Uffa Fox sake! (Another query from the armchair dinghy-sailor...)

[Greenheart]

Good afternoon, gents. I was remembering a recent mention of the once-Olympic Firefly singlehander, and I noticed in a profile-pic, how similar to the rather larger Albacore she looks...

...Firefly, 12ft; Albacore, 15ft...but both show the pretty, elegant and practical sheerline which to me, clearly marks them as the work of Uffa Fox.

Firefly:

Albacore:

So, slothful observations aside, I was thinking, for my long-awaited (by me) dinghy-cruising adventures, the substantially smaller Firefly's mainsail might be the perfect strong-wind sail for an Albacore, (when singlehanding) because they have plenty in common...

...and, whilst seeking your collective wisdom on this subject, I researched it with a moment on Google, and found...

View attachment 21729

...that somebody had already done EXACTLY what I was thinking of. Here's the site, pretty good I thought - lots of pics: http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/chalk_river/2007/aep2007/03sep2007a/index.html

All of which suggests to me what a good idea it is. Anybody disagree?

 

[johnalison]

Uffa Fox's dinghies were great boats and the fact that so many are still in use says a lot. I've not sailed an Albacore but did sail a Swordfish for a few days and had a lot of fun. I think it was the same hull that was given a bit more freeboard. I don't think it much matters what sail you use but you could have a bit of fun with a Firefly sail on an Albacore and racing with the Fireflies and see how long it is before anyone notices.

 

[davidej]

There is a bigger one - the 18ft Jolly Boat

 

[grenade]

I have no insights...

Good afternoon, gents. I was remembering a recent mention of the once-Olympic Firefly singlehander, and I noticed in a profile-pic, how similar to the rather larger Albacore she looks...

... but I can appreciate a good similarity spotting. And yes, that's as elegant a resemblance as any I've seen. Its always nice when your interweb searches turn up someone who thought so too...

 

[Greenheart]

Glad I wasn't just imagining the similarity!

I'm interested in the fact that the Firefly was an Olympic singlehander, and since became a competitive two-hander...

...is the rig substantially too much for one man, or underpowered for a crew of two? Or perhaps both?

With regard to the Albacore (which I'd hope to singlehand) my thinking was to keep the unadulterated mainsail for winds up to F3...

...and meanwhile, I could keep an old Firefly mainsail, with a deep reef, to provide two degrees of strong-wind readiness.

I know it's not at all convenient to drop & raise mainsails whilst out at sea, but having a smaller, unreefed alternative mainsail might be preferable to putting a slab in the foot of the standard main, with the misshapen stress-patches which that tends to create.

I'm hoping I'll be encouraged to believe that the Firefly's main is sufficiently smaller than the Alb's, to do the job of sail-reduction without destroying Uffa's planned aerodynamics and the design's tuning subtlety. I realise that the centre of effort would be moved forward!

I'm guessing the Firefly's main, which was perhaps too big for a light singlehander, would be manageable on the bigger, heavier Albacore.

 

[seumask]

You can reef the Firefly by rolling the main sail around the boom. Assuming it is a transom sheeted verison as they were orrigionally designed. After removing the kicking strap, to do this well you first take a tuck of about a foot of leach and then roll the sail as many times as you fancy around the boom concentrating on keeping the sail leach pulled out as far as possible along the boom. You should end up with a higher outboard end of the boom than usual. IMHO The same techniques shouldbe applicable to the Albercore or other simailar transom sheeted mainsail. Difficult to do in the boat on the water well and you then don't have a kicking strap, actually you can roll in a strap to be attached but this is further complication. Finally you do need the square section gooseneck to prevent the boom unrolling.

 

[Cantata]

I raced many dinghies but the Albacore was my favourite - had 4 of them over the years. A great boat both in light airs and in a blow, although you needed plenty of avoirdupoids hanging over the rail if it was blowing hard. A great sea boat and ideally suited to the lumpy old Thames Estuary where I sailed. There were 'hot' fleets at various clubs, notably Grimsby, Herne Bay (my club) and Parkstone. We all used to meet up and do battle at various events, I even sailed in a Worlds on Lake Ontario in 1970-something.

