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Craig Richards Tuning guide (Page 2) A Rig forestay tension: The A rig is the only suite where I change forestay tension. The rest have the forestay as tight as I can get it until I start worrying about breaking the boat or having the mast go out of column. You never want the forestay to pump or flog upwind, so for each increasing wind condition you go just a bit tighter so that you get a bit of sag, but no pumping. At the very top of A, the tighter the better and do not let it sag. The sag and a loose jib cunnigham seem to put a bit more fullness into the front of the jib and with very sensitive telltales you can see that the fuller the jib entry the longer the flow seems to stay attached to the leeward side of the jib. This is particularly helpful in very dirty air with lots of wind switches etc. The forestay length on my boat varies from 1138 to 1132mm from the lightest to strongest conditions. My go to setting when I am unsure turns out to be 1135 just as the rigging guide suggests. It will also depend on how much your backstay stretches, I use the below on my backstay: As Per Krabbe has kindly pointed out, dyneema lines are prone to shrinking. I have marks to quickly put the rigs into the boat (last minute change before heat etc), which I do check before each regatta, but over a few days the lines may still change length. I have a fairly good feeling now for what the rig should look like, but it's probably a good idea to check the lengths regularly. This is how I set up my main sheeting angle on the A rig: I put the palm of my hand against the aft quarter of the boat and when sighting from astern I have my fingers parallel to the backstay. With my hand in this position the main boom just touches my fingers. No measurments, no confusion and very easy to repeat. Yes it's wider than just about every tuning guide suggests, but at this point I am just setting up consistent sheeting angles of the main and jib (to follow in next post) With the main sheeting angle set, the jib is then trimmed such that the hole in back of the jib boom fitting is over the first knuckle on the deck. It's close to 60mm between the middle of the mast and the inner edge of the boom. In my case its also exactly the width of my three middle fingers. I posted some pictures Sue Brown took, but the posts seem to have disappeared. I seem to have put the link on my main profile and not this group ..lol. http://www.flickr.com/.../in/album-72177720308506905/... I do sail with the setting I posted. Here is my go fast mode: I run 20mm foot depths on the main and jib as a starting point. In this mode I want the boat to run with absolutely neutral helm. It can hunt the breeze slightly, but must never luff up and slow down. I never want to be pulling the bow down with the rudder. I may trim in and and push the bow up. This is absolutely the best VMG mode in the absence of other boats. You will go faster and end up higher than a boat that sails only in pinch mode. I use the bottom draft strip a lot. I want to see the maximum depth at 50% and a clean straight entry after the mast. If the fullness is further forward I flatten the foot of the mainsail further If the boat is running with a bit of weather helm as the breeze increases I will first flatten the main off to about 10mm and if that does not work I will change the trim to let the main out slightly further, but leave the jib the same. I will also flatten the jib down to 10mm at the very top end of A, but only after the main is already down to 10mm. The neutral helm also has the advantage that when I am unsighted and cant see the boat it is still sailing flat out without my input. This is also a big advantage when the boat is too far away to see clearly. That lower tell tale on the main is a great trim indicator. It should fly at a slight up angle on the weather side of about 20 degrees. In this photo it says I am sailing a fraction lower than optimum and I should push the boat up with the rudder. The neutral helm has one further huge advantage. As I tack, once I am on the new heading I seldom need to keep on some weather helm until the boat gets its speed up again and starts tracking. The boat also tacks much more cleanly as a result and I stall less when I make a mistake. I.e. its much easier to get the boat going again from a bad tack. And a great picture of John. He sheets the main in a bit more than I do, but the jib is still quite wide. This is probably his pinch mode though and if he dropped the main slightly so the jib is over the deck knuckle we would be quite close in setup. One difference is that the entry angle on the main on Johns boat at the first draft stripe is a bit wider than mine, so he would need to sheet a bit closer. My entry looks a lot flatter, so I can sheet the boom out a bit and still have a similar entry angle. This could be because I have a bit more mast bend coupled with less luff curve. I actively set my mast bend so that the luff at this height moves behind the mast. I.e. the luff sits on the centre line, not to leeward of the mast. Notice how flat he now runs his main foot depth. I was running 20mm, but John looks to be even flatter. It's also a great picture for showing the twist in the sails and a perfect example of how the twist in the jib parallels the back of the main. Active trim: My high mode has the jib width at 45-50mm, about 1cm - 1,5cm in from my best VMG mode. I have the ratchet set for the mainsail trim on my radio. I Move the trim/throttle stick on the radio so that it is two ratchet clicks up. This is the radio setting that I want to see my VMG sail setting at. I use the subtrim buttons on my radio to move the sails to that setting. With the trim all the way in I now want the jib to be at 50mm or perhaps even 45mm in very flat water. Depending on the radio, two clicks may move the trim in more than the desired 1-1.5cm so you would need to change your throttle curve. The radio I used at Fleetwood did not need it, but my newer radio moves the sheet too far and I have set a throttle curve. If there are boats around me and I need height, I will start with the boat at two clicks out and then once it up at full speed, I start to bleed the boat up as I trim in. Often you can carry a high fast mode for a length of time, but if I hit a bad wave or header and the boat slows then its immediately trim to the two clicks position, get the speed back and then work the boat up again one or two clicks. If I am in clear air and chasing then I found the boat very fast at two clicks out and did not trim in much The higher trim mode is also very useful if you get THAT boat below you that is racing only you and the fleet disappears into the distance whilst they try and luff the heck out of you. Your race is still toast, but at least it does give you some time to find a gap to tack away in. If you do have some space to leeward, then even with the wider trim you may be pleasantly surprised to see that you don't lose height and will roll over them quite quickly. I'll try and do a bit on twist, but here is a hint that I do not have enough twist in the top of my jib. Camber stripes are your friend. The bottom windward telltale is running at the angle I like, but the top one suggests I have mucked up the trim. It should match the bottom as closely as possible. Mains twist. Finicky beast. Half a turn on the vang can make a surprising difference. I can only suggest a starting point and then fiddle with small changes until the boat looks and behaves to your preferences. Looking at the boat from behind when the boat is on the water and using the picture of John's boat as a template