A fleet for pennies on the dollar = sailing for everyone

[callsign222]

Mik Storer and his affiliates are doing some neat things in the Philippines. This whole fleet in the video cost less than importing 1.5 Lasers according to a post he made.

This is good for people in the Philippines who want to sail and learn to sail, this is also good for us here in the USA, where I see less community based sailing opportunities available for everyone.

Regardless of what you think of the boats, people are sailing, they are racing, they are having fun, and the boats are moving along at a good clip too!





Perfect gets in the way of good enough.

[bamamick]

This is awesome.

Mickey Lake

[Ted Hoppe]

Where is the like button!

[BobW]

Good post bringing this to another audience. What Mik and his affiliates are doing in the Philippines is inspiring more than a few people. Groups in Virginia, Michigan, Canada, the UK and Uruguay are planning community boat building projects patterned after the Philippine OZ Goose model with the goal of building fleets to attract and welcome new sailors to the world of sailing. The group in Virginia (Box Boat Racing League: boxboatracing.com) has a boat under construction. The Michigan effort is looking for suitable space for their project. I'm not sure where the other groups are in their efforts (talking, planning, building, etc.), but there is activity.

There is an Open Goose Sailing Boat page on Face Book. Mik has an OZ Goose website opengoose.com with a lot of information: videos, photos, and how-to articles.

[Boatmik]

Should be "affiliates and Mik Storer"

The PHBYC (Philippine Home Boatbuilder's Yacht Club - a virtual group like WBF) has been doing Family Boatbuilding Weekends for about 11 years - Inspired by Wooden Boat itself. I joined about 8 years ago when I saw traffic coming from their forum. A couple of people were building my boats.

Five years ago I moved here.

The last four years though, the PHBYC FBW has used the Oz Goose. Around that time Ian Henehan in Texas had started putting up videos which were pretty astounding in terms of speed ... first 10, then 11 then 12.9 knots on a tideless lake in the middle of Texas. Much more than I had expected for this "extra hull" for the 8ft ozracer rig and running gear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO0B5p7iTjE

And also sailing with two adults and a clutch of kids with good speed and little tiller effort.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku-QFsRCGgM

Since then we have had four 10 boat builds and quite a few private boats self built or pro built as well as smaller group builds of 2 to 4 boats.

First 10 boat build at Taal Lake Conservation Centre on a live volcano lake an hour south of Manila.



Then in the second biggest city of Cebu



One of the surprising outcomes was the Furniture manufacturer where we did the prefab had a huge old CNC machine which ended up cutting the kits and machining the foils (good foil shapes are part of the reason for the surprising level of performance)

Then in the Southern city of Davao



This year the hosting club of the Goose racing on taal bit the bullet for another very successful build



None of this would have happened without the help and volunteers of the PHBYC who had their program of teaching people to build wooden boats already going, plus the videos from Ian Henehan at the right time, plus the support of the various sponsors you can see on the sails, plus the Taal Lake Yacht Club inviting us to join racing (they now have 20 geese on their racks - a huge boost to their fleet and members).

The practical thing about the boat is that it lends itself to group builds, it carries one or two adults for racing or three for teaching (coach/instructor and two students) and sails well with good response even in the very light and patchy winds of mid year mornings.

One of the byproducts of the National Titles in the first post video was that the Oz Goose has become a nationally accepted class. This year it looks like we have been accepted for collegiate level sailing and several members of the Paralympic team join us for practice and race sessions (the light handling characteristics).

The big part of the learning curve we have discovered is in the training of new sailors to sail the boats - at some point the problem switches to one of "not enough boats" to "not enough instructors" a new direction for us. It is also a good test of whether the boats will be used. A building program is connected with an institution that will make sailing into its general activities.

To this end we have to thank not only all the volunteers who make the flat packs, but in order of builds 2015 Taal Lake Conservation Centre (which runs sailing classes) 2016 Hyde Sails Asia in Cebu (which initially wanted its staff to learn to sail), 2017 Holy Name School in Davao (which has boat building and sailing as part of its curriculum) and 2018 Taal Lake Yacht Club (that now has a cheaper boat to hire and teach on as well as its large fleet of Hobie 16s).

We will have an additional build this year. Our first year with 2 events

And it is true, with the sponsorship and volunteer help a family in the emerging middle class can build a goose for quite a bit less than the 45Kpeso of just buying the materials but have the convenience of a computer cut flat pack ready to assemble and computer milled foils.

So as you can see ... it is "his affiliates and (then) Mik Storer"

MIK

Oz Goose website

[Boatmik]

There is a general contraction in most types of organised sailing around the world (disorganised sailing seems quite healthy).

One of the results of this was the dropping of sailing from the Paralympics - specifically not enough people sailing and not in enough countries. Something Olympic sailing may have to eventually face unless they focus again on grass roots growth rather than nurturing a few young hopefuls into racing careers. Usually government funding for sailing bodies depends on Olympic Gold Medals.

In the Philippines this has been a problem with cost. There are only tiny numbers of mainstream dinghies here like Lasers and Optimists.

They are just too expensive.

Both were said to be low cost when they appeared, but something was lost in the intervening 40 or 50 years.

The idea here is to keep the same type of simplicity as timber dinghies in the 60s and 70s before the control system, exotic masts and sails and expensive foils ruined everything for average families. Hulls were made expensive by changing to glass construction. Single skin glass is just not competitive with timber boats after a season or two - so there was pressure to move to foam sandwich - so the materials cost and the labour cost balloon out. And the extra stiffness of thick light sandwich consigns the wooden boat fleet to history.

