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VA Si ¢ pine CORES ‘BRANDENBURG FRIGATE AN ARGUS SPECIALIST PUBLICATION 5 JUNE 1987 £1.20 (ui MODEL MAGAZINE _ Curved Air With Model Yachting Association General Secretary Russell Potts wasn’t possible to go sailing with the local model yachtsmen, who normally use a reservoir in the mainland New Territories; but they did lay on an evening session at the Royal H K Yacht Club. There were a few Marbleheads drifting very gently round the small swimming pool under the floodlights, but there was no wind so we adjourned to the Club restaurant for a meal Pacific Tour At long last, I am able to bring you some of the material that I accumulated during my trip to the Antipodes over the turn of the year. First stop was Hong Kong, where the Harbour was, to my mind, a much better entertainment than going shopping. At almost any time of the day or night it was full of a busy to and fro of just about every sort of powered craft from big container ships down to tiny sampans fitted with underpowered outboards. The level of activity was something that probably hasn’t been seen on the Thames since before 1939. I could have sat on the pier all day with no hardship at all. One thing I didn’t see however was a junk under sail, or indeed any craft not under power. I suppose they must keep a few traditional sailing junks for the postcards they sell to tourists but, like boats propelled by oars or the typical Chinese sweep, they are a thing of the past as far as serious business is concerned. And business is what Hong Kong is about. Miles and miles of almost identical shopping malls trying to sell the same ranges of goods to tourists got a bit wearing and I was glad to spenda day on the water on a trip round the island and through Aberdeen harbour, the local fishing port. The vessel is a superannuated Star Ferry, but the decoration has to be seen to be believed. Gilded dragons and fairy lights overall. One of the pagodas on the upper deck conceals the diesel exhaust and the other is the wheelhouse, tarted up to provide local colour. I offer this as a rather different subject for the scale modellers. The fishing craft come in all shapes and sizes from tiny sampans. Sampan means ‘three planks’, and the very smallest are literally made that way; the larger ones preserve the form, but run to rather more separate pieces of wood. The seagoing fishermen are fairly similar in form to what you find in Europe, except that they are with very few exceptions built of wood, usually teak. They build them in the traditional manner, on very simple ways laid straight onto the beach. The most impressive thing about Aberdeen was the immediate impression of similarity to fishing ports at home, with large numbers of small craft stuffed cheek by jowl into a small space. The main difference is that Chinese fishermen and their families live on board on a permanent basis. As we were only on the island for a few days and these did not cover a weekend, it and achat. The club, strictly speaking the H K Model Yachting Association, though there is only one active group at present, is about 20 strong and sails Marbleheads almost exclusively. The mainstays appear to be Dick Eastwood, who visits Europe most summers to sail in a major event and Bill Zakorsky, their Commodore, who is a professional modeller and GRP moulder. One result of Bill’s business interests is that most of the boats in the club are very well made and finished. The most popular design at present seems to be the Paul Lucas Cedar 4, but there are American designs such as Spot and Bone also in evidence. The club are having some difficulty over their main freshwater sailing area because the H K Water Authority, which own the redundant reservoir, have done a deal with the local Sports Association to give them control of all redundant water in the colony. In doing so, they ‘forgot’ that they already had a commitment to the model yachtsmen, who were not affiliated to the Sports Association. There are other sites which the club can use, but they are not so satisfactory. I hope we shall hear that they have resolved their difficulty. They are a lively bunch and produce boats of a very high standard. Despite their isolation from the mainstream of the sport, and the restricted range of competition open to them, the standard of sailing they show when they come to Europe is high. Many of their members are also active in full size yachting in the colony, everything from dinghies to IOR boats in the China Sea race from Hong Kong to the Philippines. But full size sailing in the immediate vicinity of the island is becoming increasingly difficult as the commercial activity of the island spreads further and further, so there isa teady trickle of new members who don’t want the hassle of having to sail miles from their base before they can even get to the course to start racing. Perth and Adelaide The trip had been carefully planned to arrive in Western Australia in time to take in the last week of the Challenge Round Robin for the America’s Cup. Unfortunately, two or three boats dropped out at earlier stages and, just like a vane race schedule, the whole thing took fewer races to come to a conclusion. The series had only two more days to run when I arrived. I wonder if next time the organisers should borrow from model yachting practice and puta really heavy penalty on boats that withdraw after racing has started. Given the fact that most of the syndicates that dropped out did so because their performance could not justify the continuing expense of staying in Fremantle, it would have to be something serious like $250,000, so that it was cheaper to go on than drop out. MODEL BOATS The whole Cup extravaganza was considerably less than Fremantle had hoped and expected and there will bea number of entrepreneurs sucking their scorched fingers over schemes that overestimated the number of visitor s and the amount of money they were willing to spend. One advantage of the small numbe r of spectators and the large number of competitors was the relative ease with which spectator craft were able to get close to the action. With three courses in use and