol-Cruiser
Super Anarchist
- Thread starter
- #32
Some Royal clubs are very modest. We visited the Royal Natal YC in Durban and had very Blitish roast beef and yorkshire bud. It is quite a small building with the adjacent docks being part of a marina. The Royal Suva in Fiji also was not large or fancy but had three photos of Her Majesty at different ages in the foyer. We watched a rugby match on a big screen on the lawn between Oz and NZ. They had free beer (Fiji Bitter is wonderful) because they were testing their new screen setup. Kiwis won. Our YC send a request to Buckingham Palace, 30 or so years ago, about the procedure for becoming a Royal. We received a very nice letter on BP letterhead from an assistant underling saying they no longer such royal warrants.
Back on topic, at some point a teak deck was added tor RJ.
12 metre
Super Anarchist
I think that would have been fairly well known.
Looking at what he said again, I believe what he is trying to say is that crossflow from windward to leeward creates a negative AOA in the area of the rudder affected by the hull, i.e. near the hull surface.
In most towing tank models - at least in those days, I believe the rudder was fixed in position on each run. A negative AOA would generate lift to leeward causing the model to want to round up. Minimizing or eliminating blade area in the affected region would tend to mitigate the tendency to round up.
Or at least that is how I am interpreting it now. Again not sure of any real benefit since there are other ways to balance a sailboat.
sierrawhiskeygolf
Member
Anyhow I really enjoyed the interview.
You recall wrong.
