Slieves 2010 Round Island Race - Rig performance report.

  • 13 Dec 2010 15:20
    Reply # 479466 on 375886
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

     

                                                   Race handicaps, the LYS

    Stavanger, Monday

    The Lidingø Yardstick (LYS) is also based on achieved results rather than measuring the boat. A LYS number= 1.03 for instance means that the sailed time is to be multiplied with 1.03 etc.

    I didn’t find any Westerlys in the LYS-table, but I found a few other boats that I bet you know:

    Contessa 28=1.06, Hunter Sonata=1.01, Cutlass 27=1.00, J-24=1.11

    I find it hard to believe that the Longbow should be 5% slower than my Alo28 (Johanna). That would bring her down to the Albin Viggen (Malena) which has a LYS=0.97. Something must be wrong.

    The Alo 28 is not regarded as fast, being 5% slower than the 30’ Albin Ballad (both with spinnaker).

    Anyway, even if I haven’t raced Johanna against a Bm-rigged Alo 28, I don’t think she will lag much behind the standard boat close-hauled, but maybe a little. This doesn’t bother me. After saying goodbye to flat sails once and for all in 1994, the performance of my boats has been completely satisfactory. I don’t ask for more.

    Arne

     

  • 13 Dec 2010 00:04
    Reply # 479210 on 375886

    Oh Arne

    I wish you hadn’t written you thoughts above as it has started me thinking about handicaps again. I was happy with my conclusion about Poppy’s performance, but your reference to the International Folkboat has made me look again.

     

    I put up a response late last night, but in the light of morning I saw a major error in it and removed it.

     

    In the UK the RYA Portsmouth Yardstick handicap scheme is used by many clubs to calculate the results for handicap races. It is based on achieved results over well over 50 years. Unfortunately the Longbow does not appear in the RYA scheme as it is not a racing boat being more of a caravan, but using the Westerly Owner’s Scheme which is similar it is possible to compare boats that are in both schemes and can estimate the Longbow at about 1100 with a spinnaker and 1140 without.

    The IF with a spinnaker is rated as 1063, about 7% faster than the Longbow without spinnaker and 3.5% faster than the Longbow with spinnaker! Comparing these figures with your handicap scheme would suggest that Johanna should be faster than Poppy by about 5%.

     

    I still am confident that Poppy should beat her Bermudan sister on all points of sail and even if they used a spinnaker. As to how we would get on against Johanna, I just wonder?

     

    Cheers

    Slieve.

    Last modified: 13 Dec 2010 00:04 | Anonymous member
  • 11 Dec 2010 12:10
    Reply # 478575 on 375886
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Stavanger, Sat 20101211

    Having read the numbers Slieve give us from Poppy’s instruments, I guess I would set Poppy’s odds to be 3 to 1 in a race against Johanna.

    I see 4 possible reasons for this:

    1.) The split junk is probably more resistant against stalling so can give more drive, particularly in a seaway.

    2.) Johanna’s sail is lower than ideal (my ideals!). The long trunk cabin forced the mast far forward and the sail had to be made with a very long chord to avoid lee helm. I thus had to limit the height of the mast – 60sqm would have been too much even for me. Being free to choose, I guess I would have spread Johanna’s 48sqm over a sail with an AR=2.0 instead of today’s 1.87

    3.)Johanna’s mast is 25cm thick, giving a "sail area" of 1.6sqm, quite a drag factor.

    4.) Poppy’s longer waterline would normally be helpful. Only in light winds Johanna would have the edge.

    Actually, I hardly ever tack Johanna inside 90° for best VMG, with the GPS showing between 4.9 and 5.2kts.

    Maybe a comparison with the IF could help us to indirectly compare Poppy and Johanna? I’ve found that in F3-F4 conditions Johanna is faster from a run and up to a beam to close reach. Then the IF takes over. The IF is outstandingly good close-hauled, both on flat water and in a lumpy sea (very lively and quite wet to be in then).

    Btw in our LYS (Lidingø Yard Stick) handicap system the Alo 28 (Johanna) has a LYS number = 1.03 against the IF=1.02 ( both with spinnakers). This means that the Alo is supposed to be about 1% faster than the IF.

