|
|
Scottys New Boat |
|
Web bloke(WB) Today I have the opportunity to interview Peter Scott aka Scotty about his winter project which has seen the construction of a Merlin with some revolutionary features. Scotty(PS) Yes that's right, having sailed Merlins for over 30 years I thought I would pull together many of the ideas and thoughts accumulated over those years. WB In the quest for that 'edge' presumably? PS Sure. We have some very talented sailors in the fleet and for those of us not quite so talented the beauty of the rules is that we can experiment to try and close the gap. Just think, in one design sailing the better sailor in a boat set up exactly the same will beat the lesser sailor. Of course the danger with blistering speed is that you can go very fast in the wrong direction!! WB How did the boat evolve? PS Well following the change in rules last year and having various contacts in the wood world I was able to source from Holland 'plywood' with 7 plys however 3 of those 'plys' were of a carbon/kevlar composition this gives super stiffness and the flexibility to 'torture' the ply needed to build the modern Merlin.One of the benefits of this material is that the outer skin is the carbon/kevlar material which is treated to behave very much like fish skin when going through the water, very slippery - technology from the Americas Cup!! WB What design did you choose? PS Since the original Canterbury Tales appeared about 12 years ago there has been no real major move forward - minor tweaks here and there. Richard Whitworth is winning now in that same design. So the lines were based around the 'Tales' with a couple of 'tweaks' having spoken with Kevin Driver. we did pay careful attention to the final shape at deck level so we could fit the standard Winder deck mould to save time, although we did use the carbon version. WB How about the internals? PS Well asked Phil Morrison to run stress data through his load analysis programme to see where the strength is needed. The conclusion was that the existing layout was pretty well OK so nothing too revolutionary there. All the knees and thwart beams were constructed from biaxial carbon and foam making extensive use of the vacuum bagging facilities in Jim Hoptons workshop with the transom a polyester epoxy frame with the face of the transom made from very thin transom flap material with the draining ports cut out. WB How is she weight wise? PS She is carrying around 27kg of lead. Given the way the boats can now be built so light it is only a matter of time before hull weights will be reduced and make it possible for even lighter crew weights to sail the boats. WB What have you done rig wise? PS A couple of years ago I experimented with a carbon fibre wing mast with it has to be said limited success!! having thought it through and long discussions with Linton Jenkins we added a fibre glass top section with carbon filaments to aid gust response and modified the spanner arrangement to allow easy tacking. We are now experimenting with a 'Gnav' type kicker however there are problems using this system and over-rotating the mast. WB And how does it go? PS Over the past couple of weeks we have been trialing the boat at Lyme Regis against Mike Calvert and Dan Alsop working very closely with frank Rowsell on the sails WB And? PS Much the same upwind however downwind we were away - it was like sailing a 505 against an National 12. WB Sounds fantastic - why so fast? PS Well we have moved to an asymmetric spinnaker WB But that is outside the rules isn't it? PS Well it is always a question of interpretation. The rules state that the sail must be symmetrical down its centreline so what we did was to put an eye in the centre of the foot of the spinny and fold it in half to give the asymmetric shape. In this mode the pole is laid flat on the foredeck keeping the tack well down thus reducing the heeling moment. For dead downwind we reverted to flying the spinny in the normal manner, a few more strings but it all seemed to work. WB What about the white sails? PS Well given my earlier comments on reducing hull and crew weights I reckon 16 stone will be sufficient to race the boat which could end up with the boat being sailed in single-handed mode so I have installed a self taking jib. To control the main sail I have fitted a full width radiused track across the back of the boat so ending up with transom sheeting very much like on the multihulls. This has necessitated having a tiller extension on each side of the tiller rather like a 49'er. WB This all sounds quite stunning - when shall we see her racing on the water PS April 1st |