on?’ The reason I called my company and my boat designs Paradigm is because I am always looking for that paradigm shift. And when it comes to dinghy design I am not afraid to fail and I am not that bothered by what people think. I have built many boats over the years
and handling a very light carbon shell gave me the inspiration to try to change the shape as we sail. Working first-hand with any material gives you an understanding of what its characteristics are and how you can exploit it to do what you want it to. SH:What were you trying to achieve? GW: The dilemma for all boat designers is finding the compromise between low wetted surface, rounded shapes for light winds and flat planing surfaces for breeze. Looking at many of the ‘one-design’
classes developed for amateur home-build- ing, like the Cadet, Mirror, OK, Fireball and so on, there are significant variations in boat performance characteristics possible just by exploiting the edges of the allowed tolerances. A 10-15mm difference in a keel line or chine dimension can make the boat perform distinctly better upwind/down- wind or in different sea conditions. In pro- fessionally built classes like the Star and Finn (and before that the Flying Dutchman) there has always been continual experimen- tation with those permitted tolerances. A 15mm tolerance does not sound much,
but if you push 10mm outward at a certain point on the hull and then go the maximum amount inward somewhere else then the change you see can be dramatic. SH: But the concept of achieving this is more than a little novel, how did you assess feasibility? GW: I built a scale model and applied pres- sure in a variety of places inside the hull to see what happened and how I could poten- tially change the shape of a boat as it sailed. The results were actually very encouraging, especially in proving that I could do it within the rise of floor measurement criteria for a development class like the 12. I took the lines of the original Paradigm
design which won the Burton Cup in 2008 in the hands of John Meadowcroft and flattened the rocker by 25mm. I then set out to increase the rocker line again by some 60mm. At this point I need to point out that I am using simple AutoCad soft- ware to draw my ideas and not any special- ist marine design programme. I am work- ing very much on a trial and error basis. SH: And on the water… GW: The build took a little longer than expected so in the end we launched the boat just before the National 12 Championships and with little chance to test it. This year’s regatta was held in very light winds with little more than 6kt of breeze on any day. Geoff Camm sailed my original Paradigm design very well to finish second overall in the prevailing light conditions but my own latest Paradigm 4 simply wasn’t ready for those conditions. Neither were we. But we did manage to test the boat later in about 15kt and it was definitely very fast
58 SEAHORSE
Shape shifting… amidships the hull-deck join of Paradigm 4 is free to move, allowing a gap to open as rocker is forced into the hull by either the six or 12 levers pressing onto pressure pads on the hull shell. The long sailcloth gasket provides the watertight seal
in those conditions. We now need to make some relatively minor modifications to get it to perform better in light winds by exert- ing more force on the shell to increase the rocker even further – but we know what we need to do and there is no reason the boat won’t then go as well as we expect. SH: And operating the shape shift… GW: One of the features of this boat is the presence of three levers which apply pres- sure to the shell in different ways. One lever applies pressure to all 12 pressure points on the shell to increase the rocker and therefore the buoyancy of the boat evenly across the hull. The other levers on either side pressure either one side or another individually. This produces an asymmetrical hull shape with the centre of buoyancy moving further
away from the crew, thereby increasing the righting moment the crew are creating. Effectively we are taking two steps in
one go and it is this second element that needs more experimentation, but it did prove to have a beneficial effect in the limited testing we were able to do. I have to give huge recognition here to the boat- builder Simon Hipkin who took on this crazy project – he kept faith and he helped us enormously and it was his enthusiasm that enabled us to create a unique boat. SH: And now? GW: Well… the National 12 class is currently having a debate about whether the concept of shifting the shape of a boat during racing is desirable. This is hardly a surprise given all the wider implications if
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122
