How did I miss this one

[Jane Wade]

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.

[Antony (Guest)]

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

[John Meadowcroft]

Interesting thread here from November 2006!
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.
 

[simon ballantine]

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!)
 

[angus]

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

[philipcosson]

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

[Tim Gatti]

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

[Gareth (Guest)]

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

[Dave Croft]

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.

[Alistair Edwards]

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?

[tonyelgar]

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]

"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!

[Brian 42]

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)

[Phil Brown]

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 Rule”. 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 “announcement”. 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??