Fila #89 b-rigg fun and "Narrow" the F5g

While in Premantura i got the chance sail the new Fila with the b rigg.
I am satisfied with the result. Handling or speed aren't revolutionary but hadling is difinately improoved over evolution. Tacking is easier, There is also less nose down(logicaly, both boats have a wide stern, but fila has the hull shape made out of "circles", meaning there is less volume far from the centerline and low down, far from deck. So the rigg can "sink" the stern abit) Upwind, that is aspecially noticeable when bearing away.
I am still not happy with handling while reaching. The boat is forced to sail where it is pointing. Using even a small amount of rudder means loosing loots of speed. The bow is also too low in the water. Usually waves are not exactly perpendicular to the wind direction. Meaning that the boat can fly(go as fast as it can) one way, making that course really fun.
Reaching the other way sucks. Bow keeps digging. It is too low in the water. With all new components the boat will be circa. 150-200g lighter than it is on the photos but that won't solve the issue. It needs some kind of foiler under the bow, since no real lift is obtained from the sails.

Reaching the fun direction, note: bow up :D

When a wave ends(and there is no wave in front to plow into) there is enough downforce from the foil to sink the boat a couple cm.

The boat stays flat. It just sits deeper. Yes it is bad for the speed, but still better than a nosedive.

Downwind is just so much fun whe ne wind is above 15 knots.

Upwind:

The jib is 3 seasons old now. But the shape is still good

Handling upwind is excellet, or maybe just matched to my preferences.

I was too lazy to take blog worthy shots of the boat sailing with the a rigg. So it is going to happen in the next days, here in home waters.
I am just waiting for a day that won't be 35C hot, because that heat kills the morningbreeze, which usually develops into a steady 10knots if the temperature stays below 30.

Meanwhile the bulb for fila 89 is almost finished, next is the carbon keel fin.

Also i am working on a narrow f5g and rg65 with shadows borrowd from the f5g.

The f5g will weight somewhere between 1200 and 1270g, max. beam will be 6cm. The narrowes f5g ever.(exept if this gets finished sonner: http://forum.modelarji.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=90474)
It's atribute will be weight and low WSA, it has less than half of the WSA than Evolution!
The construction will be really simple. It will be hot wire cut from a block of stirodur/depron foam, the edges will be sanded to a 10mm radius and it will be glassed with epoxy. Foam will be removed with acetone. Not a revolutionary tehnique but efiicent with time.
The goal of the boat is to set a new standard for sailing in light winds(koseze) and to see how a really slender hull behaves at speed. With help of my foiled rudders i am plannig to sail above hullspeed, for now probalby only downwind.

F5g national class races - video clips

I uploaded some clips from races.
More are to come.
Video curtesy goes to Peter boat No. 68

1. race of the year took place in koseze, where the wind was surprisingly good.
I am sailing Evolution #86, Father is sailing Fila #87

8 races were sailed, the battery ran out for the last race. And so did the wind.
Results should be here: http://forum.modelarji.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=91554
But they aren't, they are very late, a few months late. Not sure why.

3rd race of the season was in Radeče, on a river, current was present. Nearby storms made for gusty and shifty condtions. Not to my liking
 But Radeče is always an interesting race, me and father were late, so we sailed with open decks, that resulted in fila sinking, almost to the bottom.
The boat got rescued, the battery was changed, and it sailed the rest of the races with a deck lid, with no problems. Hobbyking cheap servos ftw!

The race was tough.
The results are here: http://forum.modelarji.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=91830

Fila 89 - technical details

Fila 89 is the second fila boat i built.
The goal was to improve the sailcarryingability while maintaining the excellent handling of the boat.

The the original fila handles as good as any of the rc sailboats i have sailed, and still sets the standard for comparison for me.

The new boat has the mast and the keel box set further backwards to compensate for the expected bigger rigg, and longer keel.
The goal was also to sink the stern at heel angles bove 25deg(with the weight further aft and the big luff), lifting the bow. Giving it the ability to jump waves, reducing the entrance angle and improving agility.

It is not finished yet. It has a rigg and keel borrowed from evolution. Later it will recive a rigg identical to evolutions.

But the keel will be different.

The rudder is the same as evolutions.