would be a good start. Looking down the backstay from behind the boat, I want the main leech to parallel the backstay between the top two battens. It was difficult to take a photo, but fairly obvious in real life Jib Twist. I like the jib leech to parallel the back of the main for as far as possible. The upper third of the jib should also parallel the main entry angle as far as possible. Top of jib and upper third of main should start to luff at the same time as you head up into the wind. Earlier I posted a near perfect picture of John Tushingham and now I hope he forgives me for posting one a bit more ugly This was taken a month before the Globals and I think I had an edge on boat speed in this race. I never saw his boat look like this in the Globals and want to use this to point out how top sailors like him are prepared to adapt and experiment. In this photo we have similar rake, but I am running a more bent mast, with flatter sails. A much finer entry for the main as a result, which should result in a cleaner and wider slot between the back of the main and the jib. The difference in speed was very small, but even a cm or two of extra speed helps get your nose out in a crowded start and makes you look like a better sailor. Compare this to his globals setup B-Rig Quick reminder that these are my settings and opinions and are not the only way to do things. I was not very fond of the B-rig, but took the opportunity to go out and sail whenever there was enough wind in the evenings. After a few sessions of just buggering around with silly settings I started to really enjoy these sessions as the B-rig has such brilliant contrast between just sailing and sailing fast and once you found the faster settings the boat itself became increasingly easier to sail. I went into the first B-rig race at the Globals not knowing if I had got it right as I have had nobody to sail against. In short it was a very pleasant surprise and I had speed to burn. As the regatta wore on I made a few mistakes (getting off the lee shore etc) and started to second guess myself and changed the setting to trim a bit narrower, which was a mistake in retrospect, but I was not too stessed as I could still hang in for a top 3 in most races. The fastest boat was probably sail number 121. A bit inconsistent, but when he got it right had a definite edge towards the end of the regatta. There could be some advantage to the icarex sail material in these conditions, but if anything this boat was sheeting the jib wider than I do when it was flying. If you set the B-rig up anything like the A, the first thing you will most likely notice is lee helm and the first attempt to fix this would be to pull the main up to the centreline. It does balance the boat, but the groove becomes very narrow and it's hard to keep the boat going fast and tacking can become a bit harder. What worked for me was. As much aft rake as possible to take out some of the lee helm. I wanted the flattest entry angle possible with the maximum camber back at 50% in the lower third. So I bent the mast to take out all the luff curve. All 5mm of it. The tightest forestay possible, just short of breaking the boat. It makes the boat easier to tack and also takes shape out of the jib keeping the entry flatter. I wanted the widest main I could get away with and to keep things consistent I start with the main boom against the palm of my hand when my fingers are parallel to the backstay as normal. Most of the other boats do sheet a bit closer. Good, I feel I am faster. With the main boom in this position the jib boom is now over the side of the boat. 65-70mm between the mast and jib boom. I do have a 'point' mode where the jib may come in to 55-60mm, which could be used off the start line, but once clear I am sheeting out again. The jib is flat, 10mm-15 mm foot depth. The jib twist is still parallel to the back of the main, but you can twist it off a bit more at the very top of B rig conditions. The main is flat. I run 15mm, but JohnT is even flatter at 10mm or less. There is a fair amount of twist in the main, which you can get away with as with the luff curve taken out by the bent mast the slot is already very wide. The more twist you have, the faster the boat, but the limit is when the top third starts to backwind. I start with the main twist setting as follows. With the main at the VMG setting, sighting up the backstay a line drawn through the bottom two mainsail battens is parallel to the backstay. Run out of time. Will add a bit more later In the meanwhile here is a nice picture of John, over the start line , but a nice example of a fast setup B rig Sheeting Angle: More detail to follow, but its wider than you think. Three fingers will no longer do the trick. B rig: Backstay and mast: Bend that baby. Luff curve matches back of mast the entire length. Standard or 'stock' luff curve. Flat sails. Jib down at less than 15mm foot depth. I run 15mm on the main. JohnT was flatter. B-rig: More mast curve: B-Rig Main twist: Phone camera perspective mucks thing up, but a line through the ends of the bottom two battens is parallel to the backstay B-rig: Mast Curve

A checklist of everything to do before and event Some notes on measuring your settings I put this section in, because as a newcomer I was confused over how to measure some of the settings. e.g. was the jib foot measurement from the foot of the jib to the side of the boom or the centre of it. So just for clarity I show the measurements for a Britpop. All measurement are from the BG web site. Different designs will have there own measurements to achieve perfect sailing balance. To emphasise the importance of this, take a lesson from Zvonko Jelacic who won the 2023 Europeans. Every morning he would be seen with his boat fully rigged laid horizontally on a table and measuring all his rig settings before he went sailing. To get the mast rake accurate I use a a measuring stick. There are two measurements, one from the deck to a measured point on the mast. A second from the bow (at the back of the bumper to the aforementioned measured point. The marks on the rig stick are the same for the Alternative plan. See pictures below Measuring main/jib foot depth, jib boom angle and leach twist, mast ram, main boom angle Jib foot and the mainsail foot are measured from deepest part of sail to the side of the boom. Jib leech twist is measured from the topping lift wire. Jib boom angle is measured from the centre of the mast to the inside of the boom. Golden rule is the A rig should be just inside the shroud, B rig centred on the shroud and C rig pointing outside the shroud. Mast ram is measured from the 1st sheet loop. Measure the main boom angle from the centre of the post to the side of the boom ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, start with the base measurements recommended for your design. Only with experience and talking to the experts will you learn how to fine tune from there for the wide and varied conditions we experience. A couple of mm adjustment here and there can make a huge difference to performance. Lastly and there is probably some debate on this in some circles, measure your rig tension. I bought a rig tension device recently and was amazed to see the impact of one turn of a bottle screw on the rig tension. Of course once you have it right, put locking nuts on the thread into the bottle screws and you will achieve the same tension when you rig the boat. It is only worth checking again from time to time in case the wires stretch or the boat appears to slow. They are available from johngill1003@gmail.com . I thoroughly recommend these to you and no, I am not on commission.

