Category: Model Yachting

Measurement day

It's the first day of the 2007 IOM Worlds organized by YCPR in Marseille France. The first day is spent on measuring all the boats, and some practice sailing + an opening ceremony in the evening. The pool is apparently for washing the boats from the salty Mediterranean water.

Online results and pictures from the 7-day event will hopefully appear here.

Team Finland was on site at 9 when measurement started, and all three of us got through the process a little after 10. Soon after a longer queue formed.

Michael Scharmer's old boat in the measurement tank.

Not much wind around 9-10 o'clock in the morning. Tomorrow racing starts at 9, so we'll see if there's a delay or not.

More pictures here: iomwc1.free.fr

Nordics Results - Recount

The first set of results had the wrong number of discards, the second set of results correctly had two discards but apparently still had some strange placings, so now there's a third (final?) version. Coincidentally (?) the re-count "fixes" the disrupted placings that the three-discards mistake created... (my placing in two races has been pushed down one place).

To Discard or Not To Discard?

It's interesting to note what would have happened if the Sailing Instructions and HMS2002 would have been followed at a recent regatta:

I guess the message is that both Mr. Kaupang and yours truly will have to learn a more kamikaze-style of racing where you 'go for gold' and don't worry about the DSQ's and collisions too much since they can always be discarded in the end anyway...

2007 IOM Nordics, Stockholm


(photo by J Wikman)

SRSS hosted this year's IOM Nordic Championships in Saltsjöbaden, Stockholm. A new record was set when 37 skippers (19 SWE, 10 NOR, 4 DEN, 4 FIN) showed up! A good thing, since the nordic events are now growing to be even more relevant practice for large championships like Euros and Worlds.

Saturday started out grey with no2 rig, and we got some rain in the middle of the day with everyone changing up to no1 rig for the afternoon. Sunday was dry with a bit of sunshine and no2 rig the whole day. 17 races were completed with five different A-heat winners. I threw away at least one good chance of my own when the jibsheet got stuck on a badly designed mast-ram when I was rounding the last leeward mark with a good lead towards the end of Saturday...

A lot of new boats: Torvald Klem (NOR) sailed a Jeff Byerley Extreme into a comfortable win. Second place Sören Andresen (DEN) has a new wooden boat with modified front sections. I sailed the new Noux Mk2, but was pushed back from my usual third into fourth place by one J Hellberg (SWE), who with the help of two boats and three discards took third. I'm taking comfort in that I had the second lowest throw-outs after Torvald, which in the long run is a Good Thing. Fifth was Gunnar Karslen with a not-so-new TS-2, showing that the ca. 1992 designed TS-2 with original fin and rudder is still a good boat.

I've now found a mast position on the Noux which results in good balance upwind, but I seemed to loose on the runs. I've done this by moving the mast forward at deck-level, so this also increases aft mast rake. Perhaps I should look for the same balance, but with a more upright mast to balance upwind and downwind speed?

Pictures here, here, and here. Results from SRSS's site.


View Larger Map

Google map test drive: IOM Worlds sites

I've discovered that you can embed a google-map in your blog- great! Just to try out this fun new feature here are the sites of the IOM-worlds for 2003, 2005, and 2007.

2007 Marseilles, France (event to be held 12-21 October 2007)


View Larger Map

2005 Moolooloba, Australia


View Larger Map

2003 Vancouver, Canada


View Larger Map

Can anyone contribute with the ones I am missing (I didn't compete so I don't know where the sailing took place):

  • 2001, Omisalj, Croatia
  • 1999, Malta
  • 1997, Wellington, NZL
  • 1994, Poitiers, France

2007 Nordic IOM-Race 2, Turku, Finland

13 skippers (8 FIN, 4 SWE, 1 NOR) competed in race 2 of the Scandinavian Cup 2007 (*) organized by TPS in Turku, Finland during the weekend of 1st and 2nd of September 2007.

Saturday started dramatically with a thunderstorm interrupting race 1, and most boats changing down to no2 rig for the rest of the day. A nice wind direction enabled a long course with skippers being able to walk 1/3 to 1/2 of the course up and down along the pier. 12 races were completed. Saturday was completed with an event dinner with our race-officer Harri Korpela as chief chef.

Sunday began with more wind and some risk for rain. Most skippers started out with no2 rig, but some more or less successful trials were made with no1 rig throughout the day. 12 races were completed.

The winner, Torvald Klem from Norway, sailed the most consistently and only let about six heat-wins slip by. He sailed a new Extreme design from Jeff Byerley/Australia. Only the second time in no2-rig conditions for this boat. Second place Olle Martonen sails a home-built wood/glassfiber TripleCrown, while third place Timo Syren used a SailsETC Italiko, also taking home the Finnish Class Champion title.

A few new boats were also seen on the race-course. Anders Wallin and Eero Laurila sailed Noux Mk2 designs with still a bit of room for improvement on the trimming and manouverability side. A swedish prototype of the Peter Norlin designed IOM (onemeterfun.se) also competed in its first international event.