three races on each course each day there was little or no pressure on space and the buoys which were set 150 metres outsid e the course markers and designed to keep the spectator fleet at a safe distance were honoured mainly in the breach. So we were able to get a lot closer than seems to have been the case off Newport. There is more thana little truth in the description of a match race as being as exciting as watching the grass grow. Most of the races were not close and even at the starts many of the skippers went to great lengths to avoid tangling with the opposition. By the time I was there most of the decisions about who was going home for Chrismas had been taken and all the boats had the measure of the opposition. After all, they had been sailing agains t each other for the best part of three months . This meant that the interest lay in seeing the way the boats were handled in the fairly heavy swell that was characteristic of Gage Roads and in becoming very expert on the finer points of spinnaker handli ng at the marks. The fleet race that was arrang ed for the boats that were going home after the end of the round robin stages was a much better entertainment and, as you will see, produced better photographs. In the last day’s racing KZ7 sailed against Tom Blackaller’s USA and trailed her for the first five legs of the course . Mike Beilby, (the Western Australian who sailed in the RM World’s last year and who was my main contact out there), and I were sure that this was not what we had expected. As they reached the lee mark at the start of the sixth leg we agreed that Chris Dickso n was sandbagging and that he wanted to get some practice in coming throu gh from Opposite: decorated Hong Kong excurs ion boat leaving the pier, and a Superannuate d fishing craft, now used only as accommodatio n. Top: Aberdeen Harbour with fishing craft in rows. Next down: sampan of relatively large size returning from fishing. Next: intermediate size fishing craft; still preserves basic form of sampan . Bottom: fishing boats returning. These are some of the largest and most modern of the fleet and have a hull form peer to European styles. All photos: Russell otts. JUNE 1987 323 behind. At that stage of the racing he was, by some distance, the skipper with least experience of being behind. He must have heard us, for on the next beat KZ7 took nearly a minute out of USA, going from 20 seconds down to 30 odd seconds ahead. She simply changed gear and went visibly faster. It was things like this, rather than simply her position at the top of the heap at the end of the round robin stages that persuaded me that, of all those that I had seen, the New Zealand boat was in with the best chance. With hindsight, I have to explain why I didn’t spot that Conner had more in reserve. All I can say is that in the racing I saw, he didn’t have to try hard to win his races against relatively lowly placed boats. More generally, I underestimated the extent and effect of the changes in configuration that all the boats except KZ7 were making between the stages of the racing. With the emphasis on hull and keel design in the present series the ability to take a hacksaw to the hull and make slight, or even radical, alterations was a big plus factor for the traditional aluminium boats which the plastic fantastic could not match. There was no significant improvement in the performance of KZ7 after the Round Robin. The other boats, particularly Conner, all made some changes and in general obtained some improvements. The New Zealand breakthrough of usinga plastic hull gave them advantages in the early stages, not least the opportunity to have two identical hulls, KZ3 and KZ5, in the work up stages at much less cost than building two aluminium boats. In the longer run, by locking them into the design configuration 324 they had chosen at the beginning of the racing, it may have been a disadvantage. In all the welter of high technology and research that the various syndicates poured into the circus this time, two things strike me. First we have probably reached the stage of development in computer analysis of designs that means that there is no longer any real need to make tank tests, provided always that you have the resources to pay for very high powered computers and lots of time on them. This may be no more expensive than comprehensive tank testing, and is almost certainly going to produce a result quicker. From what some of the backroom boffins have been saying since it finished, I infer that it is now possible to set up a computer to run automatically a series of performance simulations on an almost infinite range of combinations of design characteristics, and to identify those combinations that perform better than some known benchmark. The logic of this is not difficult to conceive, nor is the mechanics, provided you havea big enough computer. But it will, I think be beyond the power of my little BBC, so I shall have to go on relying on instinct and trying to read across from someone else’s figures for a boat rather different from the one Iam planning. Just like old times, really. Let’s hope that the computer doesn’t take the art out of designing. I don’t think it will. In 1937 H. B. Tucker speculated that tank testing such as had produced Ranger , the Cup defender of that year, might be the end of yacht design. He was wrong, and I have no doubt that I shall be too. The other really interesting fact to emerge from the huge research programmes is that the late improvement in the performance of Stars and Stripes derived to a large extent from progressively covering more and more of the hull with sticky tape embossed with grooves 0.05 mm deep made for a US Navy programme. The total cost of the Conner challenge was in the region of $25 million: the cost of the tape, 90 sq. metres in total, cost $7,000. The engineer who developed the idea at NASA estimated that the tape was worth as much as three minutes on the course. I can’t accept that sort of figure when even palpably one sided matches were being won by only four or five minutes, but it certainly looks like a cheap way forward for boat speed. If any of you are doing sums on