Monthly Archives: March 2009

3.14

Posted on by
13

Begin rant.

Once was enough, but it looks like it has started something.

Can we please either get rid of rules for ISAF plaques, measurement certificates, registration and sticking correct boat numbers on sails?

Otherwise, can we start to actually enforce them ?

We could change to the Formula 1 numbering system based on average nationals performance.

Maybe we should all just choose our own numbers … hmmm what should I choose … 69, maybe 666. Nope I can get all geeky and choose 6d 6f 74 68 or 01101101011011110111010001101000 or -1

Nope, I’ve decided, I like 3.14. I think I’ll use that at the states.

End of rant.

All floatey

Posted on by
4

So I got my latest main foil back together in time for today’s race. I spent a lot of time faring it and making it smooth, but there is still a few things to do before I undercoat it this week.

So on the boat the foil is soooooooo much slipperier (is that a real word ?) than the old square one and you can just feel the boat wanting to go.

However the boat wasn’t quite right. The boat would take off, then level out, then rise again. The wand would flick off, the boat would keep rising and then get all floatey before stalling out and coming back down. At the top mark I stopped to have a look, and noticed that my pushrod had decided to pull out of the flap, so I had lots of flap down but no lap up.

I disconnected everything, and proceeded to low ride back to the club. I have already fixed the problem, and I am ready to head out mid week, and join Phil and Dave (shown during last week deep in a foil setup conference).

DaveAndPhil.jpg

T2

Posted on by
6

The repair of my T is well underway, although it won’t be ready this weekend as I hoped, as last weekend was spend building a nice new work bench in the garage.

New workbench

With the bench done, it was time to get beck to the foil repair, and building a new T. The new T adopts a completely different approach to the last one. The T’s are cut out of a large, very thick slab of carbon, instead of being two L’s which form the T. You can see the difference in the two photos, with the new T’s sitting in place, prior to trimming and gluing in.

The T fitted, ready for bonding   T2

As you can see they are very thick this time around and are engineered to be significantly stronger, through different fibre orientation than the old one. The main reason they can be so much thicker is that these T’s will replace the outer skins on the vertical, and not sit inside them, just like my nationals quick fix.

It is also interesting to see how much the foil has “aged” since it was originally glued together … I think that a coat of paint and some polishing is in order.