Talk to Paul, Bill Finch and others about this one!
What has FISLY done for the sport in Oz could always be countered with "what has the sport in Aus done for FISLY".
Take this as it's meant, very tongue in cheek.
In reality though, any organisation is only as good as those who participate in the organisation. It's very easy to sit back and criticise, but if you give no help to make it better, you don't really have a hell of a lot of credibility.
All the members of the hierarchy are volunteers who do sail now or have sailed in the past, trying to assist the sport however they can.
I also believe that when both our countries had active participants at committee level a lot was achieved to bridge gaps. That was in the past, as those participants moved on, and were not replaced.
Is it a good thing to have 2 separate and parallel rules? Personally I don't think so. When Pacrim was first established in 1986, trying to get the 3 countiries involved to agree on a common set of rules was a nightmare. When a very slightly modified FISLY rule set was adopted, a lot of difficulties disappeared
Vic I like the look of your new Class 5 and I notice that the frame arrangement
with the drop down front spar attachment is common in some French yachts
A local sailor here tried the drop down idea but gave it away as he said the twisting of the frame under load affected the front end
Have you noticed this happening?
Had some good winds over the weekend here a couple of guys hit 97kph on a good smooth beach Not me I dont have a small sail the big one seems too draggy when its overpowered a bit scary too
Hi Hiko.
I have had no problems with frame twist, The yacht handles well in all the conditions that I have encounted so far. The only area that I am still having problems is standing starts(have to be seated in the yacht) the club 88s can push with there hands to get away in low wind conditions but I can not reach the ground in my yacht. Thems the breaks, and I will have to live with that.
Cheers
AUS230
Hi Kiwi307
I agree with you. If the FISLY rules are the overiding rules every thing is covered .
as long as it fits within the specs.
Cheers
AUS230
thanks AUS 230 Yes it did seem to me that it must have been a very light chassis to do that Standing starts we all have extra hand steering extensions and push start and jump in dont you do that?
A good thing about the swept back axles as they dont get in the way
At the sandgropers you have to be seated with the seat belt on at the start line. That is fine by me as it is a local rule at that club. Thems the rules
Cheers
AUS230
Gosh I find that amazing
Many times we have driven a few hours to a meeting and found the sand a bit soft and the wind light
Under those rules we would have to pack up and go home and miss out on a great day
Sometimes but not often we have to push during a race
You will have to carry a push pole! Or getting really ridiculous how about an
anchor that you can throw ahead and pull on ?!!!!
Goes off shaking his head and muttering into his beard
Aus 230, please do not take my above as a criticism of what you have done, just an observation.
When the tall wheels were intro'd in Europe their major benefit was in wet stuff, tyres were a major to deal with. I left before it was resolved, if it has been. (To finish first, first you have to finish)
A theory that the Seagull team played with, and hence the adjustable camber, was that windier needed more camber, less wind less. Largely to keep the tyres on the rims.
In the Glen team it was in windy the axis of the wheels points at the Cof E of the sail, so minimising bearing loads, tyre distortion, and side loads on the wheels. In not a lot of breeze the wheel alignment just gets too hard. And then there is the "precession of a rotating mass" as well as a cambered wheel is trying to follow a conocal course.
Bugger, too much theory again, just go sail the "pigging thing"
Front weight was always as little as you can to retain a semblance of control. My YOTT would steer through a tack turn quite happily with the front wheel bouncing up to 500mm in the air, and perfectly turning each time it touched down. Very un-nerving but it worked. The major reason for light.... when you have to crash across a river the front will loft and you won't crash into the opposite river bank!
Kiwi307
I built aus230 for the fun of building it and the frustation that comes with something different. It may not be the best yacht around but its great fun trying to make it work. I had problems with the wheel angles at first but that has been overcome. No problem with the bearings they did 2 years before failing. Had some problem with wheel seperation where the tube section met the disk (To high tyre pressure on hot days), Had no problems the last few meetings. The maxxis hookworm tyres are excelent (we all get punches at safety bay.by spinifex grass)
The yacht goes as quick as the club88, I am being outsailed on most occasions because of the very good sailers at the sandgropers. (me not the yacht) Thanks for your info
Cheers
AUS230
Finally got a sail of the" beast of bermingham " myself this weekend.
rather impressed to be honest. The yacht is sailing well despite the need for some more chassis and sail tuning Vics first set of big wheels are showing the strain of a long summer at walyungup and look a bit diseased.
When he gets the new set running next season , watch out. I was interested in the twisting chassis observation Hiko, I found that I needed to reallywork on weight transfer fore and aft when cornering. The yacht displayed similar front wheel shudder to the kiwi yachts that were here in 06.
big problem is that the salt is so different to walyungups gravel, so it might not be so noticable down there.
Landyacht that front wheel Kiwi yacht shudder thing What do you think it is ?
I thought I had fixed it by putting more radius on the front tyre and shifting my weight [considerable]! forward in the turns but it revisited me again on the weekend
Most of the other yachts here seem to do it to some degree as you have noted
It must be unusual for you to mention it
I think my yacht does it more than most and certainly slows my turning ability
I think the sand was finer and softer than normal on the weekend plenty of wind though
I have another set of unsprung forks that I havent tried with the radiused tyre
will try that maybe
Hiko, what tyre pressure are you using?
The other thing that may be a factor is that your neat little suspension thing WILL be changing the front end geometry every time it flexes. A bit like having the castor on your car changing over every suspension movement. On a car it's called bump steer and exceptionally undesirable.