 

[TimBennet]

I'm interested in the fact that the Firefly was an Olympic singlehander, and since became a competitive two-hander...

The firefly was never really a singlehanded boat. It was chosen as such at the '48 Olympics at Torbay because like today, the organising committee had to provide the boats for the singlehanded class. Three years after the war ended and being the austerity games, they used what they could get. Fairey marine was about the only 'mass producer' of dinghies so there was almost no other choice. It wasn't really satisfactory, but got the job done. I think Elvstrom would have won if it had been sailed in orange boxes.

As said the Albacore is a good sea boat. You can always have slugs put on the luff of the mainsail and convert the booo and mainsail to slab reefing. This will make shortening sail at sea a possibilty. Rolling around the boom is just a pain in the arse even on shore.

The down side of the Albacore (and similar) for dinghy cruising, is it has very poor 'form stability'. Any movement of people on board give a change in heel or trim. Not a problem underway, but at anchor it makes sleeping and cooking and everything else a little fraught! The flatter bottom of things like the Wayfarer 'sit' quieter on the water, but that's pretty much their only advantage.

 

[Kukri]

It is quite easy to singlehand a Firefly -just tie the job sheets together...

It is even easier to singlehand an Albacore with a Firefly suit of sails...

The Albacore's sail plan is the same as that of Uffa Fox's later International 14's, and it is quite the "done thing" to use a Firefly suit on a vintage 14 if it's windy...

 

[Greenheart]

...you need... plenty of avoirdupoids hanging over the rail if it was blowing hard...

So I believe. I'm hoping that the neat reduction of sail (by using a Firefly main) and the addition of a trapeze, as Canadian Albacore training fleets are said to use, would enable my paltry eleven stone to make a difference! Or I may just stay ashore on breezy days.

The down side of the Albacore (and similar) for dinghy cruising, is it has very poor 'form stability'. Any movement of people on board give a change in heel or trim. Not a problem underway, but at anchor it makes sleeping and cooking and everything else a little fraught! The flatter bottom of things like the Wayfarer 'sit' quieter on the water, but that's pretty much their only advantage.

I'm still undecided on whether the rather slender Albacore atones for its poor initial stability, with stronger aesthetic appeal and better performance than broader, boxier designs. I'm discouraged by pictures of capsized Albacores, deep in the water, an ordeal to bail out...

...and my optimistic practical instinct begins to speculate on the supplementary buoyancy employed by Walker Bay's sailing tenders; a long, not-very-pretty buoyancy-belt might keep the Albacore's dunked gunwale relatively high, and the cockpit relatively dry!

I recognise that raising hull flotation encourages inversion; a masthead float would be my earliest addition. Also, I know strapping floats to the gunwale won't win points for looks. But looks won't count for much when I'm offshore in half a gale, out of anyone's sight.

 

[johnalison]

I know that I have shown this old photo of me before, but it shows that planing a Firefly single-handed was quite easy even for a definitely non-olympic sailor like me, weighing only nine and a half stone. The only problem used to be that the annual single-handed race always seemed to coincide with the strongest winds of the year, shared with the ladies' race.

I don't know about the Albacore but going onto the plane in a Firefly could be quite interesting if you forgot to raise the plate a bit.

 

[Greenheart]

Nice picture, very encouraging. For my money, part of the Albacore's appeal is her long waterline, said to make up for her substantial displacement in light airs. That said, she clearly can plane when conditions allow...footage here shows one planing, even dead-downwind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqjAByrosn0

I think I've swung back to the Albacore...my 'new' favourite dinghy!

Now, for my cruising plans, I shall want a pair of 10ft oars...could they double-up as a sprit, for an asymmetric kite from a 12' skiff?

