The Model Yacht: Volume 7, Number 2 – Fall 2003

LINCOLN MEMORIAL POOL, WASHINGTON, D.C. NEWSLETTER OF THE U.S. VINTAGE MODEL YACHT GROUP VOLUME SEVEN, NUMBER TWO FALL 2003 NEWSLETTER OF THE U.S. VINTAGE MODEL YACHT GROUP VOLUME SEVEN, NUMBER TWO FALL 2003 Editor’s Welcome Well, sometimes you get lucky. I was looking through my collection of books and magazines for an article for this issue and came upon a description of early American radio control in the British journal Model Maker. The rest, as you will read in this issue, is history, and we are pleased to introduce you to Francis Reynolds and his description of this otherwise little-known chapter in the history of model yachting in the United States. Charlie Roden has described something we should all be doing more of, which is teaching young people life skills by helping them construct and sail a boat. The program Charlie describes builds on the work done by Dale Wenninger and is something all USVMYG members can be proud of. Al Suydam describes our 2003 National Regatta, which included the first competition of the still-developing Vintage 36 Inch class. This new class is attractive because not only does it involve less expensive and time-consuming boats to build, it raises permits that can be flown as checked baggage both around the country and, if we get our act together, across the ocean. My 36 in. LOA “Yankee III” has flown quite happily across the country to Mystic, Woods Hole, and Detroit in an inexpensive golf club case, so it can be done. Our technical supplement describes a “MM” class boat, a free sailing 25 in LOA craft that would be just the thing for a “swimming pool regatta.” Earl Boebert Ebbs and Flows The President’s Message Vintage Membership VMYG annual membership is $20 for three issues of our newsletter – The Model Yacht. US VMYG lifetime membership is $100. Our members then have access to technical assistance and vintage model plans. Plans will eventually include those electronically scanned, plus those to be made available in future through American Model Yachting Collection (Houk Archives) at Mystic Seaport Museum Library. VMYG “how to” book and video package on plank-on-frame construction is available separately. To subscribe to or renew our newsletter and services, please send $20 check (payable to US VMYG) or cash ($100 for life membership) to: John Snow, c/o US VMYG, 78 East Orchard Street, Marblehead, MA 01945. For detailed information, you can call me direct in Marblehead @781-631-4203 or visit VMYG Web Page at www.swcp.com/usvmyg 2003 Vintage M (VM) and Traditional Sailing Craft/Scale Model Regattas Our 2003 national events were staged September 20-21 and 26-28 by Detroit MYC and Solomons Island Model Boat Club-Great Schooner Model Society respectively. Results from the Detroit event are in this issue. New Traditional Sailing Craft/Scale Model Coordinator I am happy to announce that VMYG member, John Atwood, has volunteered to be our new Traditional Coordinator. John lives in Newport News, VA and has experience in scratchbuilding and sailing traditional models, to Page 1 include skipjack and Chesapeake 50 models, plus schooners based on designs for 1860s sharpie, 1895 “Puritan” and 1924 “Haligonian.” He just completed new R/C 50-inch schooner, but was unable to attend 2003 Traditional regatta at Calvert Maritime Museum due to after-effects of Hurricane Isabel. His mission is to promote visibility for these type models in general and events where they can be exhibited/raced. John can still rely on Harry Mote, original VMYG Coordinator, as he fully transitions into his new position. John’s contact data: John Atwood 9701 River Road, Newport News, VA 23601 Phone: 757-596-9701 Email: john.atwood@tea.army.mil 2004 VM and Traditional Sailing Craft/Scale Model Regattas As testimony to John Atwoods’ commitment to our sport, he has been sole facilitator working with staff, since late 2002, at The Mariner’s Museum in Newport News to stage both of VMYG’s 2004 national championships at Museum. Dates for this significant undertaking are September 16-19, in conjunction with annual Fall festival staged on Museum grounds. Racing will be performed on Museum’s 165-acre lake, with Museum also hosting wine and cheese reception Friday and regatta dinner on Saturday evening. In addition, VMYG has requested AMYA permission to host its Region 3 J Class Championship as part of this event. I have asked John Atwood to provide us with more details on 2004 event in next Newsletter. Houk Archives Funding In recent discussions with Mystic Seaport Museum Library Director, it was evident their permanent Staff has been significantly reduced. It was then noted that one approach to facilitate appropriate organization of new American Model Yachting Collection (AMYC – Houk archival material) would be by monetary donations to support hiring of outside expert to exclusively work on collection: preserving, processing and cataloging it into Mystic Seaport’s collection management system. This would then help to make this collection more quickly available to public and scholars alike. This is normally done through proposal to membership of organization(s) having vested interest in collection, such as US VMYG and AMYA in regards to AMYC. Thus, US VMYG will be starting long-range, fund-raising drive for this purpose later this year and would ask our VMYG members to consider donations. These would be made directly to Mystic Seaport Library and earmarked for AMYC use through Paul O’Peako, Library Director. If anyone has serious interest in providing such contribution now, please contact me at 781-631-4203 or jsnow@drc.com Also, more fund-raising information is planned for next VMYG Several members of the mentoring project launching and sailing their Madcaps from the pier at Lake Weamaconk, Englishtown, NJ All twenty models have been registered with the VM class and display assigned sail numbers and the VM insignia. This increase in VM registrations has brought the total number of registered VMs to nearly one hundred. Page 2 Newsletter, to include amounts based on different level of efforts for AMYC in collaboration with Mystic Seaport Library Director. VMYG members’ ideas for fund-raising are solicited as well. Twenty Vintage Marblehead Yachts Launched Twenty radio controlled Vintage Marblehead model yachts were completed in June by parVintage Etcetera ticipants in the Model Sailboat Mentoring Project held at the Court Street School EducaMY Design Plans Preservation VMYG remains tion Community Center in Freehold, New fully committed to scan select, older MY Jersey. The project began late last year and design plans into electronic format for future the boats were launched and sailed on June preservation. Our initial effort of scanning 20 24, at Lake Weamaconk in nearby Englishnotable MY designs from Houk collection is town. complete. Another approach being considThe Mentoring ered is use of retail Project, as formucopying outlets, lated by Dale Wensuch as Kinkos, for ninger of this process as well. Swampscott, MA, Test run with sampairs each participle set of plans will pating young perbe conducted in son, age 12 to 18, near future to deterwith an adult menmine feasibility and tor to build “Madcap affordability of this II”, a modified 1937 option for long term Marblehead design application. by H. E. Richardson. Back Issues It is our Each participant policy to keep all pays for the cost of issues of The Model the materials and Yacht in print. A list owns the boat upon of the contents of completion. The back issues is on our Project was coordiWeb site. Back nated by Charlie issues are $6.50 for a Roden, a member of single issue and the US VMYG and $.5.00 each for multhe Marbleheaders tiple issues, all postof Spring Lake, New paid. Send orders to Jersey. Other memthe masthead bers of the Marbleaddress on page 17 headers also assisted of this issue. in the program. John Snow The youthful builders came from all over Monmouth County, New Jersey and traveled to Freehold on two SaturA Madcap II complete and ready to launch. Modifications day mornings per from the original 1937 design included a deeper keel for month to build Madadded stability and a balanced rudder for improved cap in the basement