Anyone want Aero?

[alopenboat]

On 4 Apr 2012 at 5:26, Jeremy [via UK HBBR Forum] wrote:

>
> The net effect is to put people off a bit though, I believe.  I
> reminded of Chris(N) and his lovely boats, often built just for the
> pleasure of building them it seemed, but destined to lie under
> tarpaulins in his garden until they were 5 year old and could be
> legally disposed of.
>

Does the requirement lapse after 5 years whatever else happens?

If a home made craft is illegally sold after 2 years can it then be
legally sold on 3 years later?

--
Hoping for calm nights

Alastair Law,      
Yeovil, England.
<http://www.little.jim.freeuk.com>          

[Jeremy]

alopenboat wrote

Does the requirement lapse after 5 years whatever else happens?

If a home made craft is illegally sold after 2 years can it then be
legally sold on 3 years later?

--
Hoping for calm nights

Alastair Law,      
Yeovil, England.
<http://www.little.jim.freeuk.com>

I believe so, yes.  The wording of this exemption is that the a home built boat must not be passed on until at least five years since it was first "put into service".  The "put into service" bit is slightly odd, as it isn't really the completion date, it's the date the boat was first used.  This seems to be the trigger that starts the process for gradually making a potentially unsafe and non-compliant boat safe and compliant over a five year period.   Quite what the magic process is that makes a five year old boat safe and an identical, but newly built one, potentially unsafe is beyond me.

Only the EU could dream up daftness like this................

[alopenboat]

On 4 Apr 2012 at 7:33, Jeremy [via UK HBBR Forum] wrote:
 
>
> I believe so, yes.  The wording of this exemption is that the a home
> built boat must not be passed on until at least five years since it
> was first "put into service".  The "put into service" bit is slightly
> odd, as it isn't really the completion date, it's the date the boat
> was first used.  

So if you are thinking of building a boat you should take the first
sheet of ply out for a splash to "put it into service" then if it
takes a couple of years to finish the build you are nearly half way
there already.

In fact, I think I should go for a swim with a piece of ply this
weekend then I will be covered for any boat I want to build in the
next 5 years.

Well thought out rules, eh?

--
Hoping for calm nights

Alastair Law,      
Yeovil, England.
<http://www.little.jim.freeuk.com>          

[Jeremy]

Could be quite a market for suitably aged sheets of ply that have already been "put into service" in RCD-speak..................

[GregHBBR]

I'm sure that we must have members with some salvaged timber from old PBK strip and canvas canoes that we helped our fathers build.

This timber could be distributed to others here and incorporated into their work. Instantly, every boat our members produce is merely a restoration project and consequentially already some 50 years old, not five!

I'm sure Jeremy can find some fine print in the regs...

[Jeremy]

The RCD is a bit cunning when it comes to restorations and "historic replicas".  The latter are simpler, as if you build a replica of a boat first built before 1950, using the same materials, then it's exempt.  If you build it predominately from different materials then it's not exempt.  This means, for example, that Dylan Winters Duck Punt is exempt, because it's made from wood, yet mine is not because it's made from epoxy glass foam sandwich (another curious anomaly in terms of the safety argument!).

Restoration is a minefield, as potentially any boat that was "put into service" before 1998 is exempt, so one could envisage restoring a wreck just to get the exemption.  However, the RCD is a bit non-specific when it comes to repairs and modifications, so there is a possibility that an "extreme restoration" might well be classified as a new boat and hence not be exempt.  Yet again it's a bit of a lottery as to whether or not such a boat might be classed as exempt or not.

As a bit of legislation it's frankly bloody awful in terms of wording, and full of so many elements that aren't adequately defined as to be unfit for purpose at the small boat end of the "market".  I can see a lot of sense in it in terms of bigger, open water, boats, but in typical EU fashion they've tried to make a one-size-fits-all bit of regulation that all pretty much falls apart down at the smaller end.  If they'd simply recognise that there's little or no merit in applying regulation on this scale to small open boats (say under 6 or 7 metres), then I think a lot of people would breathe a big sigh of relief.  I don't think doing this would make a jot of difference to boat safety, either.

[Paul H (admin)]

Well chaps - how about a fun competition to build something 2.3999999 metres long?
Anything under 2.4m is exempt.

[BrianP]

There are in fact lots of fun boats just under 8' by serious designers.

IO's  http://jordanboats.co.uk/JB/IainO_Catalogue/Humble%20Bee.pdf

John Welsford's Tender Behind or his new PDR.

Even cabin ones

Could be lots of fun!

Brian

[momist]

Hmm, my conversion program shows 2.3999999 metres to be 7.8740154 feet.  That is 7' 10.488185" in old money, less than ten and a half inches.  Of course, legally they would just measure with a metric rule.

