Having just recivied the latest copy of the hand book I notice that admiral cuppers can now be double bottomed, is this correct and if so when did this change occur. I know I am not the fastest but I totally missed any discussion on this, when did it occur. It does appear to me to be a bit of a pointless step in the wrong direction, but then who am I but a admiral cup boat sailor.
Angus
Indeed you are correct about the change.
The Admirals Cup was originally donated to Burton Week to encourage competition between older boats. when the double bottomed boats came along it was quickly perceived that there was a difference between old and new boats. It was at this point that the term Admirals Cup was first used outside of Burton Week. The "definition" has been successful. Some double bottomed boats are even becoming old now. The first Winder Foolishes have done more than 10 Burton Weeks if they have been to all of them! There are few retrofitted double floor boats and those that have been done are clearly old and within the spirit of the gift of the trophy. We want all boats to come to Burton Week including any which the owner has decided to fit a double bottom to. We hope the rule change will get these boats out on the water and may also encourage projects on older boats which would otherwise have not been contemplated.
As with all things like this the decision is not straight forward. The key principle is that Admirals Cup = Old Boat, not Admirals Cup = Single bottomed. There are no new Admirals Cuppers!
Hope this makes sense!
That seems quite a big decision to be sneaked out! It'll be OK Angus as long as you don't capsize. Perhaps one of the redundant trophies could be reinterpreted as a prize for the first single bottom admirals cupper?
Phil
Angus/Phil,
I don't think this is a very big decision at all, it adds about 3 or 4 older boats with a DB conversion to the Admirals Cup. There is no evidence at all that these boats are significantly faster or slower than their peer group, with the possible exception of the very, very well sailed Bouncer at Burton Wk in Brixham and in that case you could argue that a new mast, sails, the weather and top helm and crew had more to do with their results. As a class we have a history of people updating their boats, and there are already a few examples of AC boats with a carbon rig.
These are my views, I was not involved in the decision and have probably in the past heard it discussed at committee half a dozen time.
Antony
N3514
I missed this one too but I would aplaud it.
It is a return to the original idea of Admiral's cup, which was for old boats.
I have a bit of a personal one here because I had an old boat which was cheap, fun and competitive as an Admiral's cupper.
The "no double bottom" rule was enacted with almost no debate and meant that I ended up with a boat of very margin competitivity and now not an AC boat either - this was a strong disincentive to updating your boat.
Adding a double floor takes a bit of work and requires you to be careful with weight, but it gives you a dry boat and is a good sight cheaper than 1000 pounds for a carbon mast - more than the value of most AC boats.
A double bottom isn't obligatory - 3162 is still very fast possibly even faster in light airs than ever.
Single bottom boats are better inland and in light airs.
Double floors make the boat dry if you assume you are going to ship loads of water.
However they are a pig to right and do make it more likely that you will fall over in the first place - because it puts the crew higher in the boat and gives less space between the floor and the boom.
I have capsized my double floored boat more than I've ever capsized a single floored boat.
As for Bouncer, I don't think Joe would claim it was a "Bouncer" as a hull shape. There is very little of the original boat left - not even the daggerboard...and there we have another thread in the making..
More doublethink than double bottom!
As Antony very well knows, the post from Angus was not about the rule but about the way the rule changed - with no discussion.
I quote "The 'no double bottom' rule was enacted with almost no debate"; this is evidence that this has happened before, and two ungoods don't make a good.
I'm frankly taken aback by the Blackwhite that double bottom boats arn't faster than single bottom boats, it seems any fact can be bent to assist any cause - doubleplus ungood.
Phil
Sorry Phil, you are right that i did miss that point while debating the more general one.
The eligibilty for the Admirals Cup is something that has always (in my time around the class) been decided at a winter meeting of our elected General Committee. It has in the past been just as contentious (if not more so) than this change and has not been debated at an AGM. Interestingly this subject comes up almost every year, and the change that has been made has probably been discussed every year since about 1998. As Meds points out the only difference is that we now choose to use the eligibility more widely than just at Burton Wk.