steering. This model was built by the project coordinator in of the Court Street step with the class to illustrate the construction features and School. About half techniques. It proved to be more helpful than the written the mentors were instructions. Page 3 moms or dads of the The next task was to participating youth. strengthen and The other half were stiffen the very flexiolder adults, many ble fiberglass hull. retired, who offered This required that general assistance or ribs of fiberglass be worked directly epoxy glued inside with those whose the hull and that parents were not wooden sheer available to particiclamps and beams pate. Several of the be fastened at the mentors also built deck level. In doing boats in order to be so our youthful in a better position builders learned to provide guidance how to measure disto their charges and tances with a ruler, a to have a boat of capability that surtheir own to sail. prisingly had Some mentors escaped many to began building late this point. We modilast summer before fied a familiar rule the project actually of thumb, measure started in order to three times and cut get a head start. It once. A wooden can be said that the keel deadwood was project brought A student seen finishing cutting out a bow piece on a band then fabricated and together “kids” of saw. Wood required for construction was first rough cut to sanded to the shape all ages, that is from approximate size by the coordinator. Patterns were provided of a hydrofoil. The 12 to 80, to share in to mark the required shape of components which were then keel deadwood was the joy of creating a cut out on band saws or scroll saws. After gluing the sheer secured to the botbeautiful model sail- clamps in place, the deck beams were then fitted and glued tom of hull. A nine to the sheer clamps with plywood triangular gussets. King pound lead ballast boat. planks and hatch beams completed the support structure for was in turn attached The starting point a 2mm birch plywood deck The result was a very stiff and to the bottom of the for the Project was a strong hull. The keel deadwood was made with a belt molded fiberglass sander. The deadwood cross section was shaped to NACA deadwood to give shell of the hull 64AO10. This shape gave a high lift to drag ratio for the the boat stability. which was made by typical small angles of attack experienced by the keel. The A balanced rudder Charlie Roden. The to steer the boat was rudder was shaped to NACA 0010 which has a blunter first task of each leading edge than the keel and is less likely to stall at higher fabricated and builder was to make installed. The radio angles of attack. a wooden cradle to receiver, battery, support the hull while under construction. steering servo and sail winch servo were This proved to be a good warm up as it secured on a radio board inside the hull and required the use of a power band saw and tested before a thin 2 mm. plywood deck was scroll saw to cut out the pieces of the cradle glued in place. Next, watertight hatch covers and an electric drill/screw driver for its were made to complete the hull. Builders assembly. It was a new experience for many then shaped the wooden spars and made the who had not taken woodworking courses at nylon sails. The final steps include painting school. A good deal of attention was placed the hull, and rigging the sails before launchon safety including the use safety glasses, ing. plastic gloves and dust masks while using In addition to teaching the woodworking tools. and working with epoxy. The only skills necessary to build the model, an effort injury that was experienced during the entire was made to provide the underlying theory project was the removal of one third of a finof the operation of a sailboat. Newton’s Laws gernail by a disc sander. of Motion and Bernoulli’s Principle of the Page 4 Conservation of Energy were introduced to explain how lift and drag forces are generated by the sails, keel and rudder. The theory of radio transmission and control was also covered in some detail. The mentoring project has been a rewarding experience in many ways. Some feel the greatest benefit was imparting some of that scarce commodity called “patience”. Each builder labored over his boat for forty to fifty hours. While the building time was much longer than advertised, only one youth dropped out along the way. Many valuable skills were learned which are too often overlooked with the present emphasis on computers. It was gratifying for the mentors to see the youngsters quickly gain the confidence and skills to build such a complicated piece of equipment. They appear to have enjoyed the one on one association with an adult mentor and appreciated the time and commitment the mentors devoted to the project. The group is continuing to meet weekly to practice sailing their new boats. The final task is for all to participate in a Madcap Regatta to be held at Spring Lake this Fall. As an added incentive, each builder was given a free one year membership to the US VMYG and all twenty builders have registered their boats with the VM Group which, incidentally has nearly reached one hundred boats. Charlie Roden Early DX-Class History and Sailboat Innovations Francis Reynolds, “Arrow,” and the first U.S.Radio Control Championship Trophy. I wrote an article on some of my earlier model-sailboat work in my airplane column, and when Bill read it he suggested that I should get acquainted with Rod Carr. By coincidence Rod and I live only eight or nine miles apart; and Rod also did some RC airplane modeling. Now Rod has introduced me to Earl Boebert, who has put me to work writing this historical article. I left model sailboat competition in 1959 for other hobbies (mostly RC model-airplanes and powerboat innovations) but the sailboats keep finding their way back to me. Since my 83-year-old brain has forgotten many details in the fifty-four years since I became a model yachter, I am now going to draw extensively from a 1952 article I wrote, from my articles in U.S. Boat & Ship Modeler magazine, and from my old notes. Absolute accuracy not guaranteed, but what follows will be close to right. Some Players and Some History Introduction I count a well-known skipper, sailmaker, model-yacht historian and writer named Rod Carr among my friends. Before we met, in about 1990, I was writing a column called “Model Design & Technical Stuff” for Model Builder magazine (airplanes). Meanwhile Rod was writing his “Strictly Sail” column, in U.S. Boat & Ship Modeler magazine. It happened that both of those now defunct magazines were edited and published by Bill Northrop. Dr. Ted Houk of Seattle introduced me to model yacht racing in 1949. He contacted me when he heard that I had designed and built a small radio-controlled powerboat model in 1946; and he wanted to draw upon my hoped-for knowledge, to develop radio-controlled model racing yachts. Dr. Houk, an active competitor in vane-steered yacht racing, was at that time Commodore of the Seattle Model Yacht Club, which was a member of the old Model Yacht Racing Association of America (MYRAA). Page 5 Houk also designed and built a number of hulls, which I think included but were probably not limited to “Helene” (named after his daughter), and “Rip Tide” (designed for C.O. Davis). He might have built the A-class boats “Sunset,” and “Miss Seattle.” “Miss Seattle” was the last boat designed by A.R. “Gus” Lassel. Houk and his son Theo sailed some of these boats in vane-steered competition, but the boats were later passed on to other skippers. “Sunset” and “Miss Seattle” were subsequently sailed in the DX Class. Old sailboats never die; they just sail away to new waters. At that time “Miss Seattle” was in excellent condition, but the “Sunset” hull leaked badly unless soaked submerged for a week prior to use. Most of the old freesailing modelers seemed to have made their own hulls, or had someone make them; but the DX crowd that came along next mostly converted existing vane-steered hulls to radio. I personally raced two hulls in DX, the old M-class “Arrow” and my original X-class “CD Min.” as described in an article in the Summer 1998 The Model Yacht. Having been active in both model yacht racing, and in model