NSW
510 posts
i sail on a vs .. 15ft skiff .. we are 20kg lighter than the gun boar .. thier centerboard is 8% cord thickness while ours is 10% meaning thier board is longer and skinier .. our sails are designed for our lighter crew weight but they power away from us upwind and down wind .. annd one know anny thing about centerboard thickness and rudder thicknesses ? anny idears
QLD
128 posts
Dont miss the fine print where the guys on firestopper have been sailing VS's for 10+ years and are bloody good at it.
The longer and skinnier the board the greater the potential lift from the board and also greater ability to depower through it's flex.
NSW
510 posts
so what .. ud make it as skinny as posible as long as its strong enouf to have 2 bloks stand on it after a capsize .. i read that a catermarans hull is at a ratio of about 20:1 being 20ft long 1 foot wide .. ? and im nick auston . my dad lindsay sails on firestorm ... i live at sunshine .. :)
QLD
128 posts
Yep, in essence the longer and skinnier the better as long as it is stiff enough to support the load. The point where the drag co-efficient is met is something for someone much smarter than me (ask Bob Foster to work it out). A VS being a planing hull and probably hitting top speed at about 10/12 knots uphill I am guessing would not gain too much by having a board that was 2 feet longer and 4 inches narrower, but you are not trying to gain too much and it might be a gain.....
I sail a contender at Sunshine, in the contenders the lighter guys intentionally use quite soft boards to de-power the boat as the rules are the board which is quite big simply needs to match a template.
And Alf is worried about you taking your dads title so go for it!
NSW
210 posts
I sailed at the lighter end of crew weights in northies a few years ago and found that I was happier using a thinner board than the heavy guys wanted. I figured that at the lighter weight we were less likely to stall out the board because we didn't have the righting moment to push it sideways hard enough. We combined the thinner board with flatter sails and minimal drag and seemed to perform pretty reasonably.