I guess the answer is to be on the GC next winter..... 'we' did elect them... or perhaps this leads to an even wider question about whether we should use new communication and technology to make the NTOA more democratic... one for another thread.
Antony
Antony, you did make me smile with the:
"There is no evidence at all that these boats are significantly faster or slower than their peer group"
Next time you are on the sea I will give you a 5 gallon drum full of water to carry up every beat and see how you compare to the other boats that came out of the same mould. I think that is how much we had in Hot Fuzz on every beat at Teignmouth. Yes I know a deck would have made a difference but there you go...
On principle a development class should develop and people should be encouraged to update their boats. What would be the step to far would be the inclusion of the early Foolishes in the AC class. If that happened you might as well make a bonfire for all the old single bottom boats.
The solution is simple, take Philip's very sensible idea. Create another prize. The more prizes the better.
Why not: vintage, four plank, single bottom, Admirals Cup, Double Bottom... Comments?
Simon
3470
Derek, one you forgot to mention DB = painful Knees!
I agree that the Admirals Cup criteria has changed in the past and must change again. All Old boats were new once and all new boats will one day be old. I have no problem with the new crieria but the handbook contradicts itself. This gives the definition in the first paragraph (on page 9) as ...'none self draining boats not having a double bottom or similar hull construction.' but in the second states irrespective of hull configuration.'' One of these paragraphs must be wrong.(http://www.national12.org/blahdocs/Smilies/undecided.png)
Some form of clarification would be great....I sail 3412, which is included in the definition as she is under 3414, but she is double bottomed / self draining.
I think the boat database needs updating 'cause that says shes a single-bottom.
Chris,
Don't worry - you are not the only one! 3003 is most definately has a double bottom and isn't on the list either. Oh! and I think the Ella (3344) is missing too. I suspect that there are a couple of others that have been b/d'd too and aren't on the list.
The problem is that if d/b's are retro fitted a new measurement form isn't raised when they are re-measured (always assuming that does happen"!) so the Classes Hon Records Officer isn't aware of the change and the Classes records aren't updated.........................:B
So the if anyone reading this has a boat that has been retro fitted with a double floor and it hasn't been recorded, a message to Michael Brookman would seem to be the polite option.................... and yes I am doing it!!!
Of course silly me. Looking at the hand book I see my mistake, The Admirals cup is just some minor cup awarded at Burton week and has nothing to do with any gill or travellers compertition. Really it doesn't make much difference to me, I'm still going to be at the back what ever I sail.......... except........ If you look at the Northern travellers out side of Tynemouth and yorkshire Dales oh and Scaling dam there isn't a decent patch of water among them, and in the midlands Paul Turner has openly said that it is set up to try and put old boats on an equal footing. I don't really know anything about the midlands, but in the North there are only two dbs regularly travelling. I don't think it is intentional but people just go to the ones where they have do better. hence Windermere, Filey and Derwent have all gone. Perhaps Thia is why Bernard and Mark are the most regular sailors on the Scottish curcuit.
I probably havn't said this very well but This move made By a few people may actually discourage morre people than it encourages to come to Burton week and serve to heighten the north south divide.
Also I think this move is akin to allowing 4 plankers into the vintage section.
Work is depressing, so i keep popping to the NTOA website....
Angus, do any of the boats impacted by this change even sail in the Scottish or Northern circuits? If not how can it have such an impact. The AC rule is important at both Burton Wk and now elsewhere, indeed it is a great trophy too and well worth winning. To your point about the 'few', it is a democracy and i trust the people on our Committee a lot further than others elected to represent me in other capacities...
Simon, I said 'evidence' , I for one have never really seen a test of two boats of the same design/weight/rig etc with and without the DB. I have not been convinced that the retro-fit DB boats (as that is all we are talking about) benefit from the same dramatic increase in stiffness that clearly helps the new boats.
