nice rumble !!! i think the front leaning forward is the key to the good looks !!
Select to expand quotesirgallivant said..
One should wonder why the original designs did not include hard or even soft dodgers on most yachts except so called pilot-house cruisers? And if they did, the construct is very strongly built and is structurally part of the surround.
Anything not constructed that way might be swept into the briny at the first knock-down including instruments, ropage, the lot, attached to it may be even before by a large wave.
The holes cut into the front of the dodger on one of the pictures are prime examples of this. One would be safer with half-circle cut outs on the bottom edge of the front wall. If the dodger goes - and it will go sooner than later - at least the ropes and so the sails are going to be saved.
God forbid to attach any boom tracks to it. The first gybe in high winds will damage it or rip it off.
Beside all this it definitely ruins an otherwise beautiful yacht's look.
I am - and this is my personal opinion - strongly biased against most so called 'comfort additions' to a yachts and this includes lazy jacks, cockpit dodgers and any other additions which raise the superstructure, increase windage, raise the centre of gravity of the yacht and so alter the balance of the lot, which is a very important point of the original design.
Every grain of extra weight one adds to the yacht far away from the ballast or keel alters - raises - the centre of gravity and so, increases the forces acting on the hull enormously!
A good set of oilies are better investment after all we are out there to enjoy our natural environment.
What you are saying there is right on the mark. Stability ie position of COG (gravity) vertically and COE (effort) has a bearing on the absolute safety of the yacht. Every OUNCE of weight added to a yacht above it's COG raises it's COG and therefore reduces it's stability righting arm.
To everybody, the guy that designed your yacht definitely knows more about it than you do. If you want to modify things, consult the designer. If he is dead, leave it alone.
Yeah is a Cayzer built crayboat, approx 70 years old :) And of courser a Gardener 5LW. Dad built the cabin at home out of 50mm angle, 18mm structural ply over the top, blocked up the wet well with huon pine plugs, took the old cabin off and the new one on one morning with a crane, bolt down and cut out with a chainsaw!!!
i also think keeping the top of the new dodger in line with the original cabin lines helps alot. I'm sorry, but to the original poster of this thread, the fwd slope of the dodger looks wrong to me eye but I understand it's hard to do a dodger on a lowish cabin boat that looks good.
Pulled a rig out of a Bene 40 centre cockpit the other day and it had a hard windscreen with a soft extension and I did like the looks and practical aspects of it.
I don't really agree.
How many people remove wire halyards for rope? Add furlers, new wires up the mast, masthead gear etc? Taking away 5kg of wire halyards is like removing 50kg at deck level!! People put dinghy's on the deck, add davits, solar panels, store fuel on deck etc. without another thought or much impact.
My point is with a high ballast to displacement ratio yacht like we have talked about here (like most heavy cruisers are), IMHO adding a 100kg hard dodger won't make much noticable difference to the boats handling.
Life and design is all about compromise. For sure a spray hood, (dodgers I believe are the fabric attachments to the lifelines), adds to the windage of the boat and slows her down, particularly in heavy conditions when the ratio of sail area/hull windage is much reduced.
However, even in a mild winter in Sydney, I noted a huge difference in comfort, when dropping out of the wind behind a spray hood. Extreme paid sportspeople like the Volvo racers are OK with being hosed by icy green water over the decks, but me, I like my comfort.