    Arne

     

    Last modified: 11 Dec 2010 12:10 | Anonymous member (Administrator)
  • 05 Jul 2010 12:06
    Reply # 376470 on 376467
    Slieve McGalliard wrote:

    Hi Paul

    It would be nice to sail Poppy and Johanna together, but it would prove nothing. The two hull designs are so different that even if the rigs were similar we would not learn much. Where we would learn most would be if Arne and I were able to hop form boat to boat at 30 minute intervals and see how the boats feel to sail. It was interesting to see Chris Edwards on Poppy, and I would love to see Arne on her as well. Possibly the best we could do is to persuade Arne to visit us in the UK. David T is planning to be in the UK, and that will be intersting, but why in the cold weather. I don't have a heater!!!!! (Yet).

    I can see great protenial in this new web site. It's good news.

    Cheers, Slieve

    Hi Slieve,

    Yes, I quite understand that it would prove nothing because as you say the boat types are completely different. None the less it would still appeal in an emotive sense.

    It would indeed be lovely if you could get Arne to come over when David comes back to the UK for a visit. All three of you have demonstrated in three different ways that junk rigs can be made to perform. It would indeed be interesting to have feed back from such an outing.

    You have a few months in hand to install the heater :-) Try a Refleks, they are great and thanks for the kind remarks about the website. They should go to David as he has done most of the work. 
  • 05 Jul 2010 11:49
    Reply # 376467 on 375886

    Hi Paul

    It would be nice to sail Poppy and Johanna together, but it would prove nothing. The two hull designs are so different that even if the rigs were similar we would not learn much. Where we would learn most would be if Arne and I were able to hop form boat to boat at 30 minute intervals and see how the boats feel to sail. It was interesting to see Chris Edwards on Poppy, and I would love to see Arne on her as well. Possibly the best we could do is to persuade Arne to visit us in the UK. David T is planning to be in the UK, and that will be intersting, but why in the cold weather. I don't have a heater!!!!! (Yet).

    I can see great protenial in this new web site. It's good news.

    Cheers, Slieve

  • 04 Jul 2010 02:36
    Reply # 375977 on 375926
    David Tyler wrote:
    Paul Thompson wrote:Below is a reprint of a post by Slieve on the Yahoo Junkrig forum. I think it will be of interest to everyone here.

    Slieve, you really should make an effort to get Poppy to the Stavanger rally this year. The whole of the JRA would like to know how the two boats (Johanna and Poppy) will compare. I'm betting that they are pretty closely matched but likely Johanna will be the quicker boat in light airs.
    ..........................................................................
    .............................................................................

    Now if only I could meet Johanna???????????

    Cheers

    Slieve



    Nice work, Paul. Just shows what we can do with this forum
    Just checking if you can trim the quoted posts. You can. Just highlight and hit the delete button.
  • 04 Jul 2010 00:17
    Reply # 375926 on 375886
    Anonymous
    Paul Thompson wrote:Below is a reprint of a post by Slieve on the Yahoo Junkrig forum. I think it will be of interest to everyone here.


    Nice work, Paul. Just shows what we can do with this forum
    Last modified: 04 Jul 2010 00:17 | Anonymous member
  • 03 Jul 2010 22:37
    Message # 375886
    Below is a reprint of a post by Slieve on the Yahoo Junkrig forum. I think it will be of interest to everyone here.

    Slieve, you really should make an effort to get Poppy to the Stavanger rally this year. The whole of the JRA would like to know how the two boats (Johanna and Poppy) will compare. I'm betting that they are pretty closely matched but likely Johanna will be the quicker boat in light airs.

    Hi Gary,

    Good of you to ask. The answer is 'Very well'. Poppy sailed the Round the Island Race a couple of weeks ago and we learned a lot. This year Chris Edwards sailed with my son-in-law Ian and myself. Chris is probably the most experienced junk boat handler around these parts so I was interested to get his input. It was a worthwhile exercise.

    Poppy is fitted with ST50 instruments giving True and Relative wind speed and direction, boat speed and a VMG instrument giving VMG to true wind both upwind and downwind as well as a 2 X expanded scale relative wind direction, so we are able to measure performance quite well. The day before the race Chris and i went out for him to get used to my set up, and there was no wind. Most boats out were sitting in a hole in the water but we found we had 4 knots of true wind and we were happily able to sail at 2 knots under full control in any direction, including close hauled. Chris couldn't believe the performance in such light conditions, and the way he could manoeuvre the boat easily. He enjoyed getting close to bigger boats and 'beating them up'.