Tuning tips from one of the worlds greatest sailors, Ken Read at the Newport Model Boat Club Dragonflite 95 Spring Clinic 2024 `(Good to see he has studied the tuning tips from our 2023 Global Champion, Craig Richard s) VIDEO Synopsis For a simple one design boat, who would have thought there was so much to think about. Measure the rake multiple times a week. Rig and setup the boat at home away from any wind to make sure balance is right A rig average rake 1135. Set the backstay before measuring the rake Use a rig stick Set the mast right back at deck level. Keep the backstay the same and tighten the jib luff bowsie slightly as wind builds. Moves rake from 1135 to 1132. Only 3mm. In light weather ease backstay 2-3mm Mainsheet bridle - glue in place so ring is level with boom eye. Makes sure it is centred Jib sheet eye on boom is well forward of deck sheet eye. Main boom out just under 90. Jib boom at 90 degrees. On a windy day sheet in slightly Main halyard. Use a single line so it can swivel and set just below silver band so the sail can pivot Use cord instead of the metal sail ties Making changes. Do down wind and behind yourself. Static loads are so much higher on shore than on the water. Learn where the max bend is on the backstay and mark as a reference. When on the water if you have heavy weather or lee helm you have not got the original set up right. If you change the rake you have to change the topping lift. 2marks on topping lift, 2 marks on headstay and 1 mark on the backstay. With these marks setup is quick and easy. Jib tack. Get as close to the deck as possible Jib cunningham - never used because the sails are board flat. Deck measurements 3 marks on the deck for sheet locations. The marks run down the boom. Make a mark with the boom and then draw 3 1 inch lines on starboard side with a ruler in line with mark to jib tack. Set up consistently to those marks. Use for course tune to get rid of weather or lee helm and a repeat reference if boat is fast. Foot measurement. Use fingers. 1 to 1.5 fingers. Measure and check with your fingers Check vang sailing downwind on the water. Taping a hatch. Start at the back and work forward so you create a water ramp. It is possible to roll gybe the boat. Jib weight pushed right in to avoid getting hooked up in a crash. Tacking in a breeze, you have to let the sheets out. High mode fast mode - Ken just uses the throttle

A directory of associations, boat builders, sail makers, fitting suppliers, building, tuning and racing tip sites. The Starting Point and references My plan for the boat was to sort the rigging and sails so that I have a reliable package which I can put on the water and race with confidence. The boat was only sailed a few times times by the previous 2 owners since 2016 so there is a lot of work to do. Here is a starting jobs list. Fair top of rudder so it fits flush to the hull. Fit Futaba Servo and new 1000mA Lifo battery Check all the electrics are working smoothly and calibrate winch Replace endless sheet cord and adjust lead approach to drum so there is a direct line with no friction Replace all sheets Replace backstay and jib leech topping lift with wire. Check weigh boat Calibrate sheeting angles Check all mainsail heads are set to just below top band. One or two of the fittings may need replacing as they look a bit dodgy Tune all rigs and calibrate and log settings Test sail and check boat is waterproof Buy more deck patches. The jobs were straight forward and I had loads of spares so no additional cost. If the hull is competitive which I believe it should be then I think an order for new sails will be on the cards as well as a lightweight swing rig and maybe a gismo to control leech tension upwind. For now I will work with what I have and assess whether the investment will be worth while. Looking around on the web I found the following references Marblehead section on the MYA Web site. This provides links to all the relevant Marblehead web sites Pimp my Marblehead by BG on the MYA web site Great information on how to pimp up older designs. More from the man himself on pimping. Here is the web link but have put extracts of the text below because it adds to the jigsaw. Its well worth reading the full article HERE Originally Posted by Brad Gibson on RC Groups.com Weight - Anything with a designed displacement upwards of 5 kg ready to race will struggle in light winds. The current competitive parameters for an all round design live between 4.4 - 4.8 kg with the most recent winning designs sitting in the 4.7- 4.8 range. - Any hull weight with radio and rudder installed ready to sail, less rig and fin/ballast, should not be more that 900 - 950 grams. The better boats live within the 780 - 840g region. - Beam Waterline should be no greater than 160mm. Current designs are as low as 130 -150mm Hull weight is 840 grams, less rig and keel. Overall designed displacement is 4.9kg. - With a newer thin profile stiff fin we go a fraction deeper on the fin and shave 100 grams off the lead. Lighter boat, similar righting moment with less drag. Win win! - The original Bantock rigs are stiff as hell for their weight so very little to do there other than modernise the sail plans to modern ratios if you desire, and replace sails accordingly. The original rigs were set some 85mm off the deck to the lower mast bands, so we follow what works on our IOM's and modern M's in cutting down the goosenecks to get things as low as we can. These last points are more fine tuning but give us a little more from the boat across the wind range. Sailsetc/Bantock swing rig plan How to program an RMG Smartwinch

DF 95 Tuning numbers If you search on the web for DF 95 tuning you can get similar images to the one below. I use it as a guide (ignoring the mast gate positions) to establish some starting points and then adjust as I feel fit. As I get comfortable with my setting I will mark up the cords so I can achieve similar setting on each outing. But the best way to set up is to copy Craig or find the fastest boat on the day and set up similar to that. How do I set the boat up Having raced twice now at a TT and the first day of the Nationals at Poole with top 2 results, I can conclude my light weather set up is OK. The following pages show how Craig sets his boat up and there are many useful tips there. However whilst I have copied quite a bit from his work the are some things I do a little different. I use the table above for foot depth and boom angle. So I start with the mast 2 notches forward from the back. I do this because my luff curve on the main is not shaved like Craigs so I need a bit more mast bend. This sets the mast rake so there is no need to measure bow bumper to the crane. With the jib luff slackish, I adjust the backstay to put in about 5 mm of bend so the mainsail sits nicely agains the mast. Then I apply enough forestay tension to keep the top of the jib is stable in the strongest gust of the day. This will stop the top of the jib wobbling which we all know is dead slow. Then I check my boom angles and foot depth from the chart and make sure the rudder is straight. The last thing I do is holding the boat, sheet everything in to make sure the setup looks OK and then gradually