alant
Active member
See interesting quotes on here, from Eric Sponberg - Chief Engineer @ TPI the builders/
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sailboats/freedom-33-really-ocean-crosser-10241.html
Freedom Yacht anyone
- Thread starter Fergus
- Start date
See interesting quotes on here, from Eric Sponberg - Chief Engineer @ TPI the builders/
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sailboats/freedom-33-really-ocean-crosser-10241.html
rogerball0
N/A
Eric Sponberg is a genius and a top bloke to work with
flaming
Well-known member
Very interesting, but specific to Freedom masts from that era by the look of it, and not due to UV, which was the question asked.
alant
Active member
From a CST Composites, manufacturer
"Carbon fibre composites are amazing materials – light, very stiff , strong, and highly resistant to corrosion and fatigue. An understanding of the composite structure allows us to predict the performance expected and care required in order to get the best out of your product.
In a composite, the fibre is only one of the major components – the other is the resin or adhesive which acts to hold the soft fibres rigid in relation to each other. For structural applications, epoxy is still the resin of choice as it possesses good fibre adhesion, strength, toughness and is economical.
In order to get the maximum life from your carbon fibre composite tubing we recommend the following care and precautions:
•Do not allow the tubing to become excessively hot. High performance epoxy resins, together with oven post curing, are employed in our tubes, however at temperatures above approximately 75oC the epoxy can soften which dramatically reduces strength or otherwise can cause the tube to bow or warp. Note that black objects are the best absorbers of IR radiation (heat) and we have recorded a surface temperature of 65oC from a tube lying flat on the ground in the summer sun on a windless day.
•Epoxy resins are UV light degraded. Excessive UV light has the effect of turning the exposed epoxy resin into a chalky layer which can then easily fall off, resulting in exposure of the fibres to the weather. Moisture can then enter the exposed fibres and cause wicking to the inside of the laminate which further reduces the laminate’s strength and integrity.
•Whilst these two effects can be either avoided, or are relatively long term (many dinghy sailors have chosen to leave their masts naturally black), we recommend painting the composite tubing with a UV resistant polyurethane based paint or clear coating. Correct application of paint will effectively eliminate degradation due to these effects and allow the other long life properties (ie. excellent corrosion and fatigue resistance) of composite tubing to be realised."
maxi
Member
Lovely boats & a clever design. Takes a wee while to learn how to sail them well, but they are very quick when properly sailed - twice winners of Yachting Monthly triangle Race.
Being un-stayed, they are equally unstressed and delightfully 'soft' to sail, hit a wave and all the tensions dissipate up through the mast, and the carbon fibre masts do not degrade with uv, but they do give a pretty good radar return.
The one downside, the dinette is difficult for multiple users.
Being un-stayed, they are equally unstressed and delightfully 'soft' to sail, hit a wave and all the tensions dissipate up through the mast, and the carbon fibre masts do not degrade with uv, but they do give a pretty good radar return.
The one downside, the dinette is difficult for multiple users.
explores
Well-known member
Freespirit1980
New member
Unless someone has actually sailed a Freedom, I would suggest politely that they are not in a position to comment on how these unstayed cat ketch or cat schooner or single mast yachts perform. I have sailed Freedom 40s (aft and centre cockpit versions), Freedom 35 (also called 33), Freedom 28, Freedom 38, Freedom 45 and the one and only Freedom 70 with three masts. I was CEO of Fairways, the company that held the licence to build Freedoms outside North America. TP build Freedoms in the US. After leaving Fairways, I owned a Freedom 35 and a Freedom 38.