The keel is 58cm long from the bottom of the hull to the bottom of the bulb, the bulb is 700g the keel 140(too much, but hey its aluminium)

Some diy stuff, 2.5mm allen key makes sure the backstay clears the sail and the boom

Why plastic sucks, the wang is loosing colour, and the right-most piece is bending despite 100% infill

the jib pivot is set further furward on this boat. The idea is to get the sails more paralel. This way the jib should depower later while keeping the desired gap at the back of it. And the ce doesn't move as far back when reaching(a better explanation would be that the jib remains more sheeted in, but the gap to main is still the same, the jib is more parallel ti the center line).
This is the best change compared to other boats. It makes bearing away much easier!, and smoother, there is no need to depower the sails all the way to the top of the riggs wind range.

This ,aom/sheet-servo position is a first for me. and it will stay this way for boats to come.
There is much more "hand space" inside, but it is a pain to change servos...  
note: 3d printed servo arm(seems to hold the 17.7kg@1cm@6V for now, it is 8.5cm long) and mount

3d printed mastbox and rudder servo. Positioning of the servo is not ideal, but the woodden support was to narrow for longitudinal mounting. The link is just temporary.
Note: this boat uses only stainless steel fittings and screws, the hooks for the stays are 1mm tig welding wire, the screws m3 stainless, whatever lenght is required.

I managed to loose the little 10mm tube that slides over the mast crane to extend it. Recently someone said that zipties are a temporary lifesaver. But all life is temporary they say..   ..mening this should break soon.

When i recieved the hull there was a big hole where my jib sheet outlet/hook would be. This flying hook/outlet the idea came from some beach cats and fireball dinghies, it is accompanied by the "standard" jib pivot tensioner.

Sailing tests concluded that the boat is floating on her desired static waterline(probably with a dispalcement of 1600-1700mm3), i have yet to weight her.
It also needs a keel with more surface, or more lift. since it sometimes goes sideways when not at ful sailing speed and it drifts quite alot when standing still.

I have a special keel planned for this boat, one with area concentrated just below the hull, and a strut hanging from it deep in the water. Similar to mal smiths boat here:http://www.users.on.net/~malcolmandjane/750.html

A post with sailing photos follows.

Blog active again, a.k.a. July update

So i have been away for some time.

No real reason for that.

Mostly, i have been driving cars and developing my own parts, for drifting/performance.

I've repaired some cars, crashed some and i am not nearly done, driving&experimenting, having fun&crashing..

..but i haven't left the rc sailing hobby.

All along i have been sailing evolution and for the last month or two fila 89, with mostly evolution guts(rigg,keel,rudders). Fila 89 is fast, not much faster than evolution, but handles better, gets up to speed faster. It will be raced in the end of august in the model olympics. Trying to take all the top spots from the get go.
So far in the F5g sailing season i have been doing great. Not sure if the boat(evolution) is  fast or my sailing is that good :D.
Videos of races follow on yt.
Posts on fila 89 follow.
A super narrow f5g boat follows.

The Jif got it's fair share of sailing too. Rg's are funny as hell, 270g of ballast on a 44cm ultra thin bendy keelfin and a full sailarea 90cm tall rigg make for a boat that is capable of carrying the same rigg up to 15knots, gusting to 20.
Damn that v botom can plan downwind. Not sure if it is actual plnning but is exceeds the hull speed for sure.
Project angeldust got dropped after a desk lamp heated the 3d printed plug so it got deformed.
A post on jif follows.

Footys have been down tho. I made it to the goldcup in Germany, but with prototypes of questionable speed. With noone to compare to, and not as much fun as the faster rg65 and f5g i won't sail footys often in the near future. The goldcup result confirms that.
Footys didn't grow roots in Slovenia, despite me bringing the footys to every rc event i went, giving them and lendind them to anyone interested.
Only two Karo replicas were built, but they weren't really race capable.(yet)
Now i am to busy&have other interests to actively promote footys here in slo. But footys are still great boats, and i will, maybe, take part in future goldcups with a borrowed boat(ICE would be nice, or a Slim perhaps..)

Rc-sailing.net, i have been following the forum for years, before i made my own blog, before i've built my first footy.
Now everytime i try to enter it a vbulletin message appers: "Sorry. The administrator has banned your IP address. To contact the administrator click here"   ...i have written (clicked) messages to the admin. But with no reply, not sure why all the devices i use got banned, And i don't think i've done something wrong according to forum rules.
I have yet to try other contacts to reach the admin.
If anyone has any info on the subject please contact me.
From time to time an interesting topic does pop up in the forum, and i would like to be a part of it, or at least read it.