head the boat up into wind to check the jib tell tale and the tell tail I have at the top of the main react in unison. Then I know the boat should be balanced. I put the boat on the water to see how it sails upwind. If I have lee helm, I apply a tiny bit of kicker until the balance is relatively neutral and the reverse if there is weather helm. That is pretty much all there is to the set up. It is very easy to over complicate. Far better to go with your setup and focus on the sailing. These are one design boats and there is much to be gained by sailing smart. How do I sail the DF In summary, I think lower and faster upwind is my mantra usually with the sheets eased a notch or two to get better VMG. I do have a high mode for getting off the start line and sailing in the stronger gusts but rarely use it. Starting In a one design boat I have become more aggressive on the start line. In the past I have hung back but find you lose too much distance if the line is biased like it was at Poole. So on a very port biased line I want to be the pin end boat but this does require a level of skill and timing. If the line is squarer and there is no advantage to go left I want to be one of the starboard end boats so I have positional control on the fleet and always look to find a gap on the start so I can tack when I like. On the first beat I will try and stay to the right of the fleet so I do not get forced left by starboard boats and have to take pot luck coming into the mark on port. Of course if there is a favourable left side shift or more pressure I will head that way. On the reach or run in lighter conditions I find the boat does like heading up in the lulls and bearing away in the puffs as this maintains a better overall speed. I have used the technique in dinghies, yachts and model yachts. It all comes down to manipulating apparent wind. There is a lot more on tactical sailing round the course in the section "Racing and IOM". This winter I will rearrange the site so it covers IOM, DF and Marblehead and have racing as a separate section. Overall message is keep everything simple and focus on sailing fast when your boat is on the water.

The finished product Il risultato finale

Working up the Alioth. Boat 1 This journey with the Alioth is not about 3d printing but about working up a boat to make it competitive. My objective with the Alioth project was to work the boat up in stages and see how speed developed. There was no speed edge to start with in fact the opposite was true to start with as there were some deficiencies in the set up, but confidence is building as I optimise the boat and I see it get faster. First a caveat on the story below. If I was to do the same again, I would have bought the fins from Juan and fitted them as standard. This would give me a balanced boat. I saw the new fins fitted on a new Alioth at the end of 2024 and I have to say I was totally impressed. Save yourself a lot of trouble and go with Juan for the full boat and foil package. You won't regret it. The kit on the boat Alioth hull in Polymer PLA assembled by Paul Barton. The hull is so strong you can give it a good punch with a fist. Alioth standard fins (these were early generation fins) Winch is RMG fast 290 H1 with 45mm spiral drum Spars are PG 11mm Roller bearing gooseneck on A rig Coreless 20g Digital Metal Gear Dual Bearing Mini Rudder Servo - DFMGD1 BG Sails The Journey Now the boat is close to full race mode. It has been an interesting journey to race a vanilla standard boat, no finishing on the hull just a clear coat or 2 and no sanding. All the rigs were set with the boom band at 150mm from the step which made for a rather ugly look with the booms high and pointing up in the air slightly. The look wasn't improved on the A rig with a prebend in the mast that was more like a kink than a smooth bend and made the boat very hard to set up and sail. It did not have an edge as you can imagine. After the Hampton Court charity day, I trashed the A rig and converted it to a B rig. Then I carefully prebent a new A mast and set it up with 62mm spreaders. The result was an impressive looking BG mainsail which could be set twisty and deep for a chop or flat for a breeze on flat water. There were no hard spots causing any creases in the luff as the mast bend matched the luff curve. The challenge with prebending devices is that you can get an immediate bend at the 600mm point. The bend needs to be progressive and other than bending by hand I know of no device that can achieve this. If anyone knows a way, please advise me how it is done. The A rig mast bend matches the luff curve with no hard spots. This is the limit of bend before the sail breaks down. This Mainsail was first use in 2020 and used for practice over the last year. Pretty impressive duration and still looks superb. All three rigs had 15mm taken off the bottom of the mast to bring the boom band to the deck. It is still 70mm or so from the measuring point on the deck. I needed to shortened the gooseneck housing to lift the kicker adjuster off the deck so I could get my fingers in to adjust. Here you can just see the rake of the fin and mast and how the boom band sits just above the deck. FIngers crossed it will be perfectly balanced The jib attachment point was lowered so the jib boom is as close to the deck as possible. There has been quite a bit of discussion about end plate effects which I do not buy into because as soon the boat heels or gets into chop, the wind is blocked and disturbed by the hull turbulence. However with the jib boom low and the main boom low and parallel to the deck, the centre of effort of the sails is as low as possible. The look is good and a good looking boat is often fast. Time will tell. You cannot achieve a main boom parallel to the deck on the standard Alioth settings. The mast is too upright and if you try raking the mast you just create weather helm. To achieve the mast rake the fin has to be raked back approximately 2 degrees. Using a standard Alioth fin I shaved 2 degrees off the aft edge of the fin where it enters the fin box and added a front edge fillet using Isopon car filler making for a nice secure fit. The 2 degrees was measured with a protractor acquired in my university days. Remember to adjust the bulb angle, 2 degrees up from back to front should do it. Of course if you rake the fin 2 degrees, you move the bulb back 8mm relative to the hull which will effect the position of the correctors. When I first launched with this configuration, I removed the correctors to see how the boat would sit and was delighted to see it sat on its marks, so I added the 70gm of correctors back on the aft side of the fin box, considerably forward of their original position. The final job was to finish the hull. I had two choices. Either sand the 2 pack clear coat on the hull which was recommended by my builder, 3D printed RC Yachts, who is a licensed builder or go the whole hog and take off the clear coat and thin the hull to reduce weight and paint again. I chose the former as it was a lot quicker. The hull finish is superb with just a hint of evidence of the the two hull joins. I filled any groves with Isopon car filler. To sand the hull I started with specialist