Surf 8', a new Selway Fisher sail-and-oar mini-cruiser

[mike160304]

Think about 8' sailing dinghies, and what comes to mind? - the International Optimist, probably. A cheap boat for children developed into an expensive racing class.

Why should children have all the fun? As an elderly burnt-out dinghy racer, I looked for something that would feel spacious and relaxed, would be a doddle to put on the car top, would still allow me to open the hatchback and would allow me to put on enough sail to seriously amuse me, with a few scares thrown in. Maybe 50-70 lb all-up with all sailing and rowing gear.

YouTube videos of Optimists planing in 25-knot winds encouraged me in this search.

I compared Paul Fisher's cute Skylark 8' with his Bocar 8' box/boat - the former with a turned-up stern for easy rowing, the latter with unusual parallel flat sections aft of amidships, and I asked Paul to design me something between the two - like the Skylark 8' but with firmer bilges for sail carrying and a flatter run for planing.

The result is the Surf 8', roughly 8' x 4', a spacious boat with a powerful broad bow and stern and good stability and sail-carrying potential. Spaciousness is increased by a midships hull depth of about 19.5" (in boats of this size it rarely exceeds 16") and this enables a more comfortable seating height and enough space under the centre thwart for a substantial lifting centreboard for those who prefer it, but of course a daggerboard or a leeboard is also a good solution.

There is a convention in 8' dinghies that the spars have to be stowable in the boat, which limits the sail area to around 35 square feet. That's fine, and Paul shows a 35 square foot sprit sail on the drawing that I am about to try to upload.

However my own first sketch of the Surf 8 showed a 9' x 6' polytarp, unmodified and set up as a "balance squaresail", providing a long, straight, unhindered luff and a sail area of 49 square feet. The mast does not fit inside the boat, unless it is jointed. Having tried a similar concept on another boat recently, and liking the £5-delivered price for a 9 x 6' polytarp, I shall almost certainly go there.

I understand that Paul may also show a larger sail, maybe a sprit sail.

Mike

[mike160304]

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SFD_builders_sailors/photos/albums/420026969

Errrr . . . . is this the right link to the sketch?

Mike
 

[mike160304]

There's a lot of discussion of the new Surf 8' on the Openboat Forum. More seems to go on there than here . . .

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/openboat/info

Regards,
Mike

[Chris Waite]

How I hate Yahoo

the Dinghy Cruising Solent use it as well as Open Boat (both DCA) and you cannot insert pictures into the text, easily follow a topic, or even reply (on my Classic Shell Windows 8.1) without the first written notions being hidden under the headings and only appearing once a number of lines are typed up.

I have to overcome this by starting tapping the enter key half a dozen times then going back and erasing the space once the right hand scrolling bar appears....

Which I can't see because Microsoft (?Classic Shell, whoever he is) have used such delicate shading you need to be working in a coal cellar to distinguish the click-upon-drag-up-and-down-bar.

I'm sure Greg will have something to say about this

CW  

[Alan]

How I despise Yahoo Groups too. The security to get in is worse than my bank and it is all but impossible to follow a topic. I joined a group for the lathe that I own but gave up as it was just too infuriating. The users should migrate to something useful like Nabble.

Maybe Mike can try again to post images here.

[alopenboat]

On 14 Dec 2014 at 5:15, Chris Waite [via UK HBBR Forum] wrote:

>
>
> How I hate Yahoo
>
> the Dinghy Cruising Solent use it as well as Open Boat (both DCA) and
> you cannot insert pictures into the text, easily follow a topic, or
> even reply (on my Classic Shell Windows 8.1) without the first written
> notions being hidden under the headings and only appearing once a
> number of lines are typed up.
>

Tell it to send you the messages by email.

All you have to do then is get a decent email client.

--
Sail when you can, row when you must, motor
when you have to be at work in the morning.

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

[Paul H (admin)]

Yep,  Yahoo is stuck in the dark ages. It was one of the first forums, but now there are many superior forums available.

Nabble is one of them and we struck a good deal (no adverts) thanks to the work of Greg. It's not the best,  but on balance it is ideal for us.

Cheers
Paul

[Port-Na-Storm]

Following a topic on Yahoo is easy, all you have to do is click on the particular conversation. Made easy because everyone is careful to stick to each topic and not go wandering off the subject. I’m glad we folk here at HBBR are so diligent about this…………………………..er.