 

[Iain C]

...nope, because the prod on a 12' skiff is longer than your 10' oar...

 

[Greenheart]

Hullo Iain. You find me still idly speculative & out of actual practice as I was, droning on about Albacores 12 months ago, or was it 18? The 12ft Skiff kite idea was just my sense of fun. Although, I'm still thinking an RS400 kite, (or RS800! ) might enliven calm days...

I know dinghy-spinnaker heads only usually reach the top of the standing rigging, but I believe I'd find my hands full with the Albacore's white sails alone, by the time the wind hits ten knots...so the kite would just be for catching a bit of extra thrust during drifters...

...and so, I'm guessing I wouldn't have to get stressed over carefully-tested strength or integrity of fittings; an oar sticking out eight feet beyond the forestay, secured at the stem and mast-base, could secure the foot of a big kite that might have a 25ft luff...

...is there a formula for calculating how much thrust is produced by a given sail-area, pressed by specific wind strengths?

I always feel that racing dinghy-sailors are so jealously perfectionistic about their pride & joy's performance, and so bound by their class's rules, that any enjoyably radical experimentation is spurned and scorned rather than explored.

I'll never actually need to go fast. So for fun, I'd be free to try anything, practical or not...and a big chute which doubles (trebles?) an Albacore's working sail area might be just the thing for reaching hull-speed in a force 1...

...and if on the other hand it's catastrophic, at least it will knock my endless low-season speculation on the head...

 

[Iain C]

"I always feel that racing dinghy-sailors are so jealously perfectionistic about their pride & joy's performance, and so bound by their class's rules, that any enjoyably radical experimentation is spurned and scorned rather than explored."

Hmmm, try telling that to Rohan Veal, the crazy guy who first came up with a workable hydrofoil system for a Moth. Less than 10 years later and the class is booming, 120 odd boats at the worlds, there's as much development in aerodynamics of the hull as any other part of the boat, peak speeds are north of 30 knots, 2012 generation upwind VMG is over a knot faster than a 2011 boat, and suddenly some other big expensive boats are playing with hydrofoils, with, erm, varying degrees of success eh Larry?

It just depends if you want to sail a strict one design where the best sailor wins, or chuck some innovation into the mix too!

 

[lw395]

In air so light that you could get away with hanging it from high up an albacore mast, I suspect you would find the RS400 or 800 kite quite horrible to use.
The problem in light air, unless it is very steady, the momentum of the boat causes it to overtake the kite at the end of each puff, collapsing it. You end up trying to sail very high just to keep some airflow over the kite. Then, even a 5knot puff generates a lot of force. I really think you would be better off with a conventional kite.

Also, there is a theory that the forces generated by a spinnaker are only partly dictated by the spinnaker area. The other factor is the weight of the boat hanging on the bottom. An x-boat, with quite a small quite has high sheetloads compared to a dinghy with a big kite.
Since the Albacore is moderately heavy, I would think the load on the tack would be quite high even in light winds.
If you love the classic hull shapes like the firefly and Alb, but want to go faster, I'd suggest buying a 505!

 

[Greenheart]

It just depends if you want to sail a strict one design where the best sailor wins, or chuck some innovation into the mix too!

Very true. But I'm always thinking how some relatively strict one-designs might be pepped-up, or otherwise improved!

The fact that my speculation is aimed at a hefty old design like the Albacore seems even more daft, so I should stress my fields of interest: they are the best ways to:

a) reduce sail to an easily controllable area without destroying sail-shape for use in serious breezes, and: b) how best to boost sail area on days with only 3 knots of wind, so some really useful progress can be made, like when the wind is nudging F2...

...I realise it'd be easier simply to select a lighter boat, but for many reasons, I like the Albacore and am willing to overlook its inherent shortcomings, whilst also (because I never race) cheerfully considering any crazy options to get best pace from the hull-form.

