Thread: Is that a 12' GIS I see hull down on your horizon

There is another off-the-shelf rig option that would suit this boat, and it is very powerful in a wide range of wind conditions. It is self depowering and the design is by Julian Bethwaite who designed the 49er and 29er. Granted this option is more expensive than the Laser as there are not yet any replica parts for it. However, parts are readily available and in time, knock-off "training" rigs will likely become available. Not a square top, but nevertheless very modern and superior to the Laser, although it is smaller.

It has been mentioned before. The Byte CII rig is now widely available in the USA, Canada, GBR and Aus.
Rig cost is GBP1545, complete. Of this price, £1,072.34 is in the 2 piece carbon mast alone so that puts things in perspective. A full batten set is a very reasonable £38, which is unbelievably cheap.

Attachment 215590

More about the rig here: Byte Class :: International Association

We are having a promo day for the Byte CII sometime in the new season as the boat suits our requirements as an alternative to the Laser 4.7 for our junior sailors, so I will have the opportunity to evaluate the rig then.

Interesting about the byte.

Looking at Byte CII

Mast - stg1072
sail - stg590
battens 38

Full rig incl boom 1545stg

MIK

A youngster at the club had a Byte CII and capsized racing, completely tearing the sail apart.
Have to feel the Storer way would gain 90% of the benefit at 10% of the cost. Standard alloy tubes, and a well developed home made glued together sail. I could make a rig for £150 easily.

Brian

Originally Posted by keyhavenpotter

A youngster at the club had a Byte CII and capsized racing, completely tearing the sail apart.
Have to feel the Storer way would gain 90% of the benefit at 10% of the cost. Standard alloy tubes, and a well developed home made glued together sail. I could make a rig for £150 easily.

Brian

Agree completely ... I am a bit shocked that a 1000stg mast on a basic sail boat is not considered standard and reasonable.

MIK

Originally Posted by keyhavenpotter

A youngster at the club had a Byte CII and capsized racing, completely tearing the sail apart.
Have to feel the Storer way would gain 90% of the benefit at 10% of the cost. Standard alloy tubes, and a well developed home made glued together sail. I could make a rig for £150 easily.

Brian

We have been using similar mylar sails on our club Bics for the past year and they are completely durable. The boats are sailed 3-4 times per week, all year round and are regularly capsized by kids having fun with them so they are getting get some rough treatment. Although strongly discouraged, we have had instances of them diving off the boats into the sails without causing any damage at all. The sails are still in "as new" condition. The Byte sails should be no different, and that kid would get a new sail under warranty, provided he hasn't mistreated it.

The value of the Byte rig is that it is a completely sorted rig that went through a considerable development phase, is robust and carries a replacement warranty. Naturally, such a rig would be considered only as an "ultimate performance" option that you could go club racing with and match it with the Laser fleet. I agree it is entirely possible to build a rig for £150, or even half that, but it wouldn't have anywhere near the CII's lightweight performance, be as durable or look as cool.

That's all true ... but you have to make a sufficient argument to a builder as to why they are restricted so that they have to spend maybe 1500 on building a hull and foils then a rig is going to cost them $2500 or more.

$4000

If you are talking to someone who was going to fork out the best part of $10 for a full sailing boat it makes some sense ... but if he/she was considering it ... well they had something like that money available so they might just decide that building is too much trouble

But if we are talking about new people or really experienced people that have been sidelined by the cost of conventional boats it is pretty hard to push them up from their sense of cost saving. Maybe this boat can be done for $2000 to $2500 including sail and homebuilt or non tapered alloy spars (if the sections are available which is a problem in many countries).

The Sabre alloy mast with integral track is $280 retail in Oz... that is not unreasonable. A wood mast might end up being more than half that.



Dwyer mast company in the USA has similarly priced masts
https://www.dwyermast.com/families.a...cat1Name=Masts

Right now I am leaning toward a homebuilt freestanding non rotating mast for the prototype ... see how I feel after the weekend.

MIK

Originally Posted by Boatmik

Right now I am leaning toward a homebuilt freestanding non rotating mast for the prototype ... see how I feel after the weekend.

MIK

Square box section, or oval?

So a sail track will be needed on the mast?

Square box with external sail track will be doable for most home builders. External sail track may not be easy to obtain in some countries. Brand named by MIK seems to be made for caravan tarps and the like. Is this going to work for sails (i.e. same diamater groove)? If widely available a good option I think.

Oval or round bird mouth mast will be more difficult as you need access to a decent tablesaw or routertable.

Standard non-tapered alu mast sections are difficult to obtain in the Netherlands (it will be a special order with the associated extra costs - for my Chickadee Scow I ended up buying a tapered mast section used on boats of similar size). But then the cost go up a lot and a Laser (replica) mast is way cheaper (if going pocket luff way).