finishing paper. It has a lubricant coating which prevents clogging and saves a lot of time over wet and dry sanding. The main advantage is you can easily see the high and low spots. I used 320 grade specialist finishing paper and then polished with 1500 grade wet and dry and T cut car polish. The other minor job was to add an additional fairlead for the jib sheet. The boat only came with two fairleads so I reposition one for the B rig and added the 3rd for the C rig. Each jib boom now goes out 85 degrees on the run. I had to drill a new set of holes forward on the jib boom for the A rig. The boat is now in a position for me to check the balance which I am hoping to do tomorrow if I can find an ice free lake. What is left to do Consider the right fin, rudder and bulb shape. My early generations Alioth blades have a reverse camber at the aft end of the chord. I believe the new clades are good. The bulb has the max chord 25% from the front. There are a few choices for the rudder, e.g. John Gill (UK) who makes a nice product as well as a rig tension meter, Robot,Yachts (UK), Dave Creed (UK), Craig Smith (Australia). Need to do some two boat testing before making any decisions on this front. Once I have checked the balance and got the boat footing nicely and we get near some meaningful regattas , I will bend on some new sails as the final stage of optimisation. Of course all this work is combined with as much practise as I can fit in. It is the nut on the end of the tiller that gets the boat round the race course and all the speed in the world won't make up for bad starts and poor tactics. The sheeting set up - Feeding the main and jib sheet through the small guide hole in the upper left of the radio pot holds any loose sheets away from the winch and drum. Here you can see the 3 sheet lead positions. The numbers on the deck were hand drawn and cut. If I was to build another Alioth what would I do In constructing the hull, remove as much redundant plastic as possible and sand the hull well to reduce weight as much as possible before painting. The printed hull is approx 1mm thick. There are two options for sheeting systems. On deck sheeting where the sheets enter the deck behind the foredeck bulkhead. This will keep the boat dry. The other method is under deck sheeting with the deck entry points on the centreline of the boat. They let a tiny amount of water in although nothing significant even in wild weather. The boat does need rinsing inside after salt water sailing. Personally I like the latter set up. Other than that I would do the same as above.

Craig Richards Tuning guide (Page 1) My Thanks to Craig Richards to allow me to copy his guide that he posted on facebook following his win at the 2023 Global Championships at Fleetwood . Mainsheet bridle: The mainsheet bridal is not your friend. It can burn out winches if incorrectly set and if that does not spoil your race then it has sneaky ways of snagging your mainsheet, which it will always do at the bottom mark when you are in the lead! I think I had one of the loosest mainsheet bridle setups at the Globals. I will show detail later of what the bridal looks like with each of the rigs, but its not something I adjust. It stays the same for all rigs. Mine looks like this: The first snag is probably only on the older boats. The bridle eyes were originally a bit larger and not always screwed all the way into the hull. Because they stood slightly proud, the mainsheet could loop around them and snag. This could be fixed by tacking away if lucky, but often the boat will stall head to wind and it is very difficult to recover from quickly. If you don't realise what has happened and continue to sheet in and hope for the best, the winch is stalled and may overheat etc. The fix is to screw them in all the way and fill the recess with epoxy glue. This is about as close as I will ever sheet in. There is never less than about 5mm between the bridle eye and the boom fitting. The starboard bridle line is slack, so this is as high as you can get the bridle eye off the deck. There is almost no vertical mainsheet tension so the winch has very little load and fine adjustments to the sheeting angle are possible without affecting the mainsails leech tension. The port bowsie should be hard against the deck eye, but I mucked with it for demo purposes and have not fixed to my preference yet. With a straight run for the jib sheet, it can get a bit snagged against the mast. Yes, jib fairlead is glued as well. I'll do a section on each rig, but the further forward you move the jib boom sheeting eye the further the jib will go out on the run. I've set mine so that both the main and jib reach 90 degrees at the same time on the runs Sheeting: This is how I run my sheets. It's not optimum from a friction point of view, but there is a tradeoff between reliability and the jib setting slightly differently on port and starboard tacks. If I only use the front jib sheeting deck eye then the jib boom goes slightly further out on the starboard side. It's a small amount, which is reduced by going through both eyes ... at least I think it does. I put the jib sheet through the port bridle deck eye to keep it away from the mast. In light conditions the thin yellow line (0.20mm) gets snagged between the boom gooseneck and the deck. It's only slightly sticky, but enough to stop the jib going out on the runs occasionally. Its not necessary for stronger conditions, but I stick to one way of routing all my sheets just to keep life simple. The A rig: I'll be posting some measurements, so just want to show what my masthead crane looks like as some of them sit a bit proud of the plastic mast insert. I think the standard sail templates have too much luff curve. I have a 'custom' luff curve from Catsails that has about 2mm less mid mast. I run the top of the sail at the bottom of the silver band and the attachment point to a second hole in the mast crane. I think the top of the sail behaves better with this setup. I run the mast gate as far back as possible and never touch it. It stays like this for all rigs. The DF seems to want as much aft rake as possible. So I rake it as far as it will go. I would rather take luff curve out of the front of the sail than bend the mast further. Too much mast bend means you need more vang on the beat, but this can lead to too tight a mainsail leech on the runs Mast Rake: With no Jib Forestay tension I want the mast curve to match the front of the main sail as far as possible. The curve I settled on was to tighten the backstay until the second attachment point from the bottom was just behind the mast (NB, remember I have about 2mm less luff curve than standard). This was easily repeatable without needing rulers etc. I then marked the backstay adjustment lines and always adjust straight to this point. I never change the backstay again except at the very top of A rig I might add a mm or two. The measurement from behind the bow bumper to the front hole in the masthead crane is 1140mm. This may seem further back than the rigging guides, but remember there is no forestay tension at this point. With a flat edge behind the mast, the mast curve is only 3-4mm, which is less than I was expecting.