So how do they sail? We need to divide them into two or three sections. The original Freedoms had wrap around sails and wishbone booms. Those models were the 40, 44, 35, 28 and 70. The very early ones had aluminium lamp poles as masts but Fairways onLy built with carbon fibre masts that were much lighter than aluminium. Fairways build about 86 Freedoms. The wrap around sails could be shaped like the aero foil section of an aircraft wing with the outhaul, thus being much more efficient than conventional main sails running on a track up the back of a stayed mast. We tested them as over 90% efficient compared to 60%. Garry Hoyt astounded Antigua race week with the original centre cockpit Freedom 40 sweeping to victory. John Oakley was given a Freedom 35 to race in the Round the Island (of Wight) Race and the Solent series. He won them all apart from one when he retired with a stone jamming his centre plate. The Round the Island Race had some 3,000 participants. The highly rated OOD 34s class (Jeremy Rodgers of Contessa 32 fame) started half an hour earlier and the Freedom 35 overtook all of them. For the record, I renumbered the 33 when we launched the model in Europe as the 35 to include the small bowsprit.
I also persuaded Rob and Naomi James to do the ocean races for Freedom. Our plan was to win the Whitbread Round the World Race. Rob had sailed GB II to victory in the previous Whitbread and won the Two Star Transatlantic Race and the Round Britain & Ireland Race with Chay Blyth. After her solo around the World, Dame Naomi was a far better known figure to the general public than Rob and they came to see a Freedom 40 after she had opened a supermarket. She took one look and was reluctant to try a sail but Rob was intrigued. They came a few days later, a lovely sunny day with 15-20 knots of wind. As we motored to the entrance of the Hamble River, the latest 42 ft Swan designed by Ron Holland came out of Hamble Point marina on a demo sale. Rob rubbed his hands with glee as we could measure the Freedom 40 against the Swan. I had to restrain Rob from hoisting the Freedom’s sails as the Swan did. After giving the Swan a five minute start, I told him to hoist away. The winch was only need to lift the wishbone booms because sails are pulled up by hand easily. The Freedom 40 took off after the Swan reaching at over 10 knots and passed the Swan before sailing around and repeating passing this time on the dirty wind side. Rob and Naomi were bold over. I told them that I wanted Rob to race a Freedom in the Whitbread and we would build a 62 ft to be called the Freedom 70 with three identical masts. We went back to our Port Hamble yard to look at the drawings.
The objective of sailing in the Whitbread was to win the race as Nautor had done to boost Swan as a brand with a 65 ft Swan. Winning the Whitbread would have put Freedoms on the map globally. We also agreed that Naomi and Laurel Holland would race the Freedom 70 in the two handed transatlantic race before the Whitbread. We raced the Freedom 70 for the first time in the Southampton to Cherbourg race across the Channel against some Admiral Cups competitors. The wind was light until the needles when a Force 7 westerly propelled the 70 at 17-19 knots to Cherbourg winning by over 5 hours on actual time. The fear of the speed of Freedoms had led to s handicap that Ron calculated would need a mast 230 ft high to carry that sail area on a conventional Bermudan rigged boat.
After the two handed transatlantic race (Naomi had a medical problem and was replaced by John Oakley), Rob with his Whitbread crew raced Flyer from Newport to Lands End beating Flyer by four days crossing in 13 days. Due to the demise of Fairways when the Shobokshi Group failed to the agreed funding, the 70 never went in the Whitbread won easily by Flyer. Rob and our Freedom crew are all adamant that the 70 would have won the Whitbread.
Gary decided to make the second generation of Freedoms more conventional with single masts and vanged jib foresail with a fully battened maim sail on a track up the unstayed mast. The 45 and 38 went to windward better but had lost th off wind performance of the wrap around sail. The Freedom 39 Pilothouse schooner designed by Ron Holland was the second generation that we at Fairways had planned with input from Rob, John and me. It was to have the wrap around sail but Garry preferred the fully battened main sail.
All Freedoms are easily sailed by a small crew irrespective of rig.