the wetted area of a Marblehead divided into 90 and multiplied by 7000, think again. The very different Reynolds numbers involved mean that it’s not much use to modellers. Boats in our sizes have relatively little difficulty in retaining laminar flow over most of the hull and, because they spend more time at or above hull speed, the importance of skin drag as a part of the whole resistance is very much less than in full size design. Below left: shipyard on a beach. Below: KZ7, New Zealand, working up before the start of her last race in the Round Robin. Bottom left: shortly after the start of the fleet race; from camera, America II, Azzura, White Crusader; on the other tack, Heart of America. Bottom: gybe mark in the fleet race; this is what makes fleet racing a better spectacle . than the matches. KZ5 leads from White Crusader Opposite: US61, USA; and eithera Jelly Baby ora Phase Il at Lake Mouger, but the columnist cannot remember which is which. All photos: Russell Potts. Models in Western Australia I didn’t have much time to see what goes on in the model sailing world in the far West of Australia. The day we arrived, in the very early morning, was a Saturday and Mike and Margo Beilby met us from the plane and took us out to their place in the hills behind Perth to recuperate. Over large quantities of cold drinks we discussed the state of model yachting and the three clubs that operate in the State. Two are in the Perth area and one further south at Bunbury. The classes sailed are R10R and RM. The 10s are mainly Jelly Baby and its later development the Phase Two, both by the Keith Mitchell and Alan Fish team of designers from Sydney. These are essentially similar boats about 55 inches on the waterline and about 18-19 pounds displacement. The hulls are designed to be balanced and to minimise wetted area. A local design that is rather different in style from these is the BR2 designed by Jim Bradshaw of the Southern District Radio Sailors, one of the Perth clubs. This is a fine entry, lighter weight concept that has sold well locally, with over a dozen shells built or building in a total active membership of the three clubs of between 30 and 40. On the RM front most are local designs in the 13-14 pound displacement range. Mike himself is building a new version of his boat Bullen’s. The original is now in Peterhead, Scotland, facing the cold winds that funnel down the valley over Den Dam. Mike’s new version is going to be the same shape but, following his experience in Europe, is to concentrate on light structure weight. When I was there, the shell was complete in a very lightly moulded Kevlar. The cloth was arranged transversely, so that there were a number of overlaps where the double thickness acted as a built-in rib Model Yachting Fixture List May 2/4th 3rd (R) (L) 3rd (R)(L) 3rd 10th 10th 10th 10th (L) 9/10th 17th 17th 17th (L) 17th 17th 17th 31st 31st 31st June 7th 7th 7th 7th 7th (R)(L) 7th 14th 14th Birkenhead Open Event Open Event R36r Oxford RM Cheltenham 10r Gosport Eric Nuttall Memorial Trophy MYA National Championship Northern District Championship 21st 21st 27th Newcastle RA Poole T Cup RM Broads RM Birkenhead Gwynne Bowl Model Maker Trophy Curry Mug Dennis Nixon (3) RM Eastbourne RM Lincoln A L/Bradford RM Sheffield RM Guildford M Bournville RM Gosport Yorkshire Cash Register Trophy RM Leicester RM L/Bradford Eastern District Championship Northern District Championship Taplin Challenge R36r Dovercourt 36r Birkenhead Model Boats Trophy = Whirlwind Trophy Approved Electronics Trophy Little Portugal Cup Northern District Championship & Northern Team Championship Met. & Southern District Championship S. Western District Championship Midland District Championship Eastern District Championship Andrews Memorial Trophy Nyria Cup Northern District Championship & Northern Team Championship 27th (L) Gilbert Cup 28th Midland District Championship MYA National Championship 27/28th Fleetwood Met. & Southern District Championship Broadlands Trophy Vintage Sail Regatta 21st RM 10r 14th 21st Cleveland Leicester 14th 21st RM RM Met. & Southern District Championship Crusader Shield 21st Fleetwood Chelmsford Best of British Sheffield Golden 50 Trophy MYA National Championship 31st M RM RA 24th (L) 23/25th see. norm in Australia, but the immense | Captain Cook Shield Ladbrook Trophy John Waller Trophy Bradford Cup 21st distances from the Eastern states meant that they had very few outside entries. More recently Mike and a few others made the trip to a National meeting in Victoria, which involved driving for close on four days across the desert that separates them from the rest of the population. This is heroic stuff and makes the annual trip to Fleetwood look like crossing the road. On the Saturday afternoon, Mike took me to sail at Lake Mouger, a large expanse of MYA National Championship Hatfield Trophy 24th to the structure. I think she will need more than this to hold her shape, but we shall The Western Australians suffer from small numbers and isolation. They held a National championship some years ago in the rotation between States that is the Association water with very little on it except half a dozen 10-raters. It is open to the sea breezes that come in with great regularity in the afternoons. It is also open to the bright blistering sun and intense light. The combination of heat, light and a sleeple ss night on the plane from Hong Kong was a bit much for me and I found that, regardless of which boat I borrowed, I couldn’t keep in touch with the fleet and that I was simply falling asleep on my feet. RA Poole RM Chiltern RM Leicester RM Ashton A Fleetwood R10r Gosport RM Crusader Bournville RM Doncaster RM Clapham RM Cheltenham RM Dovecote RM Chelmsford M Birkenhead A A Gosport Fleetwood 6m Birmingham 6m Birmingham R10r Woodspring This was no use to anyone, so we called it a day. I can’t tell you anything useful about the relative performance of the boats, nor can I remember who the people were that I met! Next month, the Australian Nationals in Queensland and some vintage discoveries in Adelaide. Contact address: R. R. Potts, 8 Sherard Road, London SE9 6EP. Tel. 01-850 6805. 325