And that would conclude the "july update".

Koeze race report

On the 4th of october the last race of the national championship took place in  koseze pond.
The report will be fullfiled soon.

The races were streamed live at:
http://new.livestream.com/zivo/MODELARJI-NA-KOSESKEM-BAJERJU
clips of all but one race can be found on that link

Velenje race report

On the 27th of septembre i was supposed to be with the italian footy gang sailing footys. But school would not let me take the 700km trip to north-western italy.
So i attended the 5th race of our national championship in the F5g/750mm class.
Velenje is alway a nice race, sailed on an artifical lake which is a consequence of heavy mining activity in the area and the site of the coruptive project teš6(part of a thermo electricity plant).
The water is clear blue, warm and wind is usually pretty good.
12 competitors showed up.
The line up was as competitive as it gets in the 750mm class.
8 races were sailed. First there was no wind then the wind came. then it was gone again and later it came back again. Not exactly the "good" wind i was expecting.
but the race was lots of fun and i am particulary proud of the first race. Because there was almost no wind and nr.93 was just behind me, but i managed to fight him off and took 1st.
The rest of the race was mellow. Start hard, stay right. Keep up the speed.
When the wind came evolutions speed was untouched. but in the luls either 93 or 331 and 334 were always close behind.
My father short curcuited(or however it is spelled) his electronics. And with no backup servos fila was out of the race. He had to do with am reserve boat from niko. But it was a completely different boat that he is used to and he was just not as fast with it.

My hopes for the race were high. I knew if i get the win i would have enough points to claim the national title for the second year in a row.
Luckily i did it.

Photos and videos will be posted soon.


In week before the race an older sailor passed away, his name was Ivan. He was the grandfather of an acquaintance of mine. He loved building model boats, and enjoyed national championship races.
He was not always on top of the rankings but he did it with a smile!
Until a heart complication took him away, may he rest in peace.
Velenje race was the race he was always eiger to sail. This year he built a new boat, which was supposed to sail for the first time that weekend.

Maybe that boat will sail in velenje the next year, to honor his memory. Also i will suggest that we name the race as his memorial.

Fila #89

At the rogla race Niko a fellow sailor gave me a fila hull, with a built in finn box, finn and rudder. Thanks alot again!
So the goal was to have the boat sailing by now but fiddeling around my car and school made me postpone this project.
This boat will be an improvement to fila #87, it won't be perfect but it will be good.
It will also showcase 3d printed parts.
The boat will be primarily a one keel fin one rudder boat, but a fore rudder shaft will be also fitted.

as i got it, the keelbox was prfectly aligned the rudder post was of centreline for 2mm

rc stuff mock-up, a laid down sheet servo is a first for me

standard b-rigg is used for mock-up of eyelets for sheets and shrouds

3d printed mast box, the mast rake i adjustable 3-10 deg of backwards rake

this is a new material i use, its bison plasteline epoxy, its a 5minute epoxy, gets stiff as a rock and is very nice to sand

shroud from the inside(3x2cm patch is enough

backstay, the hook is made out of 2mm alu bicycle spoke

keel finn, the target weight is 1600g, but i wont go below 700g of ballast! lots of wolume to play with the original fila weighs 1850g sail-ready

all glued in, the finn box was in the way, so i cut it, still enough space for the keel to fit inside..
..the woodden supports area waiting to be cut abit more..

everything is stainless steel(1mm, tig welding rod) or aluminum

First test will be carried out with evolution rigg against fila#87, evolution 50cm deep keel can be used on this boat.
Looking to get the sheeting sistem and new rudder post&rudder glued and runnig by the end of the week.
That is it for now.

Model olimpics

Every year model olimpics are organized on Koseze pond in Ljubljana.
Usually three F5g races are organized, marathon/navigation on Monday, match race od wednesday and a regular regatta on Friday, this year is no exception.
Sadly i missed mondays navigation because of the upcoming exams.