Sent from Windows Mail

From: [hidden email]
Sent: ‎Sunday‎, ‎14‎ ‎December‎ ‎2014 ‎13‎:‎03
To: [hidden email]

How I despise Yahoo Groups too. The security to get in is worse than my bank and it is all but impossible to follow a topic. I joined a group for the lathe that I own but gave up as it was just too infuriating. The users should migrate to something useful like Nabble.

Maybe Mike can try again to post images here.

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NAML

[mike160304]

Thanks Alan,

I do not yet have clearance from Paul Fisher as to what images I can post without infringing his copyright. We are just sorting this out for the Openboat Forum, where there have been many posts on Surf 8 and I have had to limit myself mainly to descriptions. I can upload images to Yahoo and give the link in my messages and that appears to be working.

I have my Surf 8 plans from Paul Fisher but she is not yet on his website - I did not ask him to design Surf 8 till late November.

Regards,
Mike

[Chris Waite]

Now just a minute Grum

If you click on the conversation you get it interspersed with all the other current conversations in the order that people uploaded them.

If you try and follow a single subject then it will tell you that there have been such and such a number of associated postings, but I have only been able to raise the latest one of these.  I could not work out how to read through just one subject and trying to flick through to find the first posting is fraught with fore-jumping webpages and incidental adverts, inadvertently crossed with your low flying cursor.

AFU (Absolutely - Useless)

And surely designed to encourage website appreciation; you unscrupulous programmers, you.

Does this have anything to do with the, as yet unwitnessed, Surf 8'?

Subject, subject

CW

[Port-Na-Storm]

I was , as you well know, merely having a friendly josh about sticking to the bleeding subject.

Older readers will remember that HBBR moved from Yahoo precisely to avoid some of its more annoying little peccadillos.  Most of us here seem to manage to post photos in the messages, and we don’t have adverts, thanks to Greg.

Anyway its something to talk about while we’re waiting to see the Surf 8.

I long ago  pressed the e-mail subscription button on the Selway-Fisher forum, The Open-Boat Forum and this one so I’m waiting to see it on all three channels.

I’ll throw my tuppence worth in before anyone else does and say it needs to have  balanced lug sail. Ever tried reefing a sprit? 

There we are, seamlessly back on subject.

Cheers, Graham. 

Sent from Windows Mail

From: [hidden email]
Sent: ‎Sunday‎, ‎14‎ ‎December‎ ‎2014 ‎19‎:‎24
To: [hidden email]

Now just a minute Grum

If you click on the conversation you get it interspersed with all the other current conversations in the order that people uploaded them.

If you try and follow a single subject then it will tell you that there have been such and such a number of associated postings, but I have only been able to raise the latest one of these.  I could not work out how to read through just one subject and trying to flick through to find the first posting is fraught with fore-jumping webpages and incidental adverts, inadvertently crossed with your low flying cursor.

AFU (Absolutely - Useless)

And surely designed to encourage website appreciation; you unscrupulous programmers, you.

Does this have anything to do with the, as yet unwitnessed, Surf 8'?

Subject, subject

CW

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NAML

[inwe]

Yes Graham I have tried to reef a sprit, not much different to reefing my yacht when I had one. Apart that is to an extra bit of string. Still a lot easier to do it before it is absolutely necessary.

[Chris Waite]

Well blow me down!

Seems like you and I are arguing on the same side Grum

And don't anyone get me started on rigs and reefing for eight foot dinghies

Not under this heading anyway

CW

[Port-Na-Storm]

<quote author="Chris Waite"

And don't anyone get me started on rigs and reefing for eight foot dinghies.
</quote>

Aw go on Chris, things are a bit quiet around here.
Richard, I was thinking of the image Mike posted earlier of the Surf 8 with its sprit rig.

 

I suppose you'd have to unhitch the snotter, and drop it down the mast to a lower point then tie in your reefs? Just seems to me the sail shape is so close to a balanced lug already it would be simpler to go the whole way.
If I was designing a car toppable dinghy I'd have to go for a dagger board instead of the centreboard so that it can be removed to save weight when heaving it on to the car. As someone who occasionally car tops a fairly cumbersome canoe I can promise you every ounce counts once you get it above waist height.  
The lack of CB case would also increase the lounging room available when sitting on the floor which is where I'd want to be when sailing with a low boom.  
But then I'm just an amateur in these things so I'd be interested to learn from the experts.