airplanes, I observe an interesting difference: Old sailboats are treasured forever, but model airplanes have short lives—because they crash sooner or later. There is a National Model Airplane Museum at the Academy of Model Aeronautics headquarters in Muncie, Indiana, but the models there are mostly replicas because the originals ran out of altitude at some time long ago. Starting in about 1949, Ted Houk was one of if not the main person behind the effort to establish an MYRAA class for radio-controlled model yacht racing. I was told that the “DX” title was chosen for the radio-controlled class because “DX” was the identification that “ham” radio operators used to identify their “Distant” amateur-radio contacts. Another man important to early DX-class history was Clarence “C.O” Davis. I believe he held the posts of Secretary-Treasurer of the Seattle Model Yacht Club and National The early history of MYRAA Secretary at “Arrow” is unknown to that time. He was not me, but she had been only active in the estabdesigned for and used lishment of the DX in vane-steered racing. class, he also competed Someone gave her to in it. I wrote an article me. Interestingly, all in 1952 titled “The 1952 classes of boats recogChampion Remote nized by the MYRAA at Control Sailboat” at the that time were eligible request of C.O., to compete in DX-class “Arrow,” as restored by Rod Carr, floating on describing the technolraces, but all entries had Spreckles Lake during the celebration of the 100th ogy we had developed to conform to one of the Anniversary of the San Francisco MYC for the DX class. He accepted classes. Most passed that informaof the DX contestants used A-class hulls, but tion on to the MYRAA as part of his duties as “Arrow” was available so I rigged her for DX National Secretary. I have a 51-year-old yeland raced her against the A’s. I don’t recall lowed “Ditto” copy of that article. Most of it any other Marbleheads being used in DX, but was also republished in an article titled Fred Burkhardt and I used X-class hulls part “Radio Control of the M Class ‘Arrow,’” in of the time. He called his “DXer”. the May 1955 issue of the British Model Maker I think I eventually donated “Arrow” to Dave magazine. Stedman, somewhere between 1950 and 1980. Rod Carr restored “Arrow” in 1997 and 1998, Page 6 I believe that the once popular vane-steered free-sailing model-yacht competitions dropped off rapidly when radio-controlled model yacht racing was introduced. Few if any of the old Seattle-area vane-steering sailors other than Ted Houk and C.O. Davis went into the then-new radio-controlled sailing game, but a number of younger newcomers came on board. In Seattle we had Coe Wescott, yours truly, and some others whose names slip my mind. In Portland Oregon, which was the other stronghold of early DX-class competition, we had Fred Burkhardt, Walt Burchett, and others. I see a note here that a field of eleven of us competed for the National DX trophy at Westmoreland pond in Portland on September 4, 1956. In the Seattle area we sailed DX at Green Lake, Silver Lake near Everett WA, and later at my home on the west shore of Lake Sammamish east of Bellevue WA. Automatic Sail Control In free sailing the yachts came to shore at the end of each leg, and each time they did the skippers manually adjusted the sails for the next leg. With radio steering and a closed-course with buoys, manual sail trimming during a race would no longer be possible. Ted Houk had foreseen that problem when he contacted me in January of 1949. To solve it he got the idea of somehow having the sails automatically controlled by a wind vane similar to the vanes then in use for steering the models; but he needed help in figuring out how to do it. His training as a physician hadn’t covered wires and vacuum tubes and servomechanisms. At that point model yachts began to enter the electronic age. In those days of single-channel radios, radio control of the sails was difficult. If only a single channel was available and one wanted to avoid messy time sharing, then two separate radios were required, one for the rudder and one for the sails. It was hard enough to get and keep one of those old RC sets operating, let alone two. But aside from solving that problem, automatic sail trimming was far superior to radio sail-control for two other reasons. First, a skipper on shore cannot judge the direction of the relative wind and of the optimum trim of the sails nearly as accurately as either an onboard skipper or an onboard automatic device can do it. Second, the skipper can do a better job of negotiating the course and planning his race strategies if he is relieved of the added responsibility of sail trimming. Only in one-man “real” sailboats are the skippers saddled with both jobs. Windsurfing is an interesting case. There the “gymnast” steers, trims sail, and hikes to maintain balance, all with an interesting set of contortions while standing erect and hanging onto a sail whose mast is loosely attached to a socket in the sailboard and is free to swing in all directions: pitch, roll, and yaw. It took me awhile to learn the art of windsurfing, but it was a fascinating challenge, great fun, and an excellent workout when the wind was good. But back to DX models: We mounted a sheeting vane on the after deck, in somewhat the manner of steering vanes previ- Page 7 ously used on free-sailing yachts. This vane was independent of the radio-controlled rudder system. It served as a wind-direction indicator to the automatic sail-trimming system. The vane does not move the sails directly as a steering vane moves the rudder on a free-sailing yacht. Moving a rudder doesn’t take much effort, but since the sails are big and must be hauled in against the wind half of the time, much more force and power are required than is available from a vane alone. The power comes from a battery driving an electric motor that is controlled by the vane. The sail-control system is a simple form of automatic feedback servo system. The figure, drawn in 1952, shows the complete sheeting system as we designed them fifty-some years ago. The main and the jib were rigged for simultaneous sheeting. The two sheets are bent onto the opposite sides of a continuous winch line. A pinion was mounted on one of the drums, which engages a gear. This gear carries three feedback contacts as shown. We used contacts from old relays, or made them. The center contact arm is connected to the throw of a crank in the vane shaft. With the gear ratio of the sail-trimming system I designed and built for “Arrow” it took four seconds to haul the sails from running to a close beat, which has quite satisfactory. The center contact arm must be quite flexible, so that a slight breeze across the vane will be sufficient to close the contact points on one side or the other, and reset the sails. The motor connections are made such that the motor always runs in the direction necessary to open the contacts again, by moving them in the direction that the vane deflected the center contact. It is important to have the throw of the vane crank equal to the travel of the feedback contacts when the sails travel their full angle from run to beat. This system, like most servo systems, will oscillate, or “hunt,” if not properly adjusted. If the three contact points are extremely close together, or if the vane assembly is too heavy (has too much inertia), the system may rapidly pump the sails in and out over a narrow range, even with no wind or with a steady wind. Hunting can be stopped in this system by making the space between the feedback contact points wider. Don’t make it exces- sively wide however, since the system is less sensitive to minor changes in wind direction when the contact spacing is greater. The vane must he carefully balanced so that it won’t swing down when the yacht heels, which would send false wind directions to the servo. Feedback linkages as shown give quite good sail settings for all different wind directions. An even better system, to obtain more optimum sail settings, could be designed by using more complex feedback linkages, or by using custom-made cams. The ones we built were crude low-accuracy systems designed-by-eye, but the sail-angleof-attack settings