There are clear advantages to having boat self-drain but to me they only really apply on the sea. On flat water the DB boats fall over more and are harder to right, only partially offset by coming up dry and the 'no bailing' benefit.
Chris, You highlight a difficulty of this rule, that there are boats with DBs that were built slowly and so have early numbers just as there are one or two late numbers on AC boats. I am not even sure i know how 3412 fits into this story... was it a retro-fit or an early original DB!?!
Look forward to seeing you all at TB if not before!
Antony
Angus,
The midlands is the bit of the country between the north and the South LOL;D
This is an aside to the main theme of this thread but I just wanted to debate: 'There are clear advantages to having boats self-drain but to me they only really apply on the sea' ... Antony - I agree with all of your posts on this thread but I'm not sure I'm entirely with this statement. On the river in light / gusty conditions, d/b boats get rid of any water as soon as it comes in - and when I roll-tack, that's pretty often. Single-bottom boats always sail around with water slopping in the bottom that the self-bailers won't shift. That's actually less of a problem in breezy conditions on the sea when the s/bailers usually work pretty well. Of course the downside of d/b boats on the river is that the higher floor gives less room for your legs, but after some years, I have got used to it and my Numinous tacks like a dream too. D/b boats are at a significant disadvantage righting after capsizes and they feel more precarious dead-running in a blow, again because of the feeling of sitting on, rather than in the boat, (and also maybe because the Numinous wobbles a lot downwind).
Mike D
N3496
The Numinous does wobble a lot downwind! Our Feeling Foolish feels far more stable even if we are sitting on it rather than in it.
Mike,
You might be right, I did think twice after writing that and think that perhaps I did not sail on rivers enough to comment. The best bit, with no doubt, is that the crew does not whinge about bailing.
Antony
Interesting thread here from November 2006!
http://www.national12.org/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.cgi?m-1162487380/s-8/highlight-Admirals+Cup/#num8 (http://www.national12.org/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.cgi?m-1162487380/s-8/highlight-Admirals+Cup/#num8)
No one ever got in touch. Thanks for the feedback. Lets see how it goes. It is all about more people on the water.
From my knowledge converted boats are...
3412, 3344, 3003, 2993, 3291.
I put a double bottom into N3291 (a Design 8 ) last winter and I sailed it pretty intensively at Salcombe last season and there definitely is a performance advantage over a single floor boat. The extra foam and glass put 3291 a couple of KG over-weight but that is irrelevant compared to our previous habit of carrying ten times that amount of sea water around with us. The advantage is there in choppy conditions, but much more so on very light days when self bailers don't work. With the double bottom we can roll tack very aggressively without worrying about shipping slops of water....previously we used to finish light wind races barely afloat short tacking to the finish line... The double floor is bonded to the hull and so the stiffening effect will also be there to a similar degree as for a new boat.
Having said all that, even with a carbon rig, new sails and a double bottom the boat is still slower than a Foolish, particularly on a reach, planing slower and later. The double bottom closes the gap but doesn't make a 20 year old boat fully-competitive. I can see the merit in updating the definition of 'old' to include converted double bottoms. A 20 year old boat would probably not be considered competitive even in a one-design fleet.
I lost out on a nice Gill T shirt at last years Salcombe Gill event under the earlier Admirals Cup definition and was quite relaxed about it until I realised that,to add insult to injury, the 'first Admirals Cupper' T shirt went to one of my boys instead! Perhaps the revised rule might encourage more people to retro-fit double bottoms, although the amount of work involved is very high price to pay for the chance at winning a T shirt.
Simon Ballantine N3431 (the kids are sailing 3291 this year!)
Thank you John and Anthony for keeping me right. I must admit simon that this fact that in might encourage more people to retro fit floors that wories me, liking a boat hat i can sit in even if water is sloshing about my ankles.
Obviously my arguement is floored as nobody else apart from Phil seems bothered ( maybe because they are all gravitating towards vintage, can I now put a doble floor in a vintage boat chadders?) and neither of us are exactly in the medal hunt.