My 7' 11" Y-Emma is over-size then, although being so very old (26 years now) it escapes the rules anyway.  

Be careful what you choose then!

[Jeremy]

One thought I had when glassing up the Duck Punt the other day was that it would easily make a sectional boat, either in two or three bits.   The thought now occurs that one could make a pair of sub-2.5 m boats (the RCD lower size limit is 2.5 m, not 2.4 m, BTW) that could be joined together if you wished to make a longer boat...........

[BrianP]

I had also been thinking after looking at the Humble Bee pram shape that you could bolt the transoms together to make a 16' longer raid boat. Does not quite work with the shape but if designed to bolt together then it could work.

Two 8' sailing tenders for local family fun, say around Keyhaven Marshes in my case, and then bolt the two transoms together for a 16' schooner for the occasional longer raid like the Thames event. Sounds like a good plan to me!

Brian

[Jeremy]

The only snag with two parts is that the join is in an inconvenient place.  Three parts works well, as my doodle below of a three part Duck Punt attempts to show.

[alopenboat]

On 5 Apr 2012 at 1:56, Jeremy [via UK HBBR Forum] wrote:

>
>
> One thought I had when glassing up the Duck Punt the other day was
> that it would easily make a sectional boat, either in two or three
> bits.   The thought now occurs that one could make a pair of sub-2.5 m
> boats (the RCD lower size limit is 2.5 m, not 2.4 m, BTW) that could
> be joined together if you wished to make a longer boat...........
>

But if you sold the two boats and the new owner bolts them together
has he created a new boat (so the 5 years starts from then) or is the
fact that the small boats have been used previously mean it starts
from then?

I wish I was a lawyer, I reckon there is a fortune to be made arguing
this.  :-)

--
Hoping for calm nights

Alastair Law,      
Yeovil, England.
<http://www.little.jim.freeuk.com>          

[BrianP]

The three piece Duck Punt is really cool.....

So easy to tow behind the bike.

Brian

[Jeremy]

BrianP wrote

The three piece Duck Punt is really cool.....

So easy to tow behind the bike.

Brian

You may be right, Brian.  The biggest section is about 1.7 m long, with the other two sections nesting inside.  A simple T bar trailer, with a couple of 20" bike wheels, and you'd be set to go.  IIRC an optimist rig is only around 8 ft long, so could almost certainly be carried along the top OK, with maybe a foot or so sticking out the back.

[Paul H (admin)]

Well a 2.5m limit is even better - so chaps what do you all think about next years Thames Raid becoming the.....wait for it ...the 8ft Thames Fun Raid?

A trip down the Thames in 8ft of boat - a variation on the American PDR theme.

-Paul
2 beers to the wind

[Port-Na-Storm]

Now I know I can be a bit Grim at times, and I don't want to spoil anyone's fun, but remind me. How long was Illusion?



And you want to go shorter?

Repeat after me; waterline length, waterline length, waterline length.

Graham, second glass of Sanatogen.

[Paul H (admin)]

Port-Na-Storm wrote

Now I know I can be a bit Grim at times, and I don't want to spoil anyone's fun, but remind me. How long was Illusion?

And you want to go shorter?

Repeat after me; waterline length, waterline length, waterline length.

Graham, second glass of Sanatogen.

Ok Grim, lessons learned - so lets stretch 8ft a tad:



Paul

[Jeremy]

I reckon an 8ft long catamaran, with a flat platform on top of the hulls for a tent, would be OK.  Bring the total beam down so that it's at around the minimum before you get mutual hull interference and I reckon it'd be just about right for rowing.

Resistance would be slightly greater than a monohull, but not by enough to make a real difference.  The max speed before onset of significant wavemaking drag ("hull speed") would be around 4 to 4.5 knots, which is faster than most people row small boats on the river.

Windage could be kept relatively low by making the hulls low profile and using their volume as storage space to minimise deck clutter, via big dinghy hatches for access.

It could probably be sailed quite well without any leeboards, keels, dagger boards etc too, if the hulls were rectangular in section to provide a bit of grip in the water.

Finally it'd be pretty stable and make a reasonably good sleep aboard vessel with a decent deck tent.  You might need to provide some tie down points for your sleeping bag though, to avoid inadvertently rolling off the deck in the middle of the night..........

[BrianP]

Looking for the Rowcat site which was a longer version of the Cat you describe, I came across this neat German rowing and sailing catamaran. Much to my surprise it also has a forward rowing set-up, shown around the 4 min section of this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwr379FGDDk&feature=youtu.be

and web site http://www.rowandsail.com/