they provided were much closer to optimum than skippers on shore could ever achieve. I am somewhat baffled as to why the present racing fraternity doesn’t use them; but maybe it is because of a comment that Jim Walker made to me. He didn’t like our using automatic sail trimming because, “Skipper skill in controlling the sails is part of the competitive challenge.” But as an engineer I argue that designing and building technologically superior boats is also a worthy challenge. Competitors in most fields, who have limited creative juices, will always vote for rules that maintain the status quo and prevent progress in the hardware, in order to retain their own competitive positions. So technological progress in most games is slow and controversial, but usually a fairly smooth curve on the timeline. Here we have an actual reversal: DX skippers of the 1950s were ahead of those today in sheeting technology—but Jim Walker had a point. The question is: Do you want to run the course faster or do you want to base the competition more on skipper judgment and control skills? I believe that all DX class racing that took place in the old MYRAA was done with automatic sheeting. Jim Walker had rigged a model sailboat with radio control of the sheeting in or before 1952, but had never raced it in competition. In 1952, after I had won the National DX trophy that he had donated, Jim challenged me to a race. We went around and around the course for many laps, and I finally lapped him. Automatic sheeting is far more precise than any skipper can trim sails from shore. Jim didn’t like it, but he didn’t demand that we give the trophy back to him. Page 8 A later proof of the I built my first radio consuperiority of autotrol system from RCH matic sail trimming over (Radio Control Headskipper-on-shore trimquarters) plans. A little ming occurred when we later I got an Aerotrol took Coe’s DX chamunit, and a McNabb 465pion “Miss Seattle” to MHz Citizen Band unit. Poole England in 1960. It used a “hard” (high Coe had radio trouble vacuum) miniature radio and placed third. Howtube in the receiver. The ever, he was always McNabb receiving briskly sailing away antenna was a strap of from the rest of the fleet A picture of “Miss Seattle” at Poole, showing the sheet aluminum rudder position indicator aft of the wind-sensing when he had control, wrapped around the vane. due to the accuracy of receiver. Those of us who his automatic sheeting. used McNabb mounted None of the European boats used it. If Coe the receiver and its integral antenna at the had had solid steering control he would have masthead. This provided several advantages: walked away with the international trophy the loop antenna needed to be clear of dense 1 objects including the hull and the water; the hands down. higher the antenna was above the water the Early Radios greater the reliable range; the high antenna was farther away from radio interference Most RC receivers in those pre-transistor generated by the steering and sheeting days had “superregenerative” circuits using motors; and the height helped keep the the infamous Raytheon RK61 miniature receiver dry. When we sailed in the rain we “gas” (soft-vacuum) tube. A couple of legal put a light plastic bag over the receiver and frequencies were used, including a ham band antenna. (legal for hams only) and a citizen’s band. Unlike today, where we have a large number Vacuum tube radios use a lot of power, and of separate ground and air RC channels, with both the transmitters and receivers required only two legal channels it was impossible to both a low-voltage “A-battery” to light the legally race a larger number of boats together. filaments of the tubes, and a high-voltage “B Don’t tell anyone, but some of us had crystals battery” to induce current flow between the cut to an illegal frequency of our own choice tube “plates” and “cathodes.” In some radios so that we could illegally race more boats a third battery, a “C battery,” was required together. There is the story of the fellow who for “grid bias.” All of those batteries weighed scanned the bands with an all-wave receiver a lot; and they didn’t last long, which invited and found a frequency on which there never reliability problems and caused a continuous seemed to be any activity. So he built his RC drain on the modeler’s purse. This was before radio to operate at that frequency. He hadn’t rechargeable NiCads came along. There were had the transmitter turned on long until an a few lead-acid batteries available but the sulFCC man knocked at his door. The nice prifuric acid tended to leak out of them and eat vate frequency he had chosen for himself was holes in things; so dry batteries were almost an international distress (SOS) frequency, one always used. of a very few spots in the radio spectrum that Most of the early RC radios were single-chanwas constantly monitored by authorities. nel and non-proportional; that is they were like a light switch, either on or off. When 1. For a more modern discussion and detransistors began to arrive on the market in scription of automatic sheeting systems, have a the late 1950s RC gear advanced rapidly and look at an article in the Spring 1990 issue of became much lighter and more reliable. Sets U.S. Boat and Ship Modeler titled “Automatic with two or more channels came in, and proSail Trimming.” That article, complete with portional-control gear started to appear photos, describes the hasty automatic system about 1965. that Rod Car and I cobbled up for one of his boats four decades after their use in MYRAA DX-class racing. Page 9 Rudder Control Rubber-band-powered “escapements” (often home built) were extensively used in early RC airplane models to operate the rudder, because they didn’t require an electric motor or another battery, and they were light in weight. Escapements were never used in model boats, except the very smallest, since they were temperamental delicate devices and the number of rudder actuations they could perform with one winding of the rubber band was limited. In these first RC model yachts the receiver controlled relays which ran a steering motor in such a manner that the rudder position was proportional to the length of time that a transmitter signal for left or right rudder was held on. Such “elapsed-time-proportional” systems were used on most of the early DX class boats. With them the rudder could be set to any desired position, but it took longer and wasn’t nearly as easy to operate as the present proportional systems. I rigged “Arrow” so that the rudder moved from the neutral position to the hard-over position in four or five seconds. That response time was a good compromise. If it was designed slower than that the yacht would be too slow in responding to turn commands. On the other hand, if the rate of travel of the rudder was too fast the skipper would be unable to accurately set the course desired. Frequent minor adjustments in heading were difficult to make; therefore the courses sailed were somewhat more angular than the smooth courses that can be sailed with a proportional radio using a control stick or wheel. The Rudder-command Decoder And there was another problem: Some kind of a device was required to enable the operator to move the rudder both left and right at will with only a single-channel radio. “Arrow” and most of the other yachts in early DX were equipped with an original relay circuit for this purpose. A single signal from the transmitter always gave right rudder, and the longer this “dash” signal was held the farther the rudder moved. So we could get right rudder, but how about left? And how did we neutralize the right rudder again? The special relay circuits we used were designed so that a short signal (dot) rapidly followed by a longer signal (dash) always gave left rudder. The amount of rudder movement was dependent upon the length of the dash for both left and right rudder. The rudder stayed where it was put, with signal off, until we changed its setting with another signal. Sounds a bit tricky, but we rapidly learned to steer fairly accurate courses with this system. The first left/right discriminating relay circuits that I built used double-coil, three-position Double Pole Double Throw (DPDT) relays