Thanks for the comment Kiwi307
The other guys here mostly have suspension also and they pivot it just behind the
kingpin My idea of doing it the way I did was to stop the effect of slackening and tightening of the steering wires as the front wheel moved up and down as theirs do The steering I thought is quite twitchy enough without wires going slack and tight as well
Maybe I got off down the wrong track
The original design had the suspension back at the mast step using a rubber squash ball which wouldnt have effected the steering much but I had trouble
making it work and gave it away early in favour of the present setup
Perhaps I could revisit that or just go rigid and give that a try although it seems that Aus 230 has the rigid setup and has similar wheel judder
Seems strange to me that this is peculiar to the OTT style of chassis or is it?
We all run the tyres at around 30 psi front and rear here I dont know if that is a factor
Hey Hiko, as I had the first OTT and then the first YOTT in NZ which OBSS copied I do have a bit of background.
The reason for the rubber ball which Mike Hampton(originator of these) drew on the yachts has nothing to do with front end, more to slow down the shaking of the rig. Also had an effect on the ripply euro beaches. IMHO it is unneccesary in NZ. With all the yachts I sailed in the later years the front weight was found to be a performance factor, as well as the river thing I commented a few posts up. All my yachts were built using a magic weighing device with the pilot aboard and rigged. That device was the second finger on my wifes' left hand! If she could just pick up the front wheel, it was good, easy and it was too light, too hard=too heavy. This worked on all the 5's, the class 3, and I tuned my Standart to that in Europe too, and it worked!
I never ran a front tyre more than about 15psi, in fact I can't remember ever putting a gauge on one.If it didn't deflect under thumb pressure it was too hard! Is your tyre a stiff construction? If so even less!
To quote Jean Phillippe Krischer (Mr Seagull) the most prolific landyacht builder ever, "the yacht must answer the conditions you are sailing". Hard surface, hard tyres hard chassis, steady wind, stiff chassis, gusty wind, flexi chassis etc. Ripply beach, softer tyres, supple sidewalls. Etc etc ad nauseum!
Pauls right, at walyungup the yacht does not shudder in the corners there is a lot of sidways movenent on the gravel surface which allows me to hit the corners under full power and the back of the yacht develops a nice slide around the corners. There is a lot more tration on the salt and the tyres do not slide easely hence some vibration. The wheels are not balanced very well at the moment due to running repairs to keep them going to the end of the seasion. I did not notice the out of balance at walyungup as the surface is a lot roughfer than Lefroy. (I love the surface at walyungup now that I have past the terrified stage)
Cheers
AUS230
Thanks for all that Its good for a newby like me to get a bit of background info
so we can move forward with ideas instead of going over old ground that didnt work before
I have some things to try out then and see if I can nail this turning thing
I know what you mean about the bashing across rivers with the front end high in the air sometimes the bank on the other side is quite steep!
The promo minimum front frnt weight is 10kg thich felt was way too much. we had to add weights to get up to the minimum spec > the seagull promos had a bolting posn for you to fit your personal lead weight( of course!!!!!!)
Then you added masses of sand to the special big front of the seat pod.
All this to get upwind , then downwind you had to have a really well built front fork mounted on bearings just to steer
gidday,
great looking weekend at the Lake, the photies say it all, 10 outa 10 to the camera person reading the thread i come to wonder what if, your front wheel ran in a modified motor bike rear suspension, what is the correct terminology, Stiff arm ???
recon that would weed out a fair amount of problems
I,m all for small simple suspensions on serious wind assisted platforms, i brake no bones about that
cheers...... joe
Since the wheel vibration was happening on smooth salt when turning I suspect that adding suspension would be akin to replacing the front wheel with a super bouncy ball!!!!!!.
my feeling is that the long narrow contact patch of the rear wheels is resisting, Vic reckons hes sailing with a tiny bit of toe out?maybe there is a need to try neutral or toe in.
I am desparately trying to remember what the wheel alignment for my YOTT was. Certainly was not parallel unloaded. With the delta axles there are some complex changes as rig load comes on.
Srtaight axles were easy,, but the twisting loads changes that. I think Paul may be right that a wee bit of toe out, but I am not totally sure. I do remember that one of the delta axle yachts I sailed had to run what seemed like shocking toe in unloaded. If you can find a really slippery surface, or better a pair of wheel alignment turntables, the load the yacht up, say 120kg to add a bit of "bump load" then sheet in and out and observe you may learn???
Gidday to all,
outside the norm, if it's a real problem, shudder, it would seem to me "unscientific" that some where, there needs to be a little give/readjust/realign
momentarily to compensate
from the straight ahead or least resistance steering position. I would think a live rear end, where your two parallel wheels moved in a slightly compensatory circular direction with your steering wheel
Think about it , it has been used in self tracking trailers on huge road trains fro many years
and they operate at high speeds, heavy loads, rough terrain, idiot operators.
I would recon that about 100mm both ways from straight ahead would produce a superior handling chassis
Now i want to nominate a experimental builder......LANDYACHT [}:)]...need a seconder, to give it a try.....cheers... joe
Gidday Landy...
just googled Kurt Johannsen self tracking trailers. I can picture a thin ethnic connection to your "Viking" builder Sorenson. Both in their own way contributed heaps to what we now have. Maybe marry a couple of great ideas and a new plane could emerge. just a thought...cheers ....joe
This is the Class5 I am presently sailing. I am happy for anyone to copy.
Currently running on 26" wheels. I still have the 19" wheels if I ever get to another Pacrim event. The pod came off the Colin Palmer Class3 mould. I built the nose cone for it.