On DeckMovable Ballast

Originally posted by Stefan Lloyd Originally posted by Isis Ive just read the Sailing Anarchy thread... obvouisly got a lot of respect on there Doug Incidentally there has been at least one abusive post on this thread that Mark has removed. My main concern about Doug starting to post here is that some of his SA antagonists will move in too. I've seen similar happen on other boards.

I'm the poster of the  "abuisve" post. You can see for yourselves who came here first. However when the ONE thread is started by the some person on THREE forums using the same words well.... as for further coments about Doug I'll keep them to SA

i just dont see any potential advantages of this over a tri. Do you really need this thing to be self righting?

Isis, perhaps you noticed or would notice if you read and understood my previous post that I was suggesting a major change in how the wing ballast system would work as compared to the original post. I would have thought that it was clear that there is no settled design yet and that I was asking for a reasoned opinion on the change to the system. Your mantra of "build it" is fairly useless at this point since the very nature of the beast is still undecided. I asked for comments relative to the change I proposed; it is no where near the DESIGN stage yet much less building!
Astevo- There are substantial differences between this and a tri: 1) the buoyancy pods on this thing are not used to develop righting moment.2) the weight of the wing+ ballast would be lighter than the ama's and cross arms of a square tri capable of flying the main hull. 3) While in the new proposal the wing does not slide across the boat-just the ballast does-the wing is still mounted pivotably(and adjustably) so that the boat can heel up to around 20° with the wing still level.4) The hull of this boat would be designed as a planing hull.
Just like in the Bethwaite and Langman Maxi Skiff's there is some simalarity between this concept and a tri . But the most important consideration, in my opinion ,is the fact that the tri REQUIRES the use of the buoyancy of the ama to sail normaly and this concept DOES NOT. Major Difference! This boat would be lighter than a square(high powered ) tri and it would be easier to trailer and store. It would have much less likelyhood of a pitchpole though w/o the ballast(see my previous post) in the daggerboard it would be difficult to recover from one-like a tri.
The thing that I'm trying to work on is whether or not the fixed(side to side) wing would be better than the sliding wing.....
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edit: Forgot your question about self righting. For me personally it is essential that it can be singlehandedly rightable-not necessarily "self-righting".If it was to ever develop into a production version marketed to disabled sailors I would think it would have to be 100% self-righting.

Edited by Doug Lord

In point of fact I've gotten several really good suggestions and comments.
   The change I proposed changes the concept substantially from the original idea but both versions are still on the table.
I'm curious about exactly what about the concept, as you understand it, that you object to; can you be very specific?

The main reason for not using water is the fact that for the same weight it takes up almost 11 times as much space as lead. And you'd have to use lead in a ballasted daggerboard to make it self righting.
That being said: because this thing has buoyancy pods that have buoyancy equal to the weight of the lead that has been proposed to slide sideways there IS room at the end of the wing. If a pump could be found that was light enough and that could move water from one pod to the other in three-four seconds max then it might be a good idea. Defintely worth looking into. Thanks for the idea....