Results here.

(*) for some good reason these races are now called "Scandinavian", a word that is about double in length, and geographically incorrect, compared to "Nordic".

Is your boat watertight?

Here's a nice way of finding leaks in the boat. Do it like you would search for a hole in a bicycle inner-tyre: gently pressurize the boat (we use an air-brush compressor with a not too tight fitting tube into the boat), press it underwater or use a water/soap solution on the outside, and look for places where bubbles appear.

Simple and efficient. Also much safer and faster than pouring water in the hull and waiting for it to appear on the outside. Handling a boat with 1-2 litres of water in it is not very easy - don't ask me how I know!

Turns out my boat has a number of cracks along the hull-deck join, and also a small hole at the top of the finbox. These can probably be filled with cyano glue.

KISS IOM Construction

(click image for high-resolution version)

The current Noux Mk2 construction is obviously too difficult to put together. There are lots of separate mouldings that need to be fit and bonded to the hull, lot's of sanding, filling, and painting. So I'm trying to think of a simpler design that would be easier to build. With all the moulds and jigs ready my dream would be to spend one whole day on moulding: hull, deck, fin, rudder, etc. Go home and sleep/do other things while everything cures for a day or two, and then spend the next day bonding together the components. With about two full days of work I would hope to create a ~500 eur kit which can be handed to an intermediate to advanced IOM-skipper which he/she could then complete by adding fittings, radio, and rigs. Is this Utopia?

The Bantock/SailsETC style of construction (Topiko-ish drawing above) simplifies building somewhat. The two halves of the hull (1,2) are moulded separately and then joined. A separate fin/mastbox laminate (3) needs to be bonded into place while the hull is in a jig, to keep everything nice and straight. The foredeck comes 'for free' in the hull moulding process, but the aft deck (4) is a separate moulding. Here I've drawn a recessed flat part for mounting the winch and the servo, and a place for the 65mm RC-pot aft of the main-sheet post.

Then there are small bits and pieces like the rudder tube (5), the tube for the no1 rig (6), and the bow bumper (7).

Sails ETC sells a cheap plastic rudder (R), and some not-so-cheap fins (F). We can make bulbs (B) in lead by casting, or maybe in brass or steel by cnc-turning in the future.

I really feel the challenge is in components 1 through 4, the large mouldings that need to be accurately assembled, and apart from the finbox need to have a nice gelcoat outer finish. With the Topiko-style transom the two hull-halves (1,2) can't be assembled in the hull mould, so a separate hull mould without the inverted transom is needed. This assembly-mould/jig could also have a permanent hole for a dummy-fin that is put in place and aligns the separately moulded fin/mastbox (3). The aft-deck (4) would then be bonded in place with the help of strips of glassfiber plate glued to the underside of the hull-flange.

If I count the building tasks correctly I get something like this:

  1. Mould two hull-halves. (spray mould with gelcoat/paint, apply epoxy+2x125g glassfiber, trim glassfiber to mould-edge)
  2. Mould other components: deck, fin/mastbox, mainsheet-tube, no1-rig-tube, bumper (in silicone)
  3. Wait for everything to cure
  4. Assemble hull-halves in separate jig. bond together. Glue in fin/mastbox, Glue in deck (can this be done simultaneously with finbox?). Glue in rudder tube.
  5. Wait for everything to cure
  6. Finish by adding bits and pieces: open foredeck holes, glue in no1-rig tube, glue in mainsheet-post tube, attach bumper.

That's three tasks separated by curing-time. I'd be interested if anyone has some thoughts on this! Have I overlooked something big? Can this be simplified further?

I know some people have used closed-mould techniques with a pressurized balloon inside to mould complete boats in one go. But as there are no good descriptions of this online I'm not going to pursue that in the near future.

FIN-43 finally sailing!

After fitting the sheeting-bridge for the mainsheet and drilling some holes in the booms for the sheet-hooks I was finally able to test sail the new IOM I have been building! It's going to be numbered FIN-43, but I haven't had time for details like sail-numbers or measurement bands yet. You might also notice that I'm missing the bow-bumper. The paint-job is 'Scharmer-style' for the moment...

The main worry with a new boat, besides obvious things like the rudder and sheeting systems working,  is usually water tightness. I observed something like half a table-spoon of water after maybe 20min of sailing in varying no1 rig breeze. The lid probably needs sealing, and a coat or two of paint should seal any microscopic pin-holes left in the hull laminate.

Balance on the beat was surprisingly good, only minor adjustments of the mast position should be necessary to find a good trim. Now I need to put in a lot of practice hours against other boats and in varying conditions to iron out any minor problems and find a good basic trim with all rigs. In addition to the national ranking series we still have two Scandinavian events that should provide some good sailing before the Marseille Worlds in October...