MartinRF

Interesting, Brett Burvill's older brother Hayden won a regatta I helped arrange in Sweden in 1990. I believe Brett was one of the very first people to experiment with foils on Moths. Who is building Tornados these days? /Martin

Thanks, I enjoyed it despite my French being less than minimal. /Martin

Photos of T9 interiors make me believe the main beam is for supporting the mast only as it does not penetrate the hulls fully. If this is the case and you have a 'floating' dolphin striker there are no bending loads on the main beam, only compression. The attachemnt points of the dolphin striker strap would be the only high-load spots. As you may have seen on my web we re-engineered this on our Spyders. The mid beam may be for secondary loads only, like carrying the aft end of the motor pod. It depends on how it is attached to the hulls. If so it will only see low loads. This leaves wi

Background to my questions: * A complete seal -- inside and out -- is best. Epoxy is pretty good moisture barrier in my experience. * Epoxy does not offer much protection from UV and it is vulnerabel itself. In my experience the wood below the epoxy degrades quicker than the epoxy and eventually mini-cracks deveop in the epoxy barrier when the wood-epoxy bond is gon. Hence painted on all exposed surface is recommended -- a recommendation I have not followed myself and the clear finished areas are the ones that have generated most maintenace work. Clear finish on the inside is a goo

Unless the Isomat NG-37 is strong enough on its own. Do you have the construction drawings or can someone else inform us on the dimensions of original front beam? /Martin

Epoxy only for laminating or also for sealing the wood surfaces? Clear finish or painted? Dagger boards and rudder blades are built how? Aluminium cross beams? Sleeved? How old? Smaller sister: http://hem.bredband.net/b262106/ /Martin

How thick is this board? How far out will you stand? /Martin

Added question: How do I know it is replacement time? /Martin

I vote for PE or Nylon fishing nets. http://hem.bredband.net/b262106/pages/trampolines/index.html /Martin

The composite beams started out with a composite dolphin striker. We designed and built them because the alu beams were not up to the job -- wracking while sailng in waves bent the fore beam. It happened twice despite beafing up that beam after the first time. Later I came in contact with a Belgian Spyder owner who broke his fore beam and an American whose dolphin striker ripped out of the main beam. Not fun but it was this we feared would happen when we saw the drawings. Hence, the change in dolphin striker design. The the job market made me move from my native Gothenburg to Stockholm and

80 days? How long would it take a log in the Gulf Stream? (The log would be swept north of the UK, I think) /Martin

Rotating mast solution: http://hem.bredband.net/b262106/pages/launching/index.html (scroll down to mid-page) Dolphin striker for alu tube: http://hem.bredband.net/b262106/images/old_dolphin_striker.png I don't think rotating/non-rotating is important for mast base loads. Sail-mastbend interaction is another cup of tea though. /Martin

8:1 and no winches sounds way too little to me. http://hem.bredband.net/b262106/pages/controls/index.html I see no running backstays so the main sheet is what tensions the fore stay. Are your sails of stout enough material? My first set of sails were underbuilt dacron things (1986) and de-formed badly as the wind picked up. Reefing the main was more about controling shape to be able to point rather than avoiding capsize. These days I don't have this problem thanks to the wonders of modern materials. My lee shroud goes real floppy but as long as I haul in my main sheet the fore stay

Their own wep page: http://rowandsail.liteboat.fr/boats/litexp/ /Martin

Never heard of Tefgel before. I have used the black, thick stuff used in Scandinavia to protect car under-sides against corrosion. It is cheap and has worked just fine for me. A car safety inspection guy told me the other year lindseed oil does the job. I have not tried it. Then something like Molykote P-40 might be worth investigating. https://www.lubricantspecialty.com/product/molykote-p-40-paste In the assembly manual for the M32 cat, Aston Harald recommends Molykote 1000 for the beam bolts. This is a different application though: stainless steel bolts in all cabon beams and hulls.

Not 15 minutes. He has been doing these media stunts since the 1970s. Mostly not even putting to sea at all. /Martin

"Catamarans Offshore" by Rudy Choy is a good read about all this if you can get your hands on a copy. https://www.amazon.co.uk/CATAMARANS-OFFSHORE-Rudy-CHOY/dp/B0006C5368/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1531039935&sr=1-1&keywords=Rudy+Choy /Martin

Judging mast bend from that photo may be tricky. There is a 100 mm pre-bend set-up by help of swept spreaders and diamond tension and the mast is rotated beach-cat style. Here is another photo in similar wind but as we were sailing two-up I could sit on the windward bow while shooting this. Still not a great photo but I think the mast-top bending windward-and-aft can be seen. This what it does when the mast is fully rotated and the main sheet is fully in. If I reduce mast rotation the top will start to fall off to leeward and the pre-bend lines up with the sail 'cloth'. Both these an

Not boatbuilding either but very definitely carbon fibre layup automated: /Martin

Some racing multis, mostly French ones, cant their rig to windward but the rest of us don't bother with that as complication and cost goes through the roof. As things (shrouds, crossbeams...) have limited stiffness our rigs lean over to leeward instead and the lee shroud goes limp. In my case it is very limp: I have not thought much about this untill last weekend. This morning I tried to find photos I could use for measurement but only found a couple and all with me singlehandling (= low stability). The one above is the best since I am just about to fly a hull (in a guestimated 10

I have met this guy. Being an oddball is what he likes to do. It is his trade mark. He even changed his name to reflect this. Back in the 1970s he actually did som serious sailing in a 20' boat he had built in his mother's basement. Just found his web: http://46.28.145.175/?page_id=4593 This nice cold-molded little thing with poor stability took him to the south atlantic and to fame. (His web claims Bris was his first boat but there was a small steel ship convterted to sailboat called Duga before that. I guess he is not keen on reminding the world about that boat as it sank -- to get ins

Is this the tri I think it is, the green one that got two new hulls some years ago? https://youtu.be/dMqYkGEmoF0 /Martin

I don't know about crazy, colourful maybe. Yes, I have met him, he lives (lived maybe because it has been a while) nearby. No, I don't know for sure what speeds he has achieved but it is faster than 'normal' ice yachts -- superior aerodynamics. He also develope compasses designed to help racers -- for classes not allowing electronics. These guys also live nearby (and the Trampofoils were developed in a workshop I use for tinkering with parts of my boat). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQvYogFP9mw /Martin /Martin

Some can't wait: /Martin

New? /Martin