Wednesday

Hoewer my father joined me yesterday(wednesday) to do some match racing.
We arived at the pond and the Jury decided to make it a normal race, but that only one lap around the course should be sailed(instead of two), to save time.
No results were discarded at the end(i have no clue why?). Meaning that every "bad" result counted and consistency was crucial.
The wind was typical koseze shit, the windward bouy was set towards the trees and there was no wind. the rest of the course was sailable, but luls lasting about 5min were present from time to time completely stopping the happening on the course.
The event was fun nevertheless.
The starts were pretty important because the firs buoy was only about 10m from the starting line, and a reach followed. The left side of the starting line was heavily favourised.
I messed-up 3 starts, but all of the rest is started as close to the left bouy as possible and always came first to the windward bouy.
My father was charging too, Fila seems to suit his sailing style. He took a strong second place, leaving the third 8 points behing.
I took first easily. Evolution is the boat to beat at the moment.
Most of the succes in these low-wind conditions comes down to it's stiff, perhaps to stiff, yet shallow sails. Which take form easily, and pop to the other side with ease. Meaning that each gust is used as propulsion and not as a sail turning/poping tool!

Friday 

The last race of august is over. Conditions were Koseze specific, zero wind, and i mean zero.

18 competitors showed up. The racing was not exactly exciting as the boats barely moved.

The conditions were made worse by rc powerboats driving near the race course and the organisers did not tell them to stop driving because they're making waves.

I was sailing evolution and was struggling with bad luck and wrong decisions about where the vacum is going to suck the boats. So i was following my father in 3rd or 4th place in most races. He was doing much better with a string of second places.

Leading was #93 a low wind specific boat.

I was a bit frustrated, because there was nothing i could do to better my performance. I started sharp on the right side but couldn't match the speed(slowness) of boats with less wetted area like fathers fila, #49 and #93.

Then there was a 20min pause, me, father and skipper of #93 helped peter a sailor in the wheelchair to get to his car because he was leaving due to heat and zero wind, i came ba about 10min after the pause was declared to find that there was only about a minute left to the next start.

This was a bad bad move by the organizers. One does not shorten the pause without informing all the competitors.
I decided not to sail in that race but i did put together fila trew it into the water and when my father arrived he sailed the race and dispite starting a few minutes late he cam into the top 5.

Me and #93 did not start that race.

Tbh i was dissapointed, the organizers did shit.

The final results are not out yet but #93 was first with all bullets but that one race. Niko #49 was second because he won that race i was left out of. I got third and my father got 4th. now how the fuck did he get forth? he was ahead of me in all race but one. in that race he caught a dead end line that was floating around a bouy(organizers shame on you again), and finished second to last or something like that.

I am pretty sure that they messed up something, we will see when the results come.

Rant

Yes i know that rc sailing or to be exact the F5g class here in slovenia is not such a serious thing like IOM in croatia or Rg65 in south america but with negligence like seen on friday rc sailing here won't ever become a serious hobby. 

Not saying that it(sailing) should be to all, but for some of us it's not only joy but much more.

That is why Slovenia is a small country with a little bit of everything, because certain people tend to work on their own and strive to achieve their goals more than the others. Such people standout from the crowd, it is becouse of them that Slovenia is succesful in many sports from the outside. But these successful people are alone, Slovenia fails to deliver offspring in sports(and not just sports) because of a careless attitude seen all to often. 

(added:

Real succes will be delivering quality offspring for generations not just picking the best one from a generation and feeding him to the world saying "look we very good at this".)

After the sailboat race an exhibition of all models was sceduled.
picasa pictures won't load right now so they are coming soon..

Ptuj race report

On the 21. of June i gave a second go to organizing a national class regatta.
The race was a sucess, 11 competitors present, wind was good, and river flow made racing interesting but not hindered.
Me and my father took the top two spots sailing evolution and fila. Niko was third.