that had all contacts open when the coils were unenergized). These relays were obtained on the World War II surplus market. When our supply ran out Coe Wescott designed a circuit to accomplish the same thing using two conventional relays. The attached figure, drawn in 1952, shows the details of the system using the doublecoil relay. Its operation is kind of sneaky, and may be of interest to some: The two coils of the relay are connected in parallel, but each has a series resistor as shown. One of the coils has a large electrolytic capacitor across it. When the circuit is energized by a signal from the receiver, the coil without the capacitor comes up to full voltage instantly, and attracts that side of the teeter-totter armature to it. The other coil comes up to voltage more slowly because the capacitor must charge up through the resistor, but it reaches the same Page 10 voltage as the first coil in about a second. However it can not take the armature away from the first coil, because of the difference that now exists in the air gaps between the coils and their shared armature. With the relay in this position the circuit runs the motor to give right rudder. If a short signal or “dot” is sent, the first coil loses its voltage rapidly afterward. But the voltage of the second coil is held up for a short time afterward by the capacitor across it, therefore coil two captures the armature away from coil one. If the circuit is now reenergized before the big capacitor discharges too far, the second coil (with the capacitor) will retain its hold on the relay armature and energize the motor in the direction required to move the rudder left as far as called for by the length of this second signal or dash. MYRAA DX-Class Racing History In the nine years that we raced we usually held a Northwest Association, a Pacific Division, and a National race each year, but the same people competed in all of these races. As far as I know this early DX racing never spread east or farther south than Portland Oregon. We had a small “nation” of our own, which other areas of the U.S. never got around to joining. The first DX yacht was one that Ted Houk and I rigged on one of his hulls. It had singlechannel RC elapsed-time-proportional rudder control and automatic sail trimming. The first National DX-class race was held in Seattle in 1951, at Green Lake I think. There were only three entries: Ted Houk, C.O. Davis, and a third man I do not remember. Houk won by default since neither of the other two boats could be made to operate that day. For 1952 I decided to enter a boat in DX myself, and somehow obtained “Arrow” and her sails. The system I installed in “Arrow” was almost identical to what we had designed and built for Houk’s boat the year before. Coe Wescott, a brilliant young electronic engineer who was working for me on guided-missile design at Boeing at the time, became my first mate on “Arrow.” We won the National DX title in 1952, the second year for that event but the first year that it was represented by the Walker Trophy. Coe actually became involved with the Seattle Yacht Club in 1949, when Ted Houk proposed a club project to design and build a sixfoot twenty-channel RC model fireboat that could put out set fires on other model boats. Coe and I became the leading members of that team. The fireboat model, which required the invention of a unique control system, took 6,000 man-hours over nine and a half years to build, and won a world championship in England in 1960. But that is another story. 1 For the 1953 DX racing season I helped Coe Wescott rig Miss Seattle for RC and automatic sheeting, and he took the trophy away from me. Marbleheads have a tough time beating A-Class. (I need an excuse.) The first of the twelve silver cups on the big silver platter around the big silver punch bowl of the Walker Trophy is engraved “Francis Reynolds.” The second cup is engraved “Coe Wescott.” Most of the later National DX firstplace cups were won by either Coe or by Fred Buckhardt of Portland. The Walker Trophy (including all of the cups) was last known to be in the hands of Burkhardt. Its present whereabouts are unknown to me, except for a large silver nameplate from the trophy base, which is in my possession. I am giving it to Rod Carr for the historical collection. Rod also has “Arrow,” “CD Min,” and “Miss Seattle.” The “Miss” was given to him upon Coe’s death a few years ago. Wing Sails After Coe took the DX trophy away from me in 1953 I decided to develop a wing-sail boat to try to win it back.2 Why a wing-like sail for a boat? Airplane wings and sails do essentially the same jobs; that is, they develop a force by movement through the air. The force generated by an airplane wing “lifts” the plane, while the force generated by a sail “drives” the boat, but the physics and aerodynamics are the same. Airplane wings do a much better job than cloth sails however, because wings are modern technology, and sails are ancient. Going back only a hundred years we see that many of the earliest air- Page 11 1. See the article “The Alki Model Fireboat” in the Summer 1991 issue of U.S. Boat & Ship Modeler. — F.R. 2. See “Wing Sails” in Winter 1989 issue of U.S. Boat & Ship Modeler. — F.R. plane wings were a lot like cloth sails, but airlose a lot of the drive we could get from that plane design has progressed tremendously big low area to “tip loss.” Much of the wind since then and sail design has progressed relflowing over a sail anywhere near the boom atively little. angles down and flows under the boom instead of continuing on to the leech. Not Coe and I conducted sixty-some tests on varionly does tip loss reduce sail drive (or airous airplane-wing-like sail configurations in plane-wing lift), but it also adds a type of a University of Washington wind tunnel. The aerodynamic resistance called “induced best configuration we found yielded a maxidrag.” mum lift coefficient of 1.95 at a Reynolds Number of 10,000. This was 56% better than But tip loss can only occur where there is a the best data we got from a conventional space for the air to flow around the tip. With sloop-rigged wind-tunnel model under the a wing sail on a model we can put the foot same conditions. clear down so that it sweeps the deck, and thereby eliminate There is another diagonal or tipbig advantage vortex flow. By available to us “sealing” the foot when using wing in this way we sails that is not eliminate the genavailable when eration of a vortex using conventhere, thereby tional triangular increasing the sails. Let me drive and eliminatexplain. On a coning induced drag ventional rig the at the foot. Matheboom at the foot of matically, if the the sail is mounted chord or width of some distance the wing sail at the above the cockpit foot were the same or deck, so that it as the chord of the doesn’t decapitate upper tip of the the crew in a sudsail, eliminating tip den jibe, and so loss at the foot that the boom would double the doesn’t drag in the effective “aspect water in a lively ratio”. The higher reach. But there is the aspect ratio the also a major disadbetter (Except that vantage to using a higher sails resulthigh boom, and ing from higher AR neither of the reacause more heelsons for putting ing). With a the boom up a tapered wing sail ways need apply wider at the foot to wing-sail model than at the upper yachts. They don’t Francis Reynolds today, with his wing-sail boat “CD Min.” tip, the effective apply because a aspect ratio is more model yacht has than doubled by eliminating the gap below no onboard crew to endanger with a boom; the foot. and the foot is made relatively short and In sailing boats with rigid wing sails we disrounded at the leech so that it can’t drag in covered yet another great advantage over the foamy brine like a long low boom could. yachts with cloth sails. I don’t need to tell So what is the advantage of literally “lowering readers of this newsletter that most conventhe boom?” Why not leave it high? In a contional sailboats can sail about forty-five ventional triangular sail the greatest part of degrees into the relative wind. When hauled the area is down close to the boom; but we Page 12 in closer than that the luff of the sail loses its camber and starts to