My question (in hopes of an answer from anyone so crazy that they've tried it) is whether, on those very calm days, if racers could choose ANY size of sail, plus ANY absurd extensions to mast and bowsprit and boom...would the biggest sail-plan win?

I'm not kidding myself that an Albacore will, by preposterous over-rigging, streak across the sea, planing in a force 2...

...but I'm hopeful that the frustration of barely achieving steerage way, could be boosted to useful walking pace by more sail.

LW395, thanks for your thoughts. I'm still ruminating on them.

How about an enormous, very lightweight 140% masthead genoa, for very light airs, flat enough to remain useful when the apparent wind is on the nose? Like a Prout rig, I suppose.

 

[fireball]

Nothing wrong with cruiser sailors using non-class sails to effect a reef - arguably it is better than reefing as the shape of the sail is more easily controlled.

For an Albacore - Firefly sails are excellent when you need to depower - however, you could equally use any smaller dinghy sails that suit the rig ...

For greater sail area you've got to consider the practicalities - overlapping genoas need to be cut correctly and not choke the slot - so it's not just a matter of putting a bigger sail on.
Spinnakers are easy enough to set up - provided the mast has suitable fittings (or you can fit them).
Asymetrics are a bit more fun to get right - the geometry of the halyard entry to bowsprit needs to be about right for the sail to sit correctly - take it to extremes - you can't put a 30' luff kite on a 10' mast with a 20' bowsprit and expect it to work - the clew would just drag in the water - you need the clew at the right height for it to work efficiently - otherwise you may as well just ditch it ...

 

[lw395]

So I believe. I'm hoping that the neat reduction of sail (by using a Firefly main) and the addition of a trapeze, as Canadian Albacore training fleets are said to use, would enable my paltry eleven stone to make a difference! Or I may just stay ashore on breezy days.



I'm still undecided on whether the rather slender Albacore atones for its poor initial stability, with stronger aesthetic appeal and better performance than broader, boxier designs. I'm discouraged by pictures of capsized Albacores, deep in the water, an ordeal to bail out...



...and my optimistic practical instinct begins to speculate on the supplementary buoyancy employed by Walker Bay's sailing tenders; a long, not-very-pretty buoyancy-belt might keep the Albacore's dunked gunwale relatively high, and the cockpit relatively dry!



I recognise that raising hull flotation encourages inversion; a masthead float would be my earliest addition. Also, I know strapping floats to the gunwale won't win points for looks. But looks won't count for much when I'm offshore in half a gale, out of anyone's sight.

There is a whole debate about this issue.
The problem is, dinghies with lots of buoyancy tend to invert when capsized.
In some scenarios, that is a good thing because it won't blow away from you.
In others, it makes breaking the mast more likely.
Masthead floats do not always prevent inversion, if you capsize at speed in waves.
In any conditions where a reasonably competent person is likely to capsize, most dinghies will empty fairly easily via transom flaps and self bailers.
How easy would it be to right the boat from inverted with extra buoyancy on the gunwhales?

Re the smaller sails, because the mast bend will be wrong, small mains can end up baggy and harder work than the full size item, which can be flattened very well with a decent kicker, outhaul and cunningham. But on an old rig this may not work so well.
You might find that just using a smaller jib works well, some older GP14's sail with the choice of jib or genoa, without having weather helm problems.
In my view capsizing is always possible, you must be able to right the boat and carry on.
But on an old boat, breaking things is also a possibility, there is much to be said for sailing at a club where there is a RIB to support the racing, even if you are not racing.

Going back to spinnakers, if you want to try the effects of an asymmetric, the best thing might be to have a go in a 'proper' asy boat like an RS400, Vareo etc. Rs used to have some demo boats, or someone at a local club might oblige.

 

[rwoofer]

Albacores are noted for their ability to go very well in light airs and will often sail above handicap, so I really wouldn't bother trying to enhance light airs performance with more sail area.

As your suggestion, use something like a Firefly main to singlehand or for stronger winds and I think you will get the best compromise of faff vs making a real difference.