I agree that keeping the overall boat costs down is important. Let's see what MIK's comes up with.

Joost

There are bolt on track extrusions that will work OK, as you say the caravan annex track will work just fine if you select the right size bolt rope for the sail. Another way is to screw on a 90deg corner extrusion, then split it with a saw or grinder and sand smooth.

Old Laser mast tubes could be joined to make a mast for little or no cost. For another project I recently got some brand new Laser topmast tubes for free because they had failed specs. The masts had a foot of length cut from them to ensure they were not used for Lasers. Old or not so old Laser sections are easy to come by if you swing by a big regatta and look for the service van. The good part is that they will likely still have the plastic end caps and joiners.

Solway Dory make and produce commercially a bermudan rig for £380. That's everything. Mast,boom, sail, fittings. The Bermudan Rig By the way, this rig is wonderful in use. The boom fits over the mast using a rowlock, so all you do to reef is detach the kicker and roll the mast to reef the sail. Dave can do this as he sails upwind! It should be considered as the low tec "family" rig for all weights to use.

They make this rig in various sizes yp to about 5.5 sq m. They can do this by staying away from commercial dinghy mast sections and buying sails from another supplier. They buy commercial alloy tubes, available every where in the world. I costed a 100 sq ft lug rig in alloy tubes, and the costs were £30 for the mast, £25 for the boom and £25 for the yard. Paint them white and they can suit any boat, new style or trad.

It's a simple job to select the two sizes for the mast, so the upper smaller section slides inside the lower larger section. This gives you the length needed from standard stocked lengths and the bendy top mast needed. It's a no brainer!http://www.smithmetal.com/products/catalogue.asp

For my carbon tubed lug rig I sourced plastic extruded commercial sail track and glued it onto the tubes with the correct 3M adhesive for plastic to carbon. I think it was about £30 a length if I remember correctly. There is considerable tension on the yard and boom and there were no problems. The new boat would be loose footed main, so no track needed, and just need a length for the mast which has little stress.

Brian

I did find the Paskal track which is plastic and international. There are some hideously expensive plastic or alloy tracks from dinghy builders.



But I think I will design a spar with the same bend rates as the OzRacer one and design a wood track. Simply move the back face forward and put 4mm ply across the back ... simple saw cut up the middle of the ply.

The solway concept of complete rig is great ... thanks for pointing out what they are doing! But none of them are big enough or have the right character.

I'll keep it in mind though for other boats. QC and Eureka.

MIK

Hi Mik
I have seen similar aluminium track similar to the paskal track for $11 an 8ft length in Bunnings, which could easily be incorporated into the standard PDR mast.

If a Sabre mast is a good benchmark, I have seen the section for $300 at Iecon Boats in the past. I'd be more inclined to just buy this section than mess around making a wooden mast.

While the laser rig is convenient, personally I wouln't want to build a modern looking boat and dump a triangle sailed rig from the 70's on it because I was too lazy to make the high aspect sail and updated mast.

Tim

Hi Tim;
I had been trying to persuade MIK into using some type of ubiquitous rig like a laser for marketabilty purposes, but your arguement about a laser rig looking dated and 'lazy' has me thinking that you are absolutely correct. Perhaps he should 'Storer-ize' something modern that could be replicated anywhere for less money than purchasing something off the shelf. Someone had mentioned something about 90% of the performance using only 10% of the money...That would be my vote.
Rick Landreville.
P.S. For those keeping score at home, the ply I ordered won't be here until Monday, but Monday I am driving to Seattle to pick up the OozeGooze from it's Texas adventures. Tuesday will be the start date.

Originally Posted by tpb03

Hi Mik

While the laser rig is convenient, personally I wouln't want to build a modern looking boat and dump a triangle sailed rig from the 70's on it because I was too lazy to make the high aspect sail and updated mast.

Tim

I have found a good range of masts from Dwyer in Connecticut at similar costs to the cheaper oz aluminium sections. I've been looking for stockists in Canada.

Still might go with a wood mast. But an alloy one at under $300 looks good compared to the higher tech ones appearing about 1/5th cost of carbon alternatives. But it would be stayed which brings in extra costs.

But in the USA and Canada timber is cheap compared to the rest of the world .. so that's a way to go too.

Maybe go unstayed timber mast to establish a baseline. The hull setup is flexible with quite minor changes to take a stayed rig whether deck stepped or keel stepped

Still thinking about it.

Stayed and unstayed, deck stepped and keel stepped, wood or alloy and even scavenging the existing Laser mast with a new sail shape are all still in there.

MIK