Chris Samuelson
Ex CEO Fairways Marine
So how do they sail? We need to divide them into two or three sections. The original Freedoms had wrap around sails and wishbone booms. Those models were the 40, 44, 35, 28 and 70. The very early ones had aluminium lamp poles as masts but Fairways onLy built with carbon fibre masts that were much lighter than aluminium. Fairways build about 86 Freedoms. The wrap around sails could be shaped like the aero foil section of an aircraft wing with the outhaul, thus being much more efficient than conventional main sails running on a track up the back of a stayed mast. We tested them as over 90% efficient compared to 60%. Garry Hoyt astounded Antigua race week with the original centre cockpit Freedom 40 sweeping to victory. John Oakley was given a Freedom 35 to race in the Round the Island (of Wight) Race and the Solent series. He won them all apart from one when he retired with a stone jamming his centre plate. The Round the Island Race had some 3,000 participants. The highly rated OOD 34s class (Jeremy Rodgers of Contessa 32 fame) started half an hour earlier and the Freedom 35 overtook all of them. For the record, I renumbered the 33 when we launched the model in Europe as the 35 to include the small bowsprit.
I also persuaded Rob and Naomi James to do the ocean races for Freedom. Our plan was to win the Whitbread Round the World Race. Rob had sailed GB II to victory in the previous Whitbread and won the Two Star Transatlantic Race and the Round Britain & Ireland Race with Chay Blyth. After her solo around the World, Dame Naomi was a far better known figure to the general public than Rob and they came to see a Freedom 40 after she had opened a supermarket. She took one look and was reluctant to try a sail but Rob was intrigued. They came a few days later, a lovely sunny day with 15-20 knots of wind. As we motored to the entrance of the Hamble River, the latest 42 ft Swan designed by Ron Holland came out of Hamble Point marina on a demo sale. Rob rubbed his hands with glee as we could measure the Freedom 40 against the Swan. I had to restrain Rob from hoisting the Freedom’s sails as the Swan did. After giving the Swan a five minute start, I told him to hoist away. The winch was only need to lift the wishbone booms because sails are pulled up by hand easily. The Freedom 40 took off after the Swan reaching at over 10 knots and passed the Swan before sailing around and repeating passing this time on the dirty wind side. Rob and Naomi were bold over. I told them that I wanted Rob to race a Freedom in the Whitbread and we would build a 62 ft to be called the Freedom 70 with three identical masts. We went back to our Port Hamble yard to look at the drawings.
The objective of sailing in the Whitbread was to win the race as Nautor had done to boost Swan as a brand with a 65 ft Swan. Winning the Whitbread would have put Freedoms on the map globally. We also agreed that Naomi and Laurel Holland would race the Freedom 70 in the two handed transatlantic race before the Whitbread. We raced the Freedom 70 for the first time in the Southampton to Cherbourg race across the Channel against some Admiral Cups competitors. The wind was light until the needles when a Force 7 westerly propelled the 70 at 17-19 knots to Cherbourg winning by over 5 hours on actual time. The fear of the speed of Freedoms had led to s handicap that Ron calculated would need a mast 230 ft high to carry that sail area on a conventional Bermudan rigged boat.
After the two handed transatlantic race (Naomi had a medical problem and was replaced by John Oakley), Rob with his Whitbread crew raced Flyer from Newport to Lands End beating Flyer by four days crossing in 13 days. Due to the demise of Fairways when the Shobokshi Group failed to the agreed funding, the 70 never went in the Whitbread won easily by Flyer. Rob and our Freedom crew are all adamant that the 70 would have won the Whitbread.
Gary decided to make the second generation of Freedoms more conventional with single masts and vanged jib foresail with a fully battened maim sail on a track up the unstayed mast. The 45 and 38 went to windward better but had lost th off wind performance of the wrap around sail. The Freedom 39 Pilothouse schooner designed by Ron Holland was the second generation that we at Fairways had planned with input from Rob, John and me. It was to have the wrap around sail but Garry preferred the fully battened main sail.
All Freedoms are easily sailed by a small crew irrespective of rig.