After 6 months experimenting, I think I am now at my final configuration which allows me to sail with the main boom parallel on all rigs. Through my whole dinghy sailing career I wanted to sail with the main boom parallel to the deck. It looks right and usually fast. Mast rake is up to 2 degrees and my challenge was getting a fin in the right position to work with this rig. The goal was to sail with a perfectly balanced boat with a hint of lee helm so when I am looking for wind shifts, the boat is sailing as fast as it can upwind. With the previous weather helm I had tended to lose speed when I looked up the course. I am using a Craig Smith fin with a Robot bulb. Fin Leading edge of top of fin to line perpendicular from bow (excluding the bumper). 500mm (measured parallel to the waterline). I have since moved this to 515mm (23/11/2024) to try and get the boat to drive off the jib instead of trying to luff up all the time. Fin leading edge is exactly 88 degrees (now 90 degrees as I moved the top of the fin back) to waterline (tiny rake) I had got this to vertical but the boat was not quite balanced right. Bulb angle to waterline 2 degrees. Bottom of bulb is 2mm above max draft Hull to top of bulb down leading edge of fin. 330mm Bow to tip of fin where it enters bulb 640mm. C of G of bulb is 5mm forward of leading edge of fin Fin weight. I can't give you the exact weight but it is lighter than anything I have seen. Rudder Depth of rudder 220. Very thin chord but no experience of stalling. I have since tried this down. Shortened the rudder by 15mm and trimmed 5mm off the back Rig Top of boom band to step 135mm A rig mast rake 1040 (bow behind bumper to 900 mm mark on mast measured from top of foredeck.) My next step is to work up a set of sails for open water. More on that as the summer progresses assuming we eventually get summer weather. In the build up to the worlds I settled on Sailboat RC sails and went for the max depth A Rig sails which I have to say have delivered good speed. I change the mast prebend a little bit and moved it further down the mast which made a significant difference in mast stiffness to the point I had to rake the spreaders back a few degrees more. The blog covers events at the worlds The only niggle with the boat this year was i the fin is still too far forward as I still get occasional weather helm and this can slow the boat in waves in a breeze so I am working on moving the top back (See above comments in brackets) but leaving the bulb in the same position

Weighing and check measuring the IOM Pesare e controllare misurare la barca Pesare la barca con l'attrezzatura A con tutti gli accessori come per andare a vela con il ponte cerotti adagiato liberamente sul barca. Dovrebbe pesare 4 kg Ripassa le regole della classe e controlla la misura della barca. Setting the boat to float on its lines What you need to know Bring your fully rigged boat up to weight with correctors Float the boat on a calm day on a fish pond, pond, or deep bath and set correctors to put boat on its lines Check measure against class rules The process Weigh and check measure Weight the fully rigged boat dry. Add two equal weight correctors on either side of the fin box at its centre to make up the weight of the boat to 4 kg . Float the boat and check to see it sits on its lines. You may have to adjust the position of the correctors. Once the boat is on its lines, mark and bond the lead corrector in with silicon sealer. I have heard that some people put a small amount of lead in the radio pot so they can make adjustments to the corrector weight if they change a fitting. Pull a copy of the class rules from the HERE Check measure as much as you can. The one measurement you may have difficulty is with the overall length and depth from water line to bottom of fin. This is done in a special tank. Click here for Measurement and Certification Procedure Thought for the day - Getting the most out of correctors Given that we spend a lot of effort getting grams of weight off the foredeck and the mast to reduce pitching moment in a chop, I started thinking about how best to build the correctors. I am looking at roughly 400 gms of lead which I want as close to the centre of the boat fore and aft, but also as low down as possible. I looked at buying lumps of lead but ended up buying lead shot which I could fashion into shape with epoxy. My goal is to make correctors as flat as possible so they sit in the bottom of the boat. The picture shows crudely the difference flat correctors might make. Small I grant but a difference none the less. The top image shows the impact of square lumps of lead at the fin box when the boat is heeled over. The bottom picture show a flattened corrector. The arrows represent the centre of mass for each corrector. The flattened version has a centre of mass lower than the square corrector and in theory when the boat is at an angle the flattened corrector provides more righting moment. All these weight changes I have made, are small. 