Grum.

[mike160304]

Thanks, I specified that the hull depth should make a "proper" CB case highly possible, but I may not go that way myself.

Regards,
Mike

[mike160304]

The 35 sq ft spritsail is not my idea, it is Selway Fisher's. I am more likely to have around 50 square feet.
If you haven't read it already, my rant on Openboat might amuse you:

LISTEN UP, FOLKS!

Re "They had a roofrack with a roller at the back." . . . .

How exciting! Yes, or they could have had various other ingenious contraptions . . . but to get back to where we were - it helps if the boat is designed for easy cartopping.

Surf 8' is born of a hatred of weight, complexity, boring convention, and sheer plain b******t.

- 8-foot length: is the longest boat that will let me fully open my hatchback, and the shortest boat that will take Jenny and me sailing, rowing, outboarding and happily bumbling about.

- 4-foot beam: go measure all those cute little traditional clinker-built boats, somewhere like Overy Staithe in North Norfolk, and guess what: they are around 4 feet wide on the inside. Why - because, over the centuries, people have found it just right. It also works fine on the car top, whereas 4' 7" beam on the Mirror Dinghy is a pain on the car top, which is partly why most Mirrors go on a trailer.

- 50-60 lb hull weight: go weigh all those cute little traditional 8' clinker-built boats, somewhere like Overy Staithe in North Norfolk, and guess what: they weigh around 150 lb each, if you are lucky??? Surf 8 , on the other hand, is a nicely shaped block of air, with a minimum of Okoume round it to keep the water out, but with 7 planks and the Paul Fisher touch, it keeps that cute traditional look.

- 19.5" midships hull depth - you sit in it, it looks after you. You can even have a nice lifting centreboard, if you want one. Boats over 16" deep are rare in 8-footers.

- "The spars of an 8-footer have to stow inside the boat" - who the **** decided that? I may be dense, but I thought that the spars of any boat should be long enough to carry the desired engine size, i.e. the desired sail area. Where they stow, who cares? And if the firm bilge and flat arse of the Surf 8 will carry 50 square feet, and not the usual boring 35 square feet, that is where I am going.

- "Don't bother with cheap n' nasty sail substitutes like polytarps!!!" . . . Any sailmaker worth his salt will tell you that  . . . and who can blame him? But personally, I have found that a lightweight 9' x 6' polytarp for £5 delivered off Ebay, and giving me 50 flat square feet of sail, will send an 8-footer barrelling along. And when I ease the mainsheet, it quietly sits there, with none of that awful flogging about that I get from a "proper" sail. So I find it cheap, fast, very safe and altogether a sheer delight, And if I am ambitious and happen to want it some shape other than rectangular, I have scissors, a sewing machine and some grommets/eyelets.

- "Bamboo is cheap rubbish, get a proper hollow spruce mast, boom and yard" . . . Here we go again. In my own experience, I cannot make a hollow spruce spar equal to bamboo in its stiffness-to-weight ratio, and bamboo is a blast . . . so I am off to a nice man in Sussex to buy bamboo, any thickness I want. I love it.

I could go on at some length, but it's past my bed time, I am told.

Regards,
Mike

[LASER41420]

Hi,
Where can you get the bamboo from?
Steve

[mike160304]

Hi Steve,

Bamboo - I haven't been there yet, but I have phoned them.

http://www.ukbamboo.com/bamboo-poles/natural-moso-bamboo-poles.html

This is the page for the Moso bamboo, which looks good to me - round, thin shell. But I shall go there soon and consult Kenneth, who is, I think, the guru. He has sold bamboo for dinghies before.

Or click on Home and go to the Home page.

John Welsford (the Wizard of Oz, or was it NZ?) told me that the bamboo should be properly protected, e.g. an acetone rub to remove its waxy coating, light sanding, a 2nd acetone rub, then whatever paint/varnish/epoxy system you like.

55mm diameter at the thick end might suit 50sq metres on Surf 8, but I am guessing, I have not handled bamboo as big as this yet.

Regards,
Mike

[mike160304]

Steve - PS - my bamboo rig would be unstayed - no forestay or shrouds. Just a "fishing rod".

Mike

[mike160304]

Steve - PPS - I intend to use bamboo for mast, boom, yard, any other spars and also for oar shafts and paddle shaft (if any). The total weight saving and the total work saving can both be impressive.

Mike