I must admit although you seem to be missing a few boats I thought that far more boats had been retro fitted with double bottoms including 3410.
I must admit i am now considering some alterations to Agent Orange to improve drainage
What about 3402 - Epilogue? I'm fine with the inclusion of some older boats into the AC definition - i just think a new trophy needs to be awarded for the single bottom brigade, because there will be a significant handicap to carrying all that water around a course.
Phil
It's interesting to note that the Admiral's Cup winner at the Burton in 2008, Bicycle Clips (N3162), finished 16th overall beating many more modern DB hulls in the process despite being not far off 30yrs old. She was a very successful boat in the early 80's and has subsequently been significantly brought up to date with carbon rig, foils etc. (She was also very well sailed by Gareth and his crew. ) So, in the end, will adding a double-bottom to an older 12 necessarily going to make it go faster ? I suspect that a bit of 'pimping' in other areas of the boat and a honing of our particular skillset could well produce more dramatic results. Tim
Have to make sure credit is given where it's due Bicycle Clips was expertly crewed through 2008 by Katie
Having sailed 3162 against a variety of other boats through 2008 in various conditions there are 3 main things that stop her really getting into the main DB pack rather than hanging onto the coat tails.
1) The nut on the stick, especially in the breezy stuff I'm still spending much more effort concentrating on keeping the rig above the hull rather than race tactics and pure boat speed. No complaints here though that's why I bought a 12 to keep me on my toes and even after a year she still does that.
2) Although the carbon rig on 3162 makes a noticeable difference when lined up against other tin rigged boats, upwind I don't think I'm making the most of the rig, wandering round the boat park the big difference is rig tension, I wouldn't want to pile that much tension through a 30 year old wooden hull. Off the wind when the rig tension is off anyway there is no complaint about straight line boat speed.
3) The obvious one, carrying water, don't have many problems with this until either I do something stupid and fill her up or the chop gets up.
Looking forward to lining up against a few more AC boats in 2009.
Gareth
N12 3162 Bicycle Clips
The Merlin’s have had a great revival with their old boats. A number of people have put carbon rigs/Kevlar sails on 50's boats and regularly clean up on the river even against the latest boats. Their vintage wing have now introduced a handicap system based on key performance enhancements like carbon rigs, new rules (big) spinnakers and so on. Perhaps this is something for the 12's to consider? At the moment the Admirals Cup covers anything from an Uffer King to a 90's Baggy, OK we have vintage = clinker but even that is not fair on the metal plate / ribbed boats.
Picking up on Gareth's comment on rig tension limitations on an old wooden hull I wonder if there is a partial solution to this. Dave Croft sails his wooden boat with a lot of rig tension. The hull is reinforced against this load with what I would call bracing bars. From memory they run from the decks (near the shrouds) to the mast step.
Has anybody else tried this?
my grp baggy has an "L" section of aluminium that is bolted to the knee at the shroud base to the front of the C/B housing (just aft of the mast foot. These double up as tie ons for the toe straps as well. This winter I removed them to repair the starboard knee as the rig tension was pulling it off the boat. With this in mind I refitted the aluminium sections - despite the weight issues. I would imagine on a wodden boat it would help stiffen it up as well. Attaching things that do stiffen boats can often move problems though so be sure to be confident in the place you fix said bits of metal/grp/carbon. Wooden boats sometimes need a bit of give in them otherwise they are too stiff for their own good - bit of a balancing act!
Tony
"Dave Croft sails his wooden boat with a lot of rig tension. The hull is reinforced against this load with what I would call bracing bars" - The "bars" are in fact wires which take some of the compression loads from the mast up to the deck/hull near the shrouds. They don't completely triangulate the forces but I believe they do add some stiffness and have probably helped keep the old boat from suffering the rig tension. I run between 350 and 450 Lbs tension (don't know if you cal that a lot these days).
