Mark Taylor
Posted
I note that the minutes include a request for Ed Harrison to look into items that might make the Sonata “more IRC friendly”.
As I sail in Scotland and there are more letters in the alphabet than IRC boats that actually race, or perhaps even have current IRC certificates, could someone give me some ideas or hints about the sort of thing that might achieve Ed’s request…….are we talking radical change or minor tweaks???!!!!
regards
Mark
Saraband 8314
Joe Cross
Posted
Minor tweaks, it’s things like check stays which are rarely used as far as most can see which will cause a rating increase.
Peter Cyriax
Posted
Sonata rules prohibit using the check stays when going upwind, which is the only time I’d ever use them…
And apparently no current Sonata has them
So I’d support getting rid of that rule.
Peter
Edward Harrison
Posted · IP
Hi Everyone!
At the meeting I was actually coming at this from more of a class development angle. It seems to me like there is good class racing at a number of clubs, but if the association adopts a policy of just trying to protect the one design class in these locations then the fleets will ultimately dwindle in size (once the class racing disappears it rarely comes back).
In thinking about how the association might wish to grow beyond the known fleets, the best solution to me seemed to be to market the boat as a competitive prospect on IRC. The impala has seen a resurgence on the south coast and the fact that it sails to it’s rating and can hold its own against boats 10x the price is undoubtedly a big draw and contributing factor. Once you have people buying sonatas and racing them where there are no others because they’re “quick boats”, really you’ve made a big leap forward for the class.
In terms of what I came with, a couple of things have bugged me over the years:
1) Checkstays: IRC is known to penalise overly complicated rigs quite heavily and because they’re written into the class rules, the one design IRC certificate incurrs a penalty. This is because in theory you could tension them upwind to exert significant control over the luff tension of the jib and stop it sagging off. In reality no boats seem to carry them.
2) Sail materials: This is controversial. I accept there is a lot of merit to keeping the costs down in the class and hence the rules limit the mainsail to dacron and the #1 to pentex (the cheapest laminate). On the other hand, although a carbon/kevlar sail is more expensive, it has much better longevity and will remain competitive for many more seasons than the current options. Pentex genoas that are cheap to buy but wear out in less than a season seem a bit of a false economy. The IRC side of this (lest you think I’ve strayed from the point) is that there is no penalty for using better sail materials, so currently to race on equal terms one has to buy a set of carbon/kevlar IRC sails and a separate suit of class sails. My personal opinion is that it would be better to leave sail material unrestricted so people can choose to buy longer lasting high tech fibres or the less durable ones.
The truth is, I’m far from an expert. There are lots of people down on the south coast who could probably have a look over the rules and tell you how to re-word them to improve the rating without really changing much. That really is all I’m trying to do, but it would be best to consult a designer or at least run some trial certificates though RORC to see what various changes would achieve.
Finally, a parting shot…. please please please stop people replacing the entire interior with 30kg of lead. People who remove the interior are less likely to keep the deck and fittings watertight (as there isn’t anything down below), so over time the main bulkhead will rot away and the boat will be lost. S.O.S (Save our Sonatas).
Happy Sailing
Ed
Serenity – 8155N
Gareth Martel
Ed,
I will start by agreeing with you about the sail material. I do think that it is something that the class should consider looking at. The durability of a No 1 is ludicrously bad, and this is, as you say, down to the sail cloth. The ability to use a more expensive material I believe would actually be a cost saving manoeuvre, at least for anyone who wants to race competitively. There are people in the class far more knowledgable than me on the subject of sail making however, and it would be good to hear their opinion on the matter.
I have to say however I disagree with you on the other two points.
The future of the class lies in the one design nature, not IRC. I would not buy a Sonata to race IRC, there are better boats for IRC, at the same money (personally I would look at a GK24 for example). There is however no real comparable one design class at similar money. In fact it is amazing that the class has survived so well when many others have struggled. I think the emphasis of the class should always be on one design racing. That said, minor technical changes such as check stays would make no difference to the class racing, and if they would improve the handicap then absolutely lets do it.
