Floating a Concept: Design Challenge V?

[Carl Cramer]

I had an interesting meeting yesterday, courtesy of Old Friend Frank Pedersen and a variety of invited vagabonds.

Here's the concept, or at least the starting point for our meeting:

"Beer, chips, and designing a boat for the Great Recession."

While imbibing and inhaling the first and the second elements, we got down to the third:

Buying used Solings, preferably those that are destined for the recycle bin anyway.

Salvaging the keel, rig, deck hardware, and sails.

That's the starting point.

Design a (wooden) boat with the requirement that it must use the extant rig and keel. No, you can't modify those elements beyond fairing, etc.

Two parts: the design and on-water performance.

I love this idea. Keep it simple. Please don't suggest complicated rules.

No box rule.

So... what do you think? Should that be our next Design Challenge?

(Matt wanted to add the Rhodes 19, but I think then it gets too confusing -- to have two different Design Challenges going on.)

And please don't buy up all the used Solings on the market -- yet. We haven't decided -- yet.

And, more truly: NO ONE feels like commenting on the S23 I wrote about for MWBotW yesterday? You know what happens when you fail to respond: I give you another Ark.

Cheers, Frank: It's such a grand and simple idea.

Thanks so much, Carl

[johnw]

Why a keel boat? A centerboarder will be faster and can live on a trailer more easily.

[Hwyl]

I've never sailed a Soling, but have sailed a Yngling, my guess is they are nice boats, their keel and rig are optimized for close hauled work,

Wouldn't the ideal just be a Soling made of dead trees, perhaps with a different counter. It seems you are looking for a racing boat. Or you could narrow the beam and give it trapezes and beat Eli in the ERR,

I like to think I am innovative but I don't see much room for innovation.

[Carl Cramer]

Gareth -- The hull is an old Olympics design. With a boom height designed to decapitate. Surely we can improve on that?

You can do whatever you want in terms of traps.

JohnW -- Maybe a centerboarder will be next.

Thanks, Carl

I've never sailed a Soling, but have sailed a Yngling, my guess is they are nice boats, their keel and rig are optimized for close hauled work,

Wouldn't the ideal just be a Soling made of dead trees, perhaps with a different counter. It seems you are looking for a racing boat. Or you could narrow the beam and give it trapezes and beat Eli in the ERR,

I like to think I am innovative but I don't see much room for innovation.

[rbgarr]

I've told this story before (I've told EVERY story before, shamelessly, and I'm known for it! ):

I borrowed a friend's Soling to sail to Nantucket from Cape Cod. It was a good sail with a young and (ahem) enthusiastic girlfriend during college years. We took her parents sailing after we arrived and it was blowing like stink. We were able to surf on the Nantucket ferries' wakes between the jetties and were sending up sheets of water drenching us all. Some fun!

After I sailed back to Cape Cod I unloaded and unrigged the boat and was going to paddle it out to the mooring not far from my friend's dock. I should have looked at the sky, but I was tired and sweaty and wanted a shower.

I got one.

A line squall, the white kind which turns the water's surface to foam, whipped into the harbor just after I shoved off and started to paddle with the boat's lone oar. When the squall hit the Soling heeled over about fifteen degrees under bare poles and much to my surprise, accelerated. She beam-reached right to the mooring while I enjoyed a cooling fresh water drenching. Impressive aerodynamics and lift on those appendages, I thought.

The Design Challenge V suggestion sounds like fun.

And hey! I commented on the CS23....

[TR]

First question is, are there in fact used Solings destined for the recycle bin available?

Second question is what is the new boat for? If it's for Wednesday night racing then how are these things handicapped? Racing one design will require some sort of box rule won't it? As a cruiser the deep fixed keel doesn't seem very user friendly......

[upchurchmr]

Don't want a keel boat. Local Texas lakes have too much shallow edges.
Been slow. Can't launch it off a ramp reasonably.

I'd just as soon convert it to a Tri and sell the keel to make up the money.

[Carl Cramer]

To answer the obvious: It's not intended to be a centerboarder nor a multihull. Nor for use in very thin water.

Thanks, Tad, for yours. Yes, there are a ton of them around. Typically on craigslist. And many more since they've been de-Olympicized.

Ideally, they will race evenly with others of their ilk (to the same class, or design parameters). Beyond that, locally, to PHRF ratings.

This should be a grand effort at RECYCLING a class of trashed boats that have no future in their current states.

There are other classes that could suit, but we feel the Soling answers most of the beginning parameters (see above).

[Hesp]

What's not to like? Count me in.

John

[keyhavenpotterer]

Something like the Joel White Fox Island 22 springs to mind.




Soling numbers, and interesting how similar the two underwater profiles are.

Class Symbol
Current Specifications
Crew	2 or 3
Type	Monohull
Design	One-Design
Construction	GRP
Rig	Bermuda rig
Keel	Fixed 580 kg (1,300 lb)
Trapeze	Droop hiking
LOA	8.15 m (26.7 ft)
LWL	6.1 m (20 ft)
Beam	1.9 m (6 ft 3 in)
Draft	1.3 m (4 ft 3 in)
Hull weight	1,035 kg (2,280 lb)
Mast height	9.3 m (31 ft)
Main & Jibarea	23.7 m2 (255 sq ft)
Mainsail area	15.6 m2 (168 sq ft)
Jib / Genoaarea	8.1 m2 (87 sq ft)
Spinnakerarea	Max: 45 m2 (480 sq ft) Min: 35 m2 (380 sq ft)
D-PN	82.3
RYA PN	914

Brian

[Thad]

Amusing. For me anyway, thinking about the history of the Atlantic Class (not unlike the Soling) which contracted with Cape Cod Shipbuilding to make GRP hulls to which the wood and lead "keels" from the A&R wood boats were attached (later and presently new boats are all glass and lead). Now you propose reversing the process, going from glass to (maybe, sort of) wood.

[Duncan Gibbs]

The whole fin, or just the heavy bit?

[Paul Pless]

So if you had two Solings. . .

[Figment]

I know it's WoodenBoat and all, but the clapped-out former racing Solings probably have perfectly sound hulls, it seems a shame to scrap them for the keel and rig. A much easier and more viable "new life" for those boats would be a new deck, probably with a bit of a coach house to get the boom up a bit for comfort and provide modest accommodations below. See Tim Lackey's "Bolero" knockabout conversion of a Shields.

I also agree with Gareth, the Soling is a fine sailing hull. One could tinker with the ends above the waterline I suppose, but really very little opportunity for innovation.

[Hesp]

“Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.”

[johnw]

I know it's WoodenBoat and all, but the clapped-out former racing Solings probably have perfectly sound hulls, it seems a shame to scrap them for the keel and rig. A much easier and more viable "new life" for those boats would be a new deck, probably with a bit of a coach house to get the boom up a bit for comfort and provide modest accommodations below. See Tim Lackey's "Bolero" knockabout conversion of a Shields.

I also agree with Gareth, the Soling is a fine sailing hull. One could tinker with the ends above the waterline I suppose, but really very little opportunity for innovation.

I suppose the point would be to design a boat that does something the Soling doesn't, say all-out performance in something like a 35' 110 or a cruising boat built with the racing boat parts.