Chris Samuelson
Ex CEO Fairways Marine
Blueboatman
Well-known member
Wow
Fascinating resurrection
May I ask what prompted this most intriguing insight please ?
As a former junk rig sailor the F would have been a natural ‘step up’.
Fascinating resurrection
May I ask what prompted this most intriguing insight please ?
As a former junk rig sailor the F would have been a natural ‘step up’.
Freespirit1980
New member
When I read the speculative comments of this thread, I felt it was time to give an informative response. Had the Freedom 70 gone in the Whitbread and undoubtedly won, we would have seen many more unstayed rigs and not just made by Freedom. We had arranged live broadcasts from the 70 on TV several times a day to feature on the news. The 70 had a much smaller crew of 8 than the other conventional competitors with 12. You could reef all three main sails from the cockpit in seconds and the 70 was self tacking. She also had the T mount to fly spinnakers downwind with ease.
DownWest
Well-known member
Prob result of a bit of Googling....
The German shipping co that I used to sort things out for were interested in a F 70 and I contacted Freedom to inquire about one. Some suggestion that I acted as the agent in Portugal. Some internal probs in the shipping co company put the idea aside. A Dutch local resident did have the first F40 produced in UK and Flyer was in the local Marina as 'Connie' had a house by Vale de Lobo.
Freespirit. Was there some problem with the foremast 'creaking' in a bit in the 70?
Freespirit1980
New member
Anton Emerton was Sales Director of Fairways and made a passage from Salcombe to the Hamble (Salcomb is in Devon between Dartmouth and Plymouth and the Hamble is next to Southampton) in a Freedom 35 singlehanded at an average speed of 9.4 knots. Anton had been in charge of marketing Grand Banks during that Singapore’s company boom period and post Fairways co-founded Fleming with Tony Fleming who had been his colleague in charge of design and engineering for Grand Banks.
I bought my Freedom 35 in Scotland and had a professional skipper deliver her to Duquesa, a Spanish marina east of Gibraltar. The skipper had never seen nor sailed a Freedom before. He averaged 8.6 knots including 6 hours delay off Lisbon fixing a problem with the Whitlock wheel steering. He said she was the best cruising sailing boat he had ever sailed, so easy and so fast.
I bought my Freedom 35 in Scotland and had a professional skipper deliver her to Duquesa, a Spanish marina east of Gibraltar. The skipper had never seen nor sailed a Freedom before. He averaged 8.6 knots including 6 hours delay off Lisbon fixing a problem with the Whitlock wheel steering. He said she was the best cruising sailing boat he had ever sailed, so easy and so fast.
Freespirit1980
New member
Creaking was not an issue that I remember with the masts of the 70. The masts were stepped to the bottom of all Freedoms with the hull and deck substantially reinforced with a collar of fibreglass around the mast area done during hull and deck construction and lay up. The masts were held in place by a bolted collar at deck and hull. The carbon fibre masts were all made by TP. We had only one mast fail.
Conventional rigged boats have masts stepped at deck level and held in place by stays, a rig that is a compression system with shackles, bottle screws and chain plates. Any failure can lead to a lost mast. Unstayed masts will only fail if the mast itself if faulty.
There is sound of wind whistling through rIgging on a Freedom. They are notably quiet boats.
Conventional rigged boats have masts stepped at deck level and held in place by stays, a rig that is a compression system with shackles, bottle screws and chain plates. Any failure can lead to a lost mast. Unstayed masts will only fail if the mast itself if faulty.
There is sound of wind whistling through rIgging on a Freedom. They are notably quiet boats.
Freespirit1980
New member
To be clear, that one mast failure was not on the 70 but a 40. It was due to bad manufacturing. The carbon fibre masts were extraordinarily light and meant less weight aloft. They also flexed and would spill the wind in a sudden gust.
halcyon
Well-known member
They were made in Penryn back around 1990, I used to supply the switch panels, also there used to be two in Mylor, both owners very happy with them.
Are we to conservative these days ?