The Oz Goose will never ever move to fibreglass production.

The Oz Goose is fun to sail - we had a visit from the Coach for the Paralympic Squad a couple of weeks ago. He tried a goose on Saturday and my expectation was "if he hated it he would be back in 15 mins". He sailed to the islands in the middle of the lake (about 5km - but it was strong wind planing) came back and said "nice boat". He has released his team to come and join us for sailing whenever there is a race. Previously they had to sail on Manila Bay at only one club to make sure they were doing worthwhile training - now officially accepted.

Even in a simple boat, the best sailors will still be the best. They will also prepare their boats the best but with the Goose there are limits of how far they can go. No ball bearing blocks (except for a single optional ratchet block) limits on mechanical advantage for specific controls.

The boats are rigged with rudder fittings, a plastic cleat on the mast, three non ball bearing blocks for the mainsheet and a stainless steel ring to turn the halyard- that's the fitting list complete. Ropes are spectra apart from the mainsheet as it is not expensive now. There is a possibility of adjustable downhauls and outhauls. I don't touch my outhaul much (windward leeward courses) and we have decided that for our short club races that the downhaul cannot be adjusted during the race. Some others have adjustable downhauls, I just sit on the foredeck between races, untie it and tighten, or occasionally loosen it.

There are some rigging methods we have found to be very durable that use rope rather than fittings (it is easy to test stuff with 17 local boats on the water, several used 3 days or more a week for teaching group after group).

The way we rig them is here so you can see if any of the details are useful. I would pick and choose between these ideas if long distance sailing. Fittings help reduce chafe when sailing 12 14 or 24 hours a day and the chance of a breakage is just too much. We don't have breakages but everything gets looked at every few hours of sailing and we are in a good situation to do the very occasional replacements as necessary.
Rigging an Oz Goose

MIK

[sailnstink]

Went to a wedding on that lake about 20 years ago. Cool place. Did the horseback ride up the volcano island. It is something to see. Good on you for bringing sailing there and making sailing affordable and cool again.

[David G]

Thanks for spreading the word. What that mob is up to is quite inspiring indeed.

[Boatmik]

Two weekends ago we went to the Island of Mindoro to Calapan City which was having its Foundation Day Celebration.

A group from Calapan came to do the last 10 boat build in February at the Taal Lake Yacht Club

Since then they have built 5 boats.





We took four Oz Geese and a group of sailors including two members of the National Paralympic Squad.



The sailing was right by the main ferry wharf which is a secure area but with help from the Ports Authority they allowed it and allowed the use of a new finger wharf for viewing the sailing.



Some of the nearly finished local geese were put on display on the Public Ferry Jetty

We were helped out by the Port Authority, the Municipal and Barangay officials (who provided overnight security for the boats) the Coast Guard, Bantay Dagat (a grass roots organisation of mostly fishermen wanting to preserve fish habitat) and the local fishermen who helped me lay the course in the morning.



The event was won by Paralympic sailor Clytie Bernardi and Johnny Caman, Second Mikee Vinzon and me, third was Jojo Asoque and Kevin Bautista third



The most exciting aspect for me was hearing just one word again and again.

Layag. It means sail. I could hear all the locals looking and saying Layag. Wanting to look and touch the sails

People were telling me again and again that not so very long ago - maybe 30 years - when they went shopping or to school using the public jeepneys along the waterfront there would be a myriad of sailboats rigging up and departing.

It was still the main method of distance transport and was the foundation of the economy.

We hope it will become a way for locals to increase income through tourism and teaching as well as removing some of the pressure from the fisheries.

The visit worked very well because of the people involved with PHBYC and the Mindoro Movement for Change.

More pics here https://www.flickr.com/photos/boatmi...57689308451290

[David G]

Mik - keep up the good work. You've really planted a seed!!

[Boatmik]

The first start at the 2022 Oz Goose Nationals.

32 boats entered - 58 sailors. The whole fleet costs about the same as importing three Lasers. It is the largest one-design dinghy regatta ever held in the Philippines. Most sailors are new to sailing.

Couple of videos



The WB initiative of Family Boatbuilding Weekends was taken on board by a group of Filipino friends about 13 years ago building a variety of canoes and small sailboats. About 6 years ago changed over to the Oz Goose. Like most family boatbuilding weekend events it is organised by volunteers and has a non-profit structure.

Now there is a fleet of over 100 Geese in five main sailing centres in the Philippines. Taal Lake (an hour or so south of Manila), Subic Bay, Cebu (central Philippines), Butuan in the southernmost island and Albay where the video is shot. Prior to the Geese there was little or no sailing in Cebu, Butuan and Albay.


Albay Yacht Club was originally founded in 1907, one of the very earliest yacht clubs in the Philippines. But has been non functional for decades. A group of mostly kayak enthusiasts decided to revive it by building 12 Oz Geese - an instant Yacht Club for the price of an imported Laser. Their boats have been sailing regularly for about a year. They worked hard to get the Nationals up.

The event was won by young hotshots from the national youth squad - it was windy, the sailed two two to a boat and pushed the boats . We also had a Sailability division of 5 entrants (people with a partial disability), two were placed in the top 10 in the event.

There are more videos on youtube - Oz Goose Nationals

We are lining up to have another Family Boatbulding Weekend in August, with a target of 20 more Oz Geese.

Best Regards
MIK

[Boatmik]

Some better interviews at the Oz Goose Philippines Nationals. Albay 2022

[David G]

Nice!!

No nod in the video to the wizard boat designer? <G>