    The day of the race was much better, starting with a force 3 and rising to force 5. One thing we learned is that Poppy will never get a good result on the handicap system used. The Island Sailing Club run an excellent race with over 1700 entries, and over 800 in the ISC handicap system, but the only way they can do it is to use a rather crude handicap calculation, based on length, breadth, depth, area, weight and with a few %age corrections for keel configurations, propellers, and use of spinnakers. It cannot differentiate between hull shape and fineness of entry, so a sharp bowed racing hull will get the same rating as a blunt entry high accommodation boat. Poppy is a blunt Westerly 'caravan' and I can sleep my 6'4" across the forecabin, so it will not slice through the chop raised by hundreds of boats racing at the same time. Some classes of boat always do well because they get good ratings, like the International Folkboats. I'm not complaining as the club do a great job, and I now realise that we simply have to compare our performance with similar types of boats to see how we are getting on. When we do this it is clear that we did extremely well, despite my not so good tactics and navigation.

    The first 14 miles to the Needles was a Force 3 spinnaker reach, which suited the inexperienced spinnaker crews well. Poppy held her own with even larger 'caravan' boats and easily left all non spinnaker boats behind. I am confident that if we sailed against an identical hull boat that we would match their spinnaker performance just by easing the sheet out.The next leg was a close reach and again we held our own against boats that should have been faster.

    After about 6 hours we were close hauled into a chop and we were cross tacking with boats who are known to be faster (on more accurate handicap systems) and should have been 5 miles ahead, and we were pointing just as high and matching their windward speed. And so it went on for the full race. After the race both Chris and I agree that Poppy would beat an identical hulled Bermuda sloop round the cans, even if they used a spinnaker and we did not. At worst we would hold our own to windward and would win any tacking duel. We would be faster on all other points of sail and probably just match them with spinnaker. It's a great feeling. I've always felt uncomfortable making these claims in the past, but this time I had an outside witness on board who agrees with me.

    Left to his own devices Chris played with the boat on the way home after the race. He made a number of observations. Poppy does not slow down in a tack, and can be held head to wind for a long time before deciding which tack to end up on. The moment the cambers fills on the new tack the full drive is there and there is no need to bear away to accelerate. Chris commented on the instant acceleration. On the day before and during the race we were sailing close hauled at 40° to the relative wind, but after the race in fairly smooth water Chris trimmed for 30° to the relative wind. In 15 kts of true wind we had 4.5 kts boat speed, and tacked through 77° on the compass. There is no way the Bermuda rigged Longbow could do that. A week later I tried 35° and found I got best VMG, so there is still a lot to learn.

    The net result is that Chris wants my rig on his fore mast (Freedom 30 Junk ketch with hinged battens).

    With Chris's help I now see a couple of changes I want to make to the existing rig, and I have recently learned a few important points from the model boat world which would encourage building a modified rig. All this has discouraged me form doing a detailed write up on the rig, but I know I will have to do it soon. The professional photographers were out in their Ribs during the race so if you want to get a flavour of the day look at-

    For the 2008 race -

    http://www.sailingscenes.co.uk/search.php?gid_search=184&search=Poppy

    For this year's race

    http://www.roundtheisland.org.uk/web/code/php/main_c.php?map=rir10&style=std&ui=rir2&override=&section=live&page=photoview2010&pgall=G1&pfield=G1&porder=Name%2CId&pvalue=3+-+The+Needles

    Look at the fifth row down and fifth column. This is us rounding the Needles after the first 14 miles.

    http://www.h2ophotos.org.uk/#/rtiow-1330-to-1430/4541856644

    Note that there are 6 photos in a row, and you may have to scroll to the right to see the 6th, which I think is the best even if it doesn’t show the rig. The photographer shot under our bows at about half a boat length ahead and really took quite a risk to get it. That is our bow wave you see and not his wake. It was great sailing.

    These professional photographers want serious money for even .jpg's and more serious money if you want to put them on a web site or in a magazine. It's hard to justify.

    So Gary, the answer to your question is that Poppy is doing very well (and possibly could do better).

    Now if only I could meet Johanna???????????

    Cheers

    Slieve


       " ...there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in junk-rigged boats" 
                                                               - the Chinese Water Rat

                                                              Site contents © the Junk Rig Association and/or individual authors

Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software