As for the interior of boats, you don’t worry yourself over those of us who have lead instead of mouldy cushions and rusty cookers, I am sure you will find that boats such as ours have had plenty of money/time/effort spent in making sure they are fast and well equipped for racing, and as such their owners are not letting them rot away! The last time I was in the south I think we were the only ones sleeping on board ironically anyway
Gareth
So..
Joe Cross
Posted
Good points, In terms of the irc there is nothing stopping anyone doing it properly and providing a full set of measurements in order to get a correct irc. With a correct weight the the ability for not having some of the irrelevant items a significant change to the rating. I am looking at doing this as although I race in a local handocap fleet (all be it with other sonatas) which between us we dominate. However there are other events which race irc in the solent I’d like to give a go. For example there is the Rti and also mainly the revived mini ton cup. Since it started again it has been dominated by a boat that races in the same handicap class as us in poole. Although it’s irc is currently a lot better than ours. However if we were to find a way to drop our rating (achievable) we would have a very competitive irc boat as well as a good one design.
Sail materials. We have been discussing this in poole for some time after years ago one boat had a laminate mains de as he changed to a sonata after making an order for another boat and therefore changed the order. It would not be an understatement to say he was fast for a long period. There was a discussion with Steve goacher at the nationals who said that the price would be pushed up with no real improvement in performance or longevity. This is however something we should maybe look at and to that end I urge someone to bring it up at the AGM (Gareth).
On the interior front I know they vary having just bought a boat with a very good (heavy) interior that I will be losing as much of as possible whilst still keeping a comfortable interior for 4 and class legal. The way the correctors work with their positions is also to make it a slight disadvantage to remove the interior and replace with lead in order to encourage people to keep the boats original.
My thoughts
Joe
Mark Taylor
Posted
As Gareth says, there are others far more qualified than me to discuss alternative sail materials but I would say that I don’t see any issues with the Sonata mainsail longevity.
What kills laminate is any flogging or backwinding that goes on, and realistically we all know that at the top end of the wind range for a Snotty, it is inevitable that we get some main flogging. My other boats (RS300, Graduate and a 3/4 tonner) all have laminate mainsails and they have been amazing in their longevity, but the big big difference is that they never flog. If we are over-powered in the 3/4 tonner we just bend the mast, drop the track and if we are still struggling then in goes a reef. In contrast I think I have reefed the Sonata once in 15 years of racing, at Tarbert when the Swan 45s as a class refused to race, but the committee still sent out the Snotties……it was brilliant and we did 3 races!
I note Joe’s comment regarding lead for interior and I would only partly agree with his comment regarding getting the “formula” right…….I have just moved house so for the first time for a few years had to move Saraband’s fore cabin structure and berth cushions. once again I am amazed at how heavy it all seems compared to the corrector weight, and that is without the possibility that in real life the cushions might be wet or at least damp. Unless you actually need to keep the forward berths for crew sleeping, there is no incentive whatsoever in the rules to retain them………..I think we could seriously consider taking the fore cabin corrector and increasing it to 150% or even 200% of the current weight. It would also force me to sort the leaking Houdini forehatch!
Mark
Saraband 8314N
Peter Booth
Posted
I have owned Firebird for 22 years now and originally fitted check stays to try to prevent losing the IYE mast when sailing downwind but I found that they damaged the genoas when sailing to windward so I removed them. The IYE mast is still standing after 38 years as she is hull no.6 launched in 1976. I would therefore suggest that the use of check stays should be avoided although I do not know if they would improve windward performance by much.
I cannot comment on the effective life of sails except to say that I am still using 2007 main and no.1 and we are still not doing not too badly with those at club level and indeed a 20 year old spinnaker. You can call me a miser if you wish but there is little I can do to improve the 71 year old helmsman.