Full report soon

Radeče race report

On Saturday, 14th of june, the 4th round of the national championship series took place in Radeče.
The course was set on a slow flowing river Sava, the current made racing quite interesting, sadly debris in the water spoiled the fair play a bit. The wind was good, fairly constant, gusting up to 15knts.
A good day to see how evolution handles racing chaos.
At first i was sailing wih no front rudder, the keel finn is in theory big enough to provide lateral support. Yes the boat sails, but there is too much leeway, aspecially compared to the slender deep hulled boats.
After two races i added the front rudder. The boat is way better this way, leeway is reduced to a minimum, if needed it can even be eliminated completely.
The tacks are very fast, lots of speed is lost compared to the hevier, less leaning Fila. But evolution accelerates much better.
Control downwind is maintained all the time, even when the boat nosedives.
Immediatelly i started a string of 4 1st place finishes.
Evolution was fast had angle, but the hadling was shit...
I found that this boat has the mast tooo far forward, more about the reason for this mistake in another post. So the boat has leehelm, which is very anoying an usually slow.
I tried to cure this by leaning the mast bac as far back as it would go ~ 12deg, the kicker on the main was set tight and the jib was far out when sheeted in, but still the leehelm stayed.
A new rigg is needed, in order to move the aerial CE further back.
Another great benefit of the forward rudder is hadling downwind and reaching. When sailing these two directions one can steer using only the fore rudder.
This way the boat handles very directly, an looses next to no speed even at high alpha.


below are some pictures of the regatta:

this dragon force is often present at races, it has a rigg bigger than legal for rg65 class

 
 

After 8eight races the race was finished, the results are on this link:
http://forum.modelarji.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=88284

Update, videos surfaced.
1st race

second race above
third below

fourth below

Rogla race report

The past weekend i was in charge to organize the third stage of the nationalchampionship series in the F5g sailboat class.
Earlier this year i made sure that we were allowed to use a small lake on top of Pohorje, a mountain nearby.
This lake is right next to a hotel resort and ski slopes. The location is at about 1520m above sea level, the water is clean, cold. It is often windy there.
This saturday was sunny, the wind was not exactly what i hoped for, but was good for sailing, gusty from3-above10 knots.
With help from a friend we set up the course, it was a classic "stick" and not the usually sailed triangle.
Luka, an experienced sailor and sailing judge did not manage to finish his new boat until the race and offered to judge the regatta and take care of the results.
Only 9 competitors entered the race, i was hoping for more, but for a first time on this location it is ok.
We started racing at about 12.20.

The starting line was set quite well, the left side was a little bit favoraised, but it lead ashore, where there was less wind. It was well possible to "win" an upwind leg by starting on either side which i proved along the day.

The boat with no number is my fathers old bot, similar to #165, it has a Fila b-rigg and is sailed by another friend who has decided that he will also compete in the naional championship series

there was no wave and fila is very fast in such conditions

A  strong left shift gave me the lead to the first mark in this race

Father brought his hobbyking wind tunnel, we had to remove one section of the wood fence, there is no gate to the lake

father was sailing evolution, having all sorts of problems i never encountered before

alinghi #68 was aiming for a spot in the top three

there were some borin luls

in this race the right side of the course was more promising

The friend who sailed the boat with no numbers was doing really well, aspecially considering that his boat was made mostly of spare parts! He was was always in the top 3-4 upwind, but dobnwind he was lacking sail area.

some people also came to watch

me, giving the jib more twist, the friend is watching closely

This beautiful colin archer was present, it can move under its own sail power, but has a propeler for help

leading the way around the bottom mark.

Left shift gain, a quick tack to make sure i am above everyone

after all 8 races were completed a navigational race was sailed, 4 started ,two finished

I really did not want to go somewhere and buy medals for the race, yes they would be metal, but also they would be small and the budget did not alow spending much money

i got around to designing my own medals in solidworks and printing them out in two parts
They are also bigger than bought ones, and are special!

Overall the race went well, the max number of races was sailed(8) + navigation, Everyone seemed happy.
The stick course was IMO much beter than the triangle, making upwind and downwind tactics possible.
The starting procedures were flawless, with the help of Nikos megafone.
The presence of a judge made the races even a bit more interesting.
A traditional pohorje plate menu was served at a local restaurant.

The results:

red are the discards

For the next time i wish we could get more competitors, i know that there are about 20 competitive and active F5g sailors in Sloveina, it would be nice to see all of them present at races.




Again Fila dominated the race.
A sharp start in all of the races gave me an early advantage.
My speed was very good again, and so was the angle, as a result i was first to turn the windward mark.
Downwind it was just a matter of spotting the incoming gusts and moving slightly to the side from which the gust came.

The reason for a sixth place finish is that the jib twist line caught the spreader and i could not manouver for about 30sec.
More photos sholud emerge shortly.

Videos at: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheZdaemi/videos