Thursday, January 22, 2009

assassin



Anyone seen one of these before?
It's called an Assassin.
Somehow it managed to use a keyboard and left me a comment.
Its website is here:
http://assassinmoth.blogspot.com/

It'll be interesting to know if that mast post goes into the hull - otherwise he will find out what happend to Stress Less the first time we rigged it.

Celebrate Obamarama with a SLINO Trifoiler


I have been out of the moth scene for 18months and finally got around to reading this thread:
http://www.moth.asn.au/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1740

For those who don't click it, it suggests revising the rules to make the fleet less restrictive. Key rules being questioned are:

  • no multihulls/wing mounted foils
  • sail area/number of sails/sailboard rigs
  • sliding seat / trapeze
  • restrict to one configuration
I am still not sure which side of the fence I sit on. While I agree with all of mashmosh's comments, our current designs are very elegant and race friendly.

For kicks, and to try to sort out what I believe in, I sketched this.



  • Trifoiler arrangment with curved foils
  • Asymetrical wing sail, C class cat style
  • Longitudinally sliding seat.
  • Fits within the current box and sail area rules
  • The main hull is a SLINO
  • The outriggers are 37% scales of slino
  • Haven't done any engineering of this arrangment, other than positioning the CL of the wing in line with the lifting foils
If anything drawing this makes me more uncertain of which way to go. It looks like a pig, but I am very curious how it would perform. The moth platform looks too short and too narrow to work but who knows? The good thing about a self stabilizing arrangment is it can be model tested. One day maybe.


Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Al is a God!

The rumour was he was fast in the light stuff but I didn't realise he was fast enough to take a bullet at the nationals against a lot of pro and semi-pro guns.

Well done mate! May there be many more in your future. You sure you want to sell that boat now?

oh, mr hart!



As the n4rks said below first paint went onto the hull last weekend.
Masking up is really annoying but the results are worth it.
The grey is Altex High Build Primer 1.
I think the colours work great at the moment with satin carbon, but once the clear goes on the carbon the matt grey will look wrongy. I can't wait to see it with the yella (loveleh!).

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

I am a God!

The painting is started! High build went on Sunday evening and looks good. Sanding this weekend (again!) and hopefully the clear and edging can both go on then too. This should mean that we can rig it next weekend, pending supply of all the little fiddly bits...Markla?

My other ride is an F16...
Sailing on Saturday in the local Australia Day regatta. Need to get some time on the bigger boat before The Great Race. Speaking of which, what were they thinking with a marathon race on Valentine's Day???

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

shoo!

How do i delete posts?

Work Time

Run out of holiday, time to go back to work. This is where I got to.
  • Laminating is complete
  • hull is watertight
  • Fairing is at 50%
  • Painting is at 0%
See the photos below. The foils were made by Al, and are the oldest unbroken homebuild foils around (apparently).

Next weekend is sanding on Saturday, clear coat carbon on Sunday. Gloss on the seams will need to go on the weekend after.

4m Workboat

One day Nick and I met Marty from Blackline while mountain biking. Marty told us he was about to build a workboat for BLS. He asked if I could have a look at it for him. Always a sucker, I agreed and drew it for him based on his research.

It is currently under construction at BLS as shown below.

Wild Life

The build was visited by both a mega stick insect and a snake that likes stress less more than me

Gantry Done

Gantry is now complete.

I couldn’t buy less than 5 off, or 250 dollars worth of ronstan turn buckles, so I designed and build my own. Thanks to Alan for engineering assistance and Nick for fabrication assistance. There is a nut laminated on the end of the carbon tube – in there somewhere. Hundreds of carbon toes are hiding it from the world – hopefully never to be seen again.

Photos to come.

Wand Installed

All installed as per design.
Went rather smoothly.
Photos to come.
The wand penetrating the hull looks slightly like a pole launcher on a sports boat.

Wand Detailed Design


Detailed design for the wand mechanism and push rod is now complete. It is made from:

  • 6mm fibreglass kite poles as push rod
  • OD12.7, ID 9.5mm firbireglass tube as rod conduit
  • Small turn buckle at centreboard end of push rod
  • 1-1/4” Nylon Steering Arm on wand axle (model boat tiller from model shop)
  • 2-56 Safety Lock Kwik-Link clevis (from model shop)
  • 6mm fibreglass rod axle that wand spins on
  • 6mm fibreglass rod for wand.
See attached renders showing this system.

Wing Mounts

- Glass tubes moulded from wings in 4x600DB E glass

- Drop onto deck on a bed of 403/411

- Tie this to inner skin with unis

- Tie to outer skin with uni

- Encapsulate all unis with one 200DB carbon.

Sound simple. Until you realize it is difficult to the deck gets in the way when you need to put the unis onto the inner skin. So, cut the deck back around the wing mount so it is narrower than the hull sides. Immediately before the deck goes on wet out the uni onto the inner skin then lay the top half over the top of the hull side. Drop the deck on (for good, apply glue) then fold the unis back on top of the deck.

There is a risk of poor lamination onto the inner skin, as all of this folding back and forth may wriggle it about, but luckily the springyness in the unis appear to hold them hard against the inner skin.

The rest of the laminating involved in the wing mounts is trivial.