Brian
Freespirit1980
New member
Freedoms were made in Penryn after Fairways closed down. Freedom owners were very happy with their boats generally. They learnt to sail slightly more off wind going to windward but they had a huge advantage when reaching in speed over Bermudan rigged sailboats. I remember sailing rings around a 60ft ketch on the Solent with a Freedom 35. Such fun. And in a tacking duel with a 40 ft Moody on the Hamble. I just turned the wheel to tack holding a beer, the other boat was working hard to winch in their genoa and sweating away. They soon gave up.
Frogmogman
Well-known member
An interesting post in some ways, but seriously undermined by the level of inaccuracy and hyperbole. For example....
"The Round the Island Race had some 3,000 participants."
No it didn't. IIRC the highest muster for the Round the Island Race has been about 1750
"Rob had sailed GB II to victory in the previous Whitbread….."
No he didn't. Rob James did win line honours with GBII, but as we all know, Connie Van Rietschoten won with Flyer.
"Rob and our Freedom crew are all adamant that the 70 would have won the Whitbread."
Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't.; we'll never know. This sort of racing has often shown up weaknesses in ground breaking designs.
"The Round the Island Race had some 3,000 participants."
No it didn't. IIRC the highest muster for the Round the Island Race has been about 1750
"Rob had sailed GB II to victory in the previous Whitbread….."
No he didn't. Rob James did win line honours with GBII, but as we all know, Connie Van Rietschoten won with Flyer.
"Rob and our Freedom crew are all adamant that the 70 would have won the Whitbread."
Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't.; we'll never know. This sort of racing has often shown up weaknesses in ground breaking designs.
awol
Well-known member
I borrowed charts of the Iberian coast for my delivery from Lagos to the Clyde from a Freedom 35 that had sailed south to the Med. Totally depressing to compare their course plot with the miserable progress we were making north!
Freespirit1980
New member
I stand corrected on Great Britain II, Rob took line honours. Connie won on handicap.
I never checked on the actual number of entrants in the Round the Island Race but it was the most popular in England and only exceeded by the Jutland race in Denmark by number of participant. The start was wind against tide and Force 6, more than interesting with a large fleet. I sailed on the Freedom 28 that had been shipped from the US arriving a couple of days beforehand, my first sail on her. The 35 was a better boat.
I never checked on the actual number of entrants in the Round the Island Race but it was the most popular in England and only exceeded by the Jutland race in Denmark by number of participant. The start was wind against tide and Force 6, more than interesting with a large fleet. I sailed on the Freedom 28 that had been shipped from the US arriving a couple of days beforehand, my first sail on her. The 35 was a better boat.
Zarro
Member
Re post #50. The dutch chap was Hems Kalis, a retired member of the family Dredging company Boskalis. I sailed with him a couple of times in his Freedom 40, but lost touch with him when I moved to work in Lisbon nearly 30 years ago. His house was on a ridge just outside Albufeira and I remember him saying he would love to create a marina down below where there was a low lying valley and it just needed a cutting through to the sea to the east. I do not know if he was involved, but it came to pass and the Albufeira Marina opened in 2003.
DownWest
Well-known member
Yes, I knew Hems & Winifred up on what was nicknamed 'Millionaires Row'. Most of the houses in their era were built with the materials being carted up by mule, as the access was a rough track.
There was a UK East coast sailing club in trouble because of silting in their little harbour. Hems sent in a dredger to sort it out for free. One of lifes really nice guys.
The marina was a promise from the mayor quite a while before it happened as it would put Albufeira 'on the map' it didn't make financial sense until the property guys got involved in the housing attached. I have some photos of the cut that opened it to the sea and the land being 'scaped' before the water was let in.
Zarro, do you remember the French guy that looked after Hems's F40? He did some of the fitting out, as it was bought as 'sail away'?
On the F 40, did it have the older Ally masts or carbon. Think I would have noticed if carbon.
