Trials

Trials

The first test of the completed boat turned out to be at the regatta. Unfortunately I discovered a serious flaw with one of my modifications.
My boat simply would not turn in the wind. Although it had pretty good speed and could keep pace with the other boats, once I got to the marker, I could not turn. Often, I had to spin around and do a 270 degree turn instead of a 90 to get it to go in the proper direction. Needless to say, this cause be to do very poorly. I initially blamed it on the the mini servo I used for the rudder. I though it was just too weak to handle the strain. I went as far as replacing it with a full sized unit only to find I still had the same problem. I was completely baffled until...
...I received an email from David Goebel, webmaster for the AMYA. He pointed me to the real problem, my sails. Simply put, my jib sail was losing it's shape and needs a line in the front to keep it from curling. Here is his letter: Greetings, David Goebel here, the original Victoria Resource Center webmaster and current AMYA webmaster. I was looking over your Victoria construction pages and wondered if you learned any lessons about that stock jib arrangement in your first regatta. By the way, my compliments to you on many of your upgrade decisions and arrangements, as well as the website. On your Victoria controls construction web page at http://www.marinerc.net/sail/victoria/victoria_controls.htm I noticed you mentioned you couldn't turn across or into the wind as other boats could, but that you were attributing it to the rudder servo. Believe me, though a standard servo does the job, the tacking across the wind problem was more due to the luff of the jib not being stayed. No real sailboat in the world has a free luff on a jib, and when you put fairly good wind pressure on that free luff stock jib, the luff curls considerably making a HUGE rounded leading edge, stalling the jib and not allowing it to "pull" through head to wind. If you had used the mini servo, but aftermarket sails or put a jib forestay on that stock jib, your boat would have turned just fine. Been there done that. By the way, free sail templates are available (cost of mailing maybe) and most folks near any sailing communities can pick up scraps of TriSpi 25 to make their own "aftermarket" sails. -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Fair Winds, David Goebel, AMYA webmaster AMYA # 9869 - Victoria, V-32, and R/C Laser http://www.amya.org =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Last Update: 05/05/08