flap. (Is that what you call “luffing”? I would luff to know.) The result is that the drive from the sail is then lost and the boat stops (goes into irons?). Luffing never exists in a wing-sail boat, no matter how close it sails into the wind, since the luff or leading edge of a wing sail is rigid and cannot change its camber or flap in the breeze. Polar plots of our wind tunnel tests showed that wing sails still provide positive drive to the hull with the wind closer than five degrees from dead ahead! In actual sailing we couldn’t stop a wing-sail boat from moving forward even when we tried to steer it directly into the wind. That ridiculoussounding claim is explained by the fact that the airflow is never smooth near the water, especially close to shores where we sail our models. Look at a weather vane: it is never stationary, except in a dead calm. It is always hunting back and forth. That is not because it can’t make up its mind, it is because it is following the wind, which is constantly changing direction back and forth by a few degrees. Those deviations in wind direction are rapidly followed by the automatic sail-trimming system, and are large enough so that the wing-sail keeps on gently driving the boat. On several occasions I handed CD Min’s transmitter to old-time sailors and invited them to put the boat into irons. They were never successful—and never believed what they had just seen. The practical value of this unusual phenomenon is that in closed course racing a wing-sail boat can always sail directly toward a buoy, if that seems to be the best strategy at that point. Even though the fastest course for a wing-sail boat is a reach, as it is for conventional sailboats, often CD Min would be sailing toward the buoy all by herself while the competition was tacking at right angles to it. Using our wind-tunnel data I first put a small wing sail on a pair of catamaran hulls of my own design, calling her “Katy Kat.” But I soon discovered that cats are no damn good on small closed courses. Because of their light weight and low inertia they tend to lose headway on turns across the wind for tacks and buoys, ending up dead in the water or drifting aft. My second experimental wing-sail boat used the “Arrow” hull again, and the same small rectangular wing sail that I had used on “Katy Kat.” This combination, which I called “CL Max” (aerodynamic shorthand for “Maximum Lift Coefficient”) was better, but because of its small sail area it was not competitive. My next and final wing-sail effort was “CD Min,” (“Minimum Drag Coefficient”). I remember negotiating with the MYRAA over whether a wing-sail boat would be legal in DX competition. At first they said that wingsails would not be allowed; but I persevered, arguing that progress in boat design was important. The powers-”that-were” finally relented and agreed to let me race such a model, providing that I limit the total sail area to 1000 square inches. So I ended up with an X-class size boat. That was better than an M racing against A’s, but still quite a handicap. And it isn’t just the smaller sail area that hurts; the more serious handicap is that tall masts get up to where the wind is starting to blow, while smaller sails are down in the doldrums. I guess the sail-area limit the MYRAA imposed on “CD Min” was about right since her technical advantages made up for it and she was competitive. She didn’t win all of her races but she never placed lower than third in National, Pacific Division, or Northwest Association DX competition. Full-size wingsail boats have also done well in competition. A decade or so ago the wing-sailboat “Stars & Stripes” won the Americas Cup for the United States. I expect the rules now forbid wing sails. Progress is constant except when it is forced to go backwards. I hope that Earl is able to publish a photo of “CD Min” here. Whether or not she is appealing depends upon one’s viewpoint. Being a technical guy, and since she is my baby, I think she is beautiful. But some old-timers have said, “No, no, no! She doesn’t look like a sailboat is supposed to look!” I finally see why sailboats are feminine: like women, some are beautiful and some are ugly, and some look beautiful to certain men and look plain to others. Automatic Heel-Reduction Systems Another thing we considered (but never got around to implementing) were systems for Page 13 keeping the sail and the hull more vertical in heavier winds, to capture more wind for drive, and at the same time to keep the keel fin more effective in minimizing leeway. The use of catamaran hulls is of course one way to reduce heel angle, but “cats,” as previously mentioned, are very poor for small closedcourse racing. Furthermore cats don’t come back up after being blown down. I used to watch the great effort crews in the water had to expend in getting dumped full-scale Hobie Cats up again. A sail underwater is one huge anchor. On model cats there is no crew and no way to recover. The New Zealanders and others have done some innovative things with keel fins on America’s-Cup boats to reduce the leeway problem when heeling in brisk winds; but these keel improvements don’t reduce heeling with its reduction in sail drive. In small manned sailboats, especially centerboard boats without weighted keels, in a blow the crew members “hike” or hang out over the windward gunwale as far as they can. This not only keeps the boat from capsizing but also greatly increases both the sail efficiency and the keel-fin efficiency, and thereby increases the speed of the boat. But model yachts don’t have onboard crews. My thinking was that we could readily provide mechanical robotic hiking systems in our model yachts, to replace the hiking crew, just as we replaced the other onboard crew functions with automatic sail trimming and remote-control steering. Instead of a wind vane for a feedback sensor, as we did for automatic sail trimming, we would use a pendulum to sense vertical. 1 The End and a New Beginning MYRAA DX-class competition died out around 1960. I believe it was about ten years later when “modern era” RC model yacht racing developed, under a new national model yachting organization, and using “modern” multi-channel proportional radio equipment. That gap in the history of RC model yacht racing is surprising. Few if any of the original DX skippers became a part of the later racing, and little of the original tech- nology carried over the time gap. Case in point: Rod Carr and I never heard of each other until “recently,” and I don’t know any of the rest of you. And I suspect that some of you may not have heard of automatic sail trimming or wing-sails before. I am sad to observe that most (and maybe all) of the guys (no gals) that I sailed with have gone to their happy sailing grounds. Francis D. Reynolds About the Author Francis Reynolds is an engineer and a corporate and private technical inventor who holds a number of patents. The patent rights to one of his inventions, a digital decoder and memory invented for multiplexing the remote control of a model fireboat, were later sold to Boeing and used to control the BOMARC national-defense missile. His other personal technical efforts have included ornithopter development and hydrofoil-rotor marine vehicles.2 Reynolds has lectured nationally, including at NASA Goddard, and at a number of universities. For years he taught evening courses on inventing at the University of Washington, at Community Colleges, and at Boeing. Prior to “retirement” he held Engineering Management positions on many Boeing programs. His book, Crackpot or Genius? A Complete Guide to the Uncommon Art of Inventing is available from Barnes and Noble. Reynolds’ latest invention is a revolutionary and most promising “dual mode” transportation system that will permit private cars, transit, freight, and commercial vehicles to travel on automatic high-speed magnetic-levitation linear-motor guideways in addition to normal manually driven travel on the streets. See: http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/ itrans/reynoldsfuturist.htm Francis Reynolds has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington and is a Registered Professional Engineer. He is an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and has been elected to the Hall of Fame of the Academy of Model Aeronautics. 