Also, I used to own Tony's boat 3255. The sopace-frame in his boat is designed with a similar aim in mind but is probably better at traingulating the forces. This was avery good idea and was seen the Cheshire Dinghy and Dive baggies such as Twice Shy in the 80's. I think it didn't catch on because it did not allow a foredeck although perhaps it could have been modified to. I think as new materials evolved the need to have a space frame was less important, a bit like racing cars!
This rule change could, just possibly, transform open meeting numbers ..
I too was a little suprised by the change when I first found out about it at Burghfield last weekend. Initially I was quite disappointed, but on reflection I think this could turn out to be a very good idea because it is now possible for owners of old boats to upgrade and really improve performance without putting them out of contention for the AC trophies. The real potential gain here could be in providing a way to get reasonably competitive middle order (rather than back marker) boats for a price that would fill the gaping hole in the second hand boats list.
Bouncer has sort of shown the way with this - maybe we can't all aspire to doing such a superb rebuild job or sail the boat so well afterwards, but real improvements in performance should be possible and potentially at a great price.
Any opinions? ...All you boatbuilders out there, amateur and professional; could a decent job be done somehow for £3,500.00 or less??? (ie buy an old boat, fit double floor, carbon mast, new sails and perhaps a kevlar skin for the wooden boats). Could some kind of kit be produced for the more common designs, or perhaps some pre made flooring material that a home builder with woodworking skills could work with ???
If it could be shown that a competitive middle order boat could be put on the water for this sort of money, I think we could see boat numbers and open meeting turnouts suddenly heading very much the right way. What would also really help move this, and would offset any forthcoming minimum weight reductions would be a relaxation in some rules specifically to keep the AC boats at least middle order competitive - eg the gunwale overhang rule, so the old boats could be widened up forward to give the crew more hiking power, or perhaps allowing a lower centre of gravity on the mast etc .... Wouldn't it be great to see more old, rejuvenated boats like Bouncer fighting for the money places against the likes of Babel Fish ??
There are so many reasons for keeping the older boats competitive - not least the environmental one, but imagine if you could put a decent boat on the water that could get you the middle of the main fleet and the front of the AC for around three grand - that sounds like a real bargain to me!!
Any thoughts?
Brian
3111 (heading for retirement unless she can be made competitive again)
Well done Brian, I think that’s a very good summary of the effects of this change and what might lie ahead for us AC owners.
My first thoughts on this issue were how did such performance changing rule get through without knowledge (to us mere mortals) of the discussion even taking place and then how such a performance changing rule could get out without a fanfare of publicity, without any mention in The Latest Chapter, nay, without even a whisper, in fact sneaked into the middle of this year’s handbook? There are earlier comments about sailing round with 20 kg of water sloshing around in the bottom of the boat etc even if you did fit buoyancy to the max of the “old Ruleâ€. What would the uproar be if the committee reduced the all up weight of the boat by the same amount? Can you imagine? Yet this is what has happened to AC boats with this change which far, far outweighs the effect of any nuance of the methods of measuring sails, battened mains or, dare I speak those words (Yes I do, it’s a development class) even lifting centreboards? Not even the press office of Number 10 or Number 11 could have got news out with such little publicity.
I don’t mind the change, in fact I welcome it with open arms, I don’t mind the means by which the information was put out but as an entrant for Burton Week, for which this change could have a major impact, but I do have a big issue about the timing of this “announcementâ€. Burton week is early this year and it doesn’t leave much time for radical surgery.
Enough of that. This change could pimp AC boats in a real performance enhancing way, increase their life and inject new life into the older boat market (to the good of all). OK, the hull shapes might not be as fast and you might not plane as early but it does mean that you won’t fall out the back door in a tacking duel in light weather as you scoop up water every other tack and you won’t grind to a halt upwind in a chop.
I, too, believe that Jo has shown us the way and well done to the committee for allowing such a radical change
OK boat builders, how about a kit? A couple of vacuum bagged floor panels, carbon one side, foam and glass the other that can be cut to size, some bulkheads and a pot of gooey stuff should do the trick. Any takers??