Annie Hill wrote:Hi Jerry - great to have you on board.
Your Hagar sounds like a very interesting boat, though I'm not sure if Mr Buehler would approve or your using plywood and epoxy! Your previous two boats are quite different - you obviously like to try something new.
Buehler's boats tend to be fairly heavy displacement and 130 sq ft seems a bit on the conservative side. As Arne so often says, junk rig is so easy to reef that you might as well put on plenty of sail area. The top of the mast doesn't weigh much, so another 18" may not make much difference to the ultimate stiffness of your boat while adding substantially to you efficiency - and pleasure - in sailing in light airs. John Welsford's Swaggie design is a similar boat to Hagar, but carries 247 sq ft on its junk rig. She is a delightful pocket cruiser and, designed for a builder on the South Coast of Australia - a fairly boisterous part of the world, with a dearth of havens - as a little ship that can stand out to sea and tuck her head under her wing in heavy weather. Obviously, Welsford is happy that the sail area can be combined with offshore integrity. Stripped displacement 1200 kg, maximum 1900 kg. Also hard chine. You might be interested to have a look at her: www.jwboatdesigns.co.nz/plans/swaggie
Thanks Annie and David,
I'm sure the great man would think I'm a bit deranged building a reduced version of one of his designs; his motto seems to be 'the bigger the better', and as for ply/epoxy, well he'd think I was equally bonkers wasting money on expensive plastic goop!
However I'm most at home with plywood, glass and epoxy so I suppose it's a case of sticking with what I know best. It's allowed me to make all the sharp edges of normal chine construction nicely rounded with generous radii and large fillets, which as a side benefit should add a fair amount of extra strength.
My boat is an amalgam of Welsford's 'Swaggie', Buehler's 'Hagar' and the MacNaughton 'Coin Collection' boats. She has a heavily cambered continuous flush deck from stem to stern, a tiny doghouse with a Hasler pram hood on top, no other hatches and no cockpit. I I agree that 130 sq ft is a tad 'Chicken' as Arne would say, so I'll fiddle about with the sailplan, perhaps adding the 6th panel of the original Reddish rig to the bottom of my truncated 5 panel sail. I didn't want to make the battens any longer as I'm at the limit of Dmin already for the top panel's sheet span, so it would appear the only way is up. I desperately want to avoid having a boat that sails all over the habour when anchored in a breeze, and also want to maximize the chances of retaining my mast when I suffer the inevitable knockdown, or worse still, 360 degree roll. Hence my tendency towards a low, conservative rig with a short mast, even at the expense of ghosting ability.
Perhaps I should also mention that I won't be dragging a great big prop around- no engine, just an ash yuloh. The boat draws 2' 9" of which 9" is the ballast casting, so the hull itself is not hugely deep, and I reckon the displacement is approx one ton fully laden which is a good bit less than Swaggie.