11gms out of the jib boom, 30gms out of the mast and main boom, 200gms out of the hull of the boat, bigger and lower correctors. It all adds up to more righting moment and less pitching moment. There is easy access to the base of the fin box if you take the winch down. It was easy to lay in two strips of velcro on each side of the hull and place the correctors on this. So now they are fixed but moveable. Once you identify the correct balance point you can fix the correctors in permanently. Moulding the correctors using epoxy and lead shot which you can get off eBay. Means you can shape your correctors anyway you like Mettere la barca a galleggiare sulle sue linee Di cosa hai bisogno sapere Porta la tua barca completamente attrezzata al peso con i correttori Fai galleggiare la barca in una giornata tranquilla su un laghetto, uno stagno o un bagno profondo e imposta i correttori per mettere la barca sulle sue linee Controlla la misura rispetto alle regole di classe Il processo Pesare e controllare misura Pesare la barca completamente attrezzata a secco. Aggiungi due correttori di peso uguale su entrambi i lati della scatola delle pinne al centro per compensare il peso della barca a 4kg. Fai galleggiare la barca e controlla che si trovi sulle sue linee. Potrebbe essere necessario regolare la posizione dei correttori. Una volta che la barca è sulle sue linee, contrassegnare e incollare il correttore di piombo con un sigillante al silicone. Ho sentito che alcune persone mettono una piccola quantità di piombo nel potenziometro della radio in modo che possano apportare modifiche al peso del correttore se cambiano un raccordo. Estrai una copia delle regole di classe da QUI Controlla la misura più che puoi. L'unica misurazione che potresti avere difficoltà è con la lunghezza e la profondità complessive dalla linea di galleggiamento al fondo della pinna. Questo viene fatto in un serbatoio speciale. Fare clic qui per la procedura di misurazione e certificazione Pensiero del giorno - Ottenere il massimo dai correttori Dato che impieghiamo molto sforzo per togliere grammi di peso dal ponte di prua e dall'albero per ridurre il momento di beccheggio in un chop, ho iniziato a pensare a come costruire al meglio i correttori. Sto guardando circa 400 g di piombo che voglio il più vicino al centro della barca a prua e a poppa, ma anche il più in basso possibile. Ho guardato l'acquisto di pezzi di piombo, ma ho finito per comprare pallini di piombo che potevo modellare con la resina epossidica. Il mio obiettivo è rendere i correttori il più piatti possibile in modo che si trovino sul fondo della barca. L'immagine mostra grossolanamente la differenza che potrebbero fare i correttori piatti. Piccolo lo concedo, ma comunque una differenza. L'immagine in alto mostra l'impatto di grumi quadrati di piombo sulla scatola delle pinne quando la barca viene sbandata. L'immagine in basso mostra un correttore appiattito. Le frecce rappresentano il centro di massa per ogni correttore. La versione appiattita ha un baricentro più basso del correttore quadrato e in teoria quando la barca è inclinata il correttore appiattito fornisce più momento raddrizzante. Tutti questi cambiamenti che ho fatto, sono piccoli. 11 g dal boma del fiocco, 30 g dall'albero e dal boma principale, 200 g dallo scafo della barca, correttori più grandi e più bassi. Tutto si aggiunge a un momento più raddrizzante e un momento meno beccheggio. C'è un facile accesso alla base della scatola delle pinne se si abbassa il verricello. È stato facile stendere due strisce di velcro su ciascun lato dello scafo e posizionare i correttori su questo. Quindi ora sono fissi ma mobili. Modellare i correttori usando resina epossidica e pallini di piombo che puoi ottenere da eBay. Significa che puoi modellare i tuoi correttori come preferisci Pensiero del giorno - Installa i correttori. C'è un facile accesso alla base della scatola delle pinne se si abbassa il verricello. È stato facile stendere due strisce di velcro su ciascun lato dello scafo e posizionare i correttori su questo. Quindi ora sono fissi ma mobili. Modellare i correttori usando resina epossidica e pallini di piombo che puoi ottenere da eBay. Significa che puoi modellare i tuoi correttori come preferisci. Ultimi lavori prima del lancio La barca è completamente attrezzata, tutti e tre gli impianti di perforazione sono impostati utilizzando lo stick di misurazione dell'impianto di perforazione e le impostazioni di partenza annotate sulla mia lista di controllo. Il trasmettitore del radiocomando è stato controllato internamente per assicurarsi che non ci siano fili che toccano i gimbal per le scotte e le levette del timone. Qualsiasi contatto può creare comportamenti casuali molto strani sui gimbal. Le impostazioni radio sul trasmettitore sono come la lista di controllo. Il peso della barca è stato controllato per tutti e 3 i rig e i correttori installati sui rig B e C. Questi erano gli inserti dell'albero da 10 g che ho comprato da Sailsetc. Poiché ho risparmiato 20 grammi sull'impianto A, posso usare 20 grammi in meno di correttori sull'impianto B e C. Ho anche fissato con del nastro adesivo attorno all'albero a livello del ponte inferiore per fermare qualsiasi movimento laterale e ho aggiunto una forma modificata del tallone per fermare la rotazione dell'albero in modo che le crocette non fuoriescano dall'allineamento durante il lancio usando l'albero. Vedi l'immagine in basso. Il peso totale della barca con ogni rig è compreso tra 4004-6 gm. Le 3 patch del ponte sono a posto, quindi è pronta per la sua prima uscita lunedì, che è il mio compleanno. Ottimo tempismo per schizzare la barca. I prossimi passi sono mettere insieme un programma di allenamento e vela da costruire per i Nazionali e qualsiasi evento indicatore. Un paio di immagini qui sotto.