1. You will find an article that covers such systems, titled “Innovative Sailboat Design,” in the Summer 1990 issue of U.S. Boat & Ship Modeler — F.R. 2. An article on the latter, titled “The Hydrocopter” may be read in the Fall 1991 issue of U.S. Boat & Ship Modeler. — F.R. Page 14 Editor’s Afterword This article owes its existence to a half-century-old attribution error by an editor of Model Maker magazine in Great Britain. My original intent was to reprint an article from the May 1955 issue of that magazine entitled “Radio Control of the M Class ‘Arrow’” and attributed to C.O. Davis. I emailed a copy to Rod Carr for review, and Rod forwarded it to Francis, who emailed back that this was actually a paper that he had written. Oops. So after some back and forth Francis graciously agreed to write a new description from scratch, and thus this important part of U.S. model yachting history has been preseverved. “Arrow” and “Miss Seattle” are currently in the hands of Rod Carr. John Snow also has an A Class boat from Seattle that contained the automatic sheeting system. In checking the various class rules I discovered that in some cases automatic sheeting is clearly forbidden and in others, such as the 36/600, it appears to be allowed. It will be interesting to see if some “high tech” skipper picks up this 50 year old thread. As they say, stay tuned! Earl Boebert The 2003 Vintage Marblehead National Regatta ing for rough weather. However, Saturday dawned with light and variable winds on the pond as the hurricane had passed well up into Canada by then. Winds Saturday were 010 knots and variable on the course. The race format was Vintage M heats alternating with Vintage 36 heats because three of the skippers were sailing both classes. Paul Eseman from the Detroit Model Yacht Club acted as Race Director and Cal Law, Bill Bond, and Bruce Zemke helped with launching of the boats and made sure everything ran smoothly. Racing proceeded to noon with an hour lunch break, then to four. Vintage M’s sailed eight races and Vintage 36’s sailed six. Dinner Saturday night was at the Pontiac Yacht Club, where participants viewed the world’s largest “Lightning” fleet (over 80 boats) which was established in 1934, to keep the vintage theme going for the weekend. At the dinner, we honored one of our skippers, Dave Harrington and his wife Davie who were celebrating their 44th wedding anniversary. We had a cake to celebrate the occasion with everyone. Sunday was planned for more heats, but the wind didn’t fill in until about 10:30 and everyone voted to go on Saturday’s results, rather that start so late in the morning. There are also two overall trophies given at each National Vintage M regatta – the Craftsmanship Trophy for the best craftsmanship in building the models and the Marshall Croft Sportsmanship Trophy for outstanding This year’s Vintage Marblehead regatta was held on September 19 – 21, 2003 in Detroit, Michigan. A total of ten skippers made the trip, in spite of hurricane Isabel threatening the weekend. As luck would have it, the hurricane and her rain and wind were gone by the first gun on Saturday. Friday was practice day and a few hardy souls ventured to the pond to check out the layout. The wind was piping up to over 15 knots by the end of practice at 4:00 pm and caused many skippers to think about prepar- Al Suydam’s Cheerio, leading at the windward mark. It pretty much went like that all day. Page 15 sportsmanship. The participants at the regatta vote on the two awards and they were tallied on Sunday morning. Pete Peterson was awarded the craftsmanship trophy by the skippers for his outstanding craftsmanship in building the Spring Lake “double-enders” and Alan Suydam was honored with the sportsmanship trophy. Vintage Marblehead Class Nine boats sailed a total of eight races which determined the final results due to no counted races on Sunday morning. Five skippers (Pete Peterson, Harry Mote, Dave Harrington, Carl Olbrich and John Henson) sailed Spring Lake “double-enders” which are sailed as a one-design fleet in Spring Lake, New Jersey. Marv Cohen sailed a “Naskeag” high-flyer design which was started at the WoodenBoat School and just finished this year, Wick Smith sailed his Grandfather’s “Sunkiss” which he also sailed at the last Detroit regatta in 1999, Ralph Templin sailed a “Humptulips” design which was molded in fiberglass from an original boat and finished the night before the regatta, and Alan Suydam sailed his “Cheerio I” design which he sailed in the 2001 regatta in Tampa, Florida. method of the most wins, followed by the most seconds, etc. Vintage 36 Class This year was the first year for the Vintage 36 Class. The USVMYG is trying this class as an addition to the Vintage M class and it is hoped that it might be as successful in the future, given that there was a 36/600 class in the early days, there are classes being taught in the construction of this class at the WoodenBoat School in Maine, and there is a mentoring class in Seattle for the “Pirate” design. Four Boats sailed six heats on Saturday. Pete Peterson and John Henson sailed Pete’s 36” design which is beginning to catch on in Spring Lake. Pete says the seventh boat is on the boards. Earl Boebert brought “Yankee III” from Albuquerque. Earl has written about this design and its construction in previous issues of The Model Yacht, and Alan Suydam sailed his “Chico II” design. The light wind very much favored the “Chico II” design and she won all six heats. A tie for second place was broken by the AMYA rules. Alan Suydam The light winds favored the lighter Cheerio design and Alan Suydam won five of the eight heats to take the regatta. A four-way tie for second was broken by using the AMYA Vintage M Skipper Home Town Boat Design Total Points Alan Suydam Wick Smith Ralph Templin Harry Mote Carl Olbrich Pete Peterson John Henson Marv Cohen Farmington, MI Grosse Pt Woods, MI Clinton, MI Barnnegat, NJ Cary, NC West Belmar,NJ Brick, NJ Akron, OH Cheerio I Sunkiss Humptulips Spring Lake Spring Lake Spring Lake Spring Lake Naskeag 14 28 28 28 28 47 66 66 (High-Flyer) Vintage 36 Skipper Home Town Boat Design Total Points Alan Suydam Pete Peterson John Henson Earl Boebert Farmington, MI Belmar, NJ Brick, NJ Albuquerque, NM Chico II Spring Lake Spring Lake Yankee III 6 17 17 20 Page 16 The New Vintage 36 Class The 2003 National Vintage Marblehead Regatta in Detroit marked the first inclusion of V36 as a proposed new Vintage Class. A call went out to the participants to round up any boats that would constitute this new class. Four boats raced in the inaugural regatta. Two of them were a new design by Pete Peterson of Spring Lake that carried the spirit of the vintage group by being essentially smaller versions of his 50/800 design with skeg/rudder design. Earl Boebert brought his “Yankee III” which was designed by John Black with the rudder on the rear of the keel. I brought the boat I taught at this year’s WoodenBoat School, “Chico II,” designed by A. J. Fisher in 1938. Chico II also has a skeg/rudder design. Earl and I had some time to have a discussion of proposed rules for the class during the Sunday morning of the regatta. Here are some of the points we covered and proposed as the rules for the new V36 Class: A design consistent with the intent of a vintage class. That is: a hull that was designed and/or built as a 36/600 or UK 36R before 1960; a newly designed hull in the “vintage spirit” like the Spring Lake hulls; and other pre-1960 designs that are currently being used in mentoring programs such as the “Pirate” design that is being used so successfully on the West Coast. For both pre-1960 and new designs the rig is to be limited to 600 sq. in. of sail and 60 in. maximum mast height, wood or aluminum masts only, and multipaneled sails are explicitly allowed. For new hull designs, the proposed limits are 36 inch overall length and skeg and rudder design (or rudder on the keel) Two-channel radio control in the interests of simplicity. Obviously, there could be a lot more restrictions in the rules, but as a first attempt at some rules, I would like to go with these. We welcome all comments and will incorporate revisions and publish again in future issues of The Model Yacht. Send comments to Alan Suydam, 33810 State Street, Farmington, Michigan 48335 or asuydam@peoplepc.com. Alan Suydam The Model Yacht is published three times a year by the U.S. Vintage Model Yacht Group. Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 U.S.V.M.Y.G. Reproduction for noncommercial purposes permitted; all other rights reserved. Editorial Address: 9219 Flushing Meadows NE Albuquerque NM 87111 Email: boebert@swcp.com Phone: 505 823 1046 Pete Peterson’s 36” Spring Lake design, an example of following the spirit of the rules: handy size, classic lines, and good sailing qualities Officers of the U.S. Vintage Model Yacht Group: President: John Snow Eastern Vice-President: Ben Martin Midwest Vice-President: Al Suydam Western Vice-President: Dominic Meo, III Southeastern Vice-President: Thom Mclaughlin Vintage M Class Coordinator: Charles Roden A Class Coordinator: Rod Carr U.K. Coordinator: Graham Reeves Canadian Representative: Doug McMain Historian: Earl Boebert Archivist: Jim Dolan Page 17 Another Small Class: The “MM” In late 1954 Vic Smeed, the editor of the British journal Model Maker proposed a new class, which he called “MM.” The name had a double meaning, in that it stood for both “Model Maker” and “Half M” class. The rules of the class were, for all intents and purposes, that of a half-scale M boat: 25 inches LOA, 219 sq. inches (1.5 sq. feet) of sail area, and a garboard radius of one half inch, which could be checked with a halfpenny coin [!] “Water Baby” about every kind of model. The “MM” class was clearly an important initiative by his magazine and it is unlikely that he would publish an untried design. Nevertheless, it is clear that this is a medium to light air boat and would have a hard time with any kind of serious air, where the combined effect of wind and wave would give her a very hard time indeed. She interested me because of her possibilities for free sailing. The problem with free sail boats is that you have to find a pond that you (or your mate) can access from every side. “Water Baby” is small enough to sail in a sheltered swimming pool, and in doing so can teach a skipper many lessons about trim and balance of model yachts, and the endlessly fascinating subject of vane steering. Smeed launched his class with this intriguing little boat called “Water Baby.” He proposed five possible forms of construction: Bread and butter carved from Obechi (a then prevaThe “Water Baby” Vane lent Oriental softwood), fiberglass over balsa, Despite her small size, Smeed was careful to fiberglass, hardwood plank over rib and incorporate all of the significant features of a balsa plank over rib. full-sized M boat, for the class was intended The dimensions of as a training class for the boat are: juniors. These Two disks, one soldered to arm included a “proper” • LOA: 25 in. with bolt to hold feather lead keel with cast• Beam: 5 1/4 in. in bolts, a mast (Approx.) stepped onto the Sliding weight with set screw keel with a sliding • Draught: 5 3/4 plate, and, in. (Approx.) Collar with mast most interestingly, a set screw to hold • Weight: 55 to 59 functional feather arm fully oz. Fisher-style selfBody with tacking vane. • Lead: 35 oz. inner pivoting tube Pivot The basic layout of and engagement • Mainsail: 23 in. pins the vane is shown in pins luff x 30 in. leach the diagram on this x 9 3/8 in. foot Quadrant with with 1 in. roach page. From top to Retaining tiller link and (Estimated). bottom, firs assemwasher outer pivoting tube bly is the self-tack• Jib: 20 in. luff x ing or “break back” Rudder post collar 18 in. leach x 8 Base plate with linkage used on a in. foot with 1 in. with set screw to pivot pin beat. The collar with adjust tiller throw roach (Estiset screw serves a mated). dual purpose. It • Spinnaker: 20 x enables the ratio of 22 x 14 in., short the counterweight side is the foot, and feather arm to set on a 7 1/2 be adjusted, and inch pole. when the feather arm is pulled all the Smeed was an way out it locks the accomplished and amazingly prolific The “Water Baby” Vane. The distance between the pivot linkage for the reach designer of not only pins is 2 inches; the remaining dimensions are not critical or a run. This saves a few parts, but would yachts, but just and can be scaled off this drawing as needed. Page 18 Shore Wind Direction This diagram, adapted from Vol. 2 No. 3, shows the operation of the self-tacking or “break back” mechanism when a vane boat is being turned at the shore. The sequence begins with the boat on starboard tack and the self-tacking mechanism held open by the heel of the boat operating on the conterweight. In the middle step the boat has been poled around by its skipper and the change of heel “flips” the mechanism over. Finally the boat is properly aligned with the wind on port tack. This system was in vented by Ted Houk in the 1940’s. The diagram shows a geared, or “Ballantyne” vane instead of the “Fisher” vane designed by Smeed for “Water Baby.” be somewhat overcomplicated for any kind of competition, where it is important to maintain settings once they are determined. The next lower assembly is the body of the vane, soldered from tubes and pins. The center vertical tube, called the “inner tube” in the diagram, is part of a clever adjustment mechanism. This tube is a sliding fit inside the one attached to the quadrant. To adjust the angle of the body relative to the tiller link, the body is lifted to so that one of the two pins is clear of the quadrant and then turned and re-engaged as needed. The two engagement pins permit the body to be spun around 180 deg. for the run. When the body is lowered in the quadrant tube and the pins engaged, the two tubes pivot as a unit. The tiller slides in another collar-plus-setscrew assembly soldered to the rudder post. This permits adjustment of the ratio between the lengths of the quadrant link and the tiller, a subject of much discussion during the vane era. The base extends from the stern as shown and has a pointed pin, or “pintle” on which the body + quadrant assembly pivots. This must be a free-turning bearing. If there is any stickiness the vane will “hunt” or overcorrect and the boat will sail in a series of arcs. All in all, a very clever and fully adjustable design that permits a beginner to learn the ins and outs of vane design and trim. Updating “Water Baby” Hull Today we can add fiberglass over foam to the array of construction techniques listed by Smeed. The canoe body is simple enough to make a straightforward and inexpensive first exercise in a planked hull. It would be interesting to adopt the approach used by the static ship model builders, in which a layer of decorative wood is planked over an inner, structural layer. One could use 1/8” balsa (or foam, for that matter) as the inner layer and 1/16” mahogany for the outer one. The lead weight can be cast in a simple wooden mold or laminated up from sheet lead roofing flashing. Rig Smeed specified a 1/4” diameter alumi- num mast with a simple rig lacking a backstay. It would be better to use the Rod Carr “minimum acceptable rig” described in Vol. 6 No. 2. Sails can be made from 3/4 oz. rip stop nylon, available at any kitemakers supply. Vane The amount of work required to make the vane can be significantly reduced by using a block of 1/4 in. Lexan for the body. Page 19 Earl Boebert Page 20 Sections 1/2 Full Size Page 21 (Overleaf) A.W. Littlejohn was an active designer in the United Kingdom and one of those people who seemed incapable of designing an ugly boat. This example, “Norada,” was designed to the “18-footer” rule, a complex rating rule which influenced the A Class rule and produced boats about the size of a Marblehead — in this case, 54 in. LOA. The hull plan given here is 1/6 full size and the sections are 1/3 for the boat as designed. Reduced slightly to 50 in. LOA and with the sail plan adjusted to 800 sq. in. she would make a very lovely traditional Vintage M boat. Don’t let that long keel fool you into thinking she would be sluggish in the water; “Yankee III” is also a full keel boat and she turns on a dime. Hull Plan 1/3 Full Size Page 22 “Norada” by A.W. Littlejohn