Closing In

Well it has been a great summer here for sailboarding. As always I am torn between finalising the longboard design and beginning construction, and doing some sailboarding on the bay and building some fitness. In fact the latter has won out the last few weeks- I've started racing the venerable Tiga around the course with the dinghy's at Elwood- great fun except that- boy are those running legs are a pain in the bum when the sea is sloppy and the wind is too light to make it worth tacking downwind. Still sailing the Tiga is good training as it is a relatively narrow board and so mastering the transitions (and sailing directly downwind) is good practise for racing the longboard (bit like limbering up with a weighted baseball bat before going out to face the music on the diamond.

Nevertheless, I have still been making progress with the construction table now completed and levelled as shown above plus I've put together some data on the relative location of the components on a longboard. This is shown in the plots below where the normalised distance of each component from the board has been plotted for three different longboards and the Tiga. 

First of all it can be seen that there is a reasonable degree of consistency between the boards in terms of where each component is located. For example it can be seen that the fin is typically located about 5% of the board length forward from the tail; the downwind/reaching centre strap is about 7% forward of the tail/ the centreboard pivot point is about 35% forward; and the mast track extends from about 40% to 55-60% forward of the stern.

So this is all good news. I have now have consistent models for board rocker, board plan view, board thickness and component location. Finalisation of the design is now very close.

And finally, my kids are getting in on the act now too. The attached clip shows my oldest son working hard to wreck the Elwood boating pier.

All the best- Martin

Holidays

Hi Blogosphere, back after a trip to the south of France (massive cold snap, and the interesting experience of piloting a left-hand drive car in snow and ice down narrow country roads with all of those wild rural French drivers; not to mention being attacked by a massive bloody sanglier after being stuck somewhere up an icy mountain road in the dark...). Anyway, that's another story. It was such as contrast to get home here to Melbourne, Australia where the temperature was 25C (rather than -8C); to be able to wear shorts and a tshirt again, and to be able to go sailboarding- currently without the need to wear a wetsuit.

Speaking of sailboarding. Shown here is the rig that I'll initially be using on the longboard (thanks Jack for the 'loan'). Severne Code Red 8.3m^2; Hypersonic 75% 490cm mast; Chinook Triple Course boom; Pro Limit 45cm Ext. It's a big change from the 5.7m2 sail that I've previously been using. The Severne has so much more power plus flexibility to handle a wide range of wind speeds. I was out sailing yesterday on my old Tiga 325 with the new rig- in 12-15 knts, what a buzz!

Since returning from our holiday, I've commenced working again on the sailboard construction bench. So this is the build that you have to have before doing the real build- the sailboard itself.
In this regard, I've been thinking a little more about how best to cover the foam core. After sailing at Elwood yesterday, I was able to get a close up look at a Phantom 380, and boy does it look fragile. A beautiful board, but clearly (in my opinion), longetivity has been traided off against lightness, and I guess, speed. This issue was nicely summarised on the Longboard Windsurfing Journal and it really suggests that a pure carbon fibre skin may not be the way to go with these boards, unless that is, you have oodles of cash to spend on replacing your board each year. Given this, I'm thinking that a composite kevlar/carbon fibre skin may be the way to go. I'd be happy to lose a few kg to ensure that the combined sailor/windsurfer weight remains within competitive bounds. Guess it's time to buy those ceramic shears...

Martin