How I built a male plug Costruisci la spina Il processo è il migliore spiegato da Brad Gibson, nel suo video Costruisci la spina dello scafo ma ci sono alcune sfumature che tratterò di seguito: Fare clic su qualsiasi immagine per espandere l'immagine. 1 Build the styrofoam hull What you need A measured 1.1m flat board to lay the styrofoam frames onto. 2 off 600x600x100mm sheets of styrofoam. Ebay shop UHU POR glue to stick paper onto styrofoam. Amazon Hot wire cutter. Amazon Balsa wood planks for sanding the styrofoam 300*50*3mm and 400*20*5. EBay shop Builders square 600mm rule 5 minute epoxy to stick foam frames together. East Coast Fibreglass Sandpaper - Dry, various grades, course to fine, wet and dry 150 down to 2500 Epoxy resin - slow cure gives about 30mins of work time Glass to cover foam - 2 layers of 135 E cloth and 1 layer of 125 S cloth as the outer skin. East Coast Fibreglass Epoxy micro balloons for filling and for use later on. East Coast Fibreglass 2 pack high build epoxy primer. SML Paints The process The Foam Plug Mark up the board with a centreline and 100mm frame positions and a 50mm and 38mm mm frame positions according to the plan. Mark as accurately as possible and use the builders square to mark the frame lines. Print all the frames onto coloured card and cut out each frame. R ed or black provides good contrast to blue Styrofoam. The colour becomes relevant later. 6 Cut out the red paper frames with a stencil knife. Remember that the plan lines will mark the outside of the hull. You need to account for the thickness of the surface of the plug and the skin of the hull, so I cut the frames two mm inside the plan line and stick to the styrofoam with UHU Por. Cut the centre of the frame out so the epoxy can bond the foam together for a strong plug. Only glue round the edges of the card and avoid putting any glue in the deck area of the frame. Once the frame is stuck on the foam, cut a very narrow slit marking the deck about 2mm wide. The use of the slit will become obvious when you sand in the area of the deck as the gap in the red paper will indicate you are nearly at deck level. When it comes to cutting out the frames on the foam block Bear in mind when cutting out your frame, frame 5 is the largest. When cutting the stern frame, mark an outline for frame 2 and cut that out. Do the same for each frame until the central frame 5 and then do the same form the bow back to frame 5. Do this otherwise you will end up with steps rather than a fair hull. Cut out the frames using a wire cutter. As mentioned above, mark out the next largest frame and cut out. I wedged my wire cutter into a wooden board so I could get a vertical cut all the time. Practice with some samples first to judge how fast you can cut. It is a smelly process so cut the foam out doors. See image 5 above. Carefully cut out the centre of the red card hull frame and a narrow slot on the deck line to help when finding the deck during sanding. To cut the 50mm and 38mm slices I marked a line on my board, held a straight piece of wood on the board and used that as a guide to get the right thickness of frame. When you add all the frames together they should give you a length of 988mm. However, because you have added glue and card to the foam frame the width of the frame will be slightly more so sand down now side of each frame by about a mm until the width is correct. I only found out about this after I had glued all the frames together and ended up with a 1m boat before the bow bumper was fitted. Starting at frame 5 in the middle, glue the frames to the board and themselves, 1 at a time using 5 min epoxy. Remove excess styrofoam with the hot wire and sand coarsely into shape as you go along. Only stick the styrofoam with the epoxy. Only sand with a sanding board and always down the length of the hull to start the fairing process. Once all the frames are in place, bring the surface down with coarse paper until you start to see evidence of the red card. At this point move to the lighter sandpaper and carefully sand until all the red card is just exposed. If you have been patient the hull should be perfectly fair and true. I was amazed at the end result. Use a saw and remove the hull from the build board. Start at the stern and keep the cut well clear of the rising deck. Be careful with the plug as the foam will damage easily. Once removed I supported the hull with bubble wrap. Sand down the deck in the same way as the hull. Sand the radius edges on the corner of the deck as per the plan. The Foredeck Prepare the foredeck frames as before. 15 Glue the frames together on the deck and chamfer the edges slightly to get a tight fit. Protect the hull with cling film so as not to glue the foredeck to the hull at this stage. Glue onto the hull and sand to final finish. Fill any gaps with 5 min epoxy and micro balloon filler. Sand very carefully to finish. Add a post for handling the plug and keep it a max of 50mm from the foredeck. Epoxy and glass the hull Rough cut 3 layers of 4-5oz glass e cloth to wrap completely around the plug. Draw a line along along the keel line on the foam plug and the cloth so you can align the cloth exactly. Support hull post in work bench and apply 3 layers of to 4 -5 oz glass and epoxy resin to hull and decks. Use peel ply as a final layer. Take care with corners and ends to make sure there are no air bubbles. For each layer I apply the glass and epoxy to the hull and then turned the plug over and did the deck. I applied 1 layer after the other until all three are complete. On my second build I left each layer 45 minutes to cure which made it easier putting the next layer on. Paint the plug in epoxy and add the first layer. Use a roller to remove air bubbles and saturate the cloth. Once the first layer is on, carefully paint on more epoxy and add the second layer. Repeat for the third layer. Once you are happy with the result, wrap the hull tightly in peel ply, which will absorb any excess epoxy and prevent an amine finish. Images 19-21. When working with epoxy, make sure you are in a well ventilated area, you are wearing nitril glove and preferably glasses or safety glasses in the event of flicking epoxy in your eyes. Epoxy will start to go stringy after half an hour or so. When it does, throw away what's left, clean tools and gloves with acetone, reload with fresh epoxy and continue the layup. The temperature during layup must be 10 degrees or higher and ideally cure at room temperature or higher. Remove the peel ply and immediately add 2 coats of high build epoxy primer. This will look really ugly but once sanded with wet and dry and polished with t-cut, you will have a beautiful plug on which to mould your hull. Finally apply at least 6 coats of release wax in preparation for laying up the hull. Next Section First Alternative Build