I do think there is a weight advantage in removing the interiors and adding corrective weights in there place as Firebird is a fully lined interior (fore cabin as well) and carries all cushions, 2 burner cooker and full galley, battery, toilet, pilot berths plus an excess of anchor requirements and all the other requirements of the rules and is fully fitted for cruising. I am sure that the weight of the lead in place of fittings is a good advantage and I agree with Mark that it should be increased and probably doubled. Firebird 8717N
Gareth Martel
Posted
I have to agree with Mark about the mainsail, I don’t think that there is an issue with mainsail longevity, and actually its a very important point about the laminates and flogging. The style in which the Sonata is predominantly raced, with so much flogging of the main is far from traditional keelboat racing, and I suspect that laminates would not stand up well. In my experience I have found that the no1 does seems to have a very short window of great performance, typically one or two regattas (obviously conditions dependent). It then seems to drop away and plateau, and in fact I am not sure that there is much more loss of performance over the next season or two (again, obviously depends how much you are racing). Interesting to hear Steves thoughts, I would have thought that a more modern material might have made a difference. Would be interested to hear what others think, Im sure Murray and Neil would be happy to give their thoughts.
Of course part of the problem is that we hold on to our No1 for a very, very long time, as its (at least perceived to be) faster than going to the No 2.
As an aside, if we are looking at things to help on handicap, would be worth looking at the Sonatas CYCA with the same view. I think its a simpler system and there probably isn’t much to be done, but others will know better!
A few of the comments above really alarm me though. We can not start changing the weight penalties in my opinion. For a start, the weight penalty is not purely about the weight itself, there is also the placement. The corrector for the forepeak goes much farther forward than the centre of gravity of the berth. Obviously weight on the bow is a different thing from weight further back. More importantly, there are many boats out there that do not have forepeak berths fitted, and no longer have the berths. To then force these boats to carry more weight or try to rebuild a forepeak berth would be simply wrong of the class. I don’t believe that it would change any results either.
Removing the head lining and side lining carries a weight penalty of 20kg! That is far more than the weight of the linings. I also believe that shouldn’t be changed, if people wish to remove the linings then so be it, you know the penalty. 10Kg sounds about right for the cooker.
Should probably point out that So.. has her forepeak fitted, and doesn’t have liners (don’t know what they were thinking!), so I certainly don’t have a conflict of interest on this!
Gareth
Peter Booth
Posted
Gareth makes a good point about the weight and over the years I believe that Firebird has not been greatly affected by her weight factor and she does float on her floatation marks so she cannot be too badly handicapped and that should be the first point we should look at to make sure the floatation marks are correct. I also think that our results have been as good as we could have anticipated so I am not complaining too much which you will probably find unusual from a BOF.
murray caldwell
Posted (edited)
We ask an awful lot of our No1 in the sonata. We use a it in a very wide wind range .
There are Materials out there now that would make a stronger lighter sail than we are using at present but they would be more expensive.
Would a higher-tec sail last longer? Probably not, or i certainly would not sell any claiming that until l have been proved wrong.
With the rig on the Sonata the loads we are applying are relatively low so Polyester or Pentex are fine strength wise so i don’t think that is the issue. Its the flogging that is the problem which is causing shrinking and this is going to happen to any laminate, no matter what fiber is being used. This shrinking leads to shape change affecting the performance. But i do believe the drop off in performance is a lot less nowadays.
What i love about the Sonata is the One -Designess of the class, and i would approach “opening up” things like sail material with caution.
I dont think we want to change rules for IRC because you would want to do more than minor “tweaks” to the rules. If i was wanting to do racing under IRC I might want a designated lightweight genoa or one to fill the gap between the No1 and the No2 size wise and these are additions i don’t think we want to see in One-design rules.
Get a normal certificate, you can use the one-design sizing and weight if you want. Then you have free reign over sails. Check stays etc.
In regard to corrector weights. When i had “Tragedy” we weighed the interior before fitting it back. The galley and headlinings were slightly lighter than the correctors i was using the first year i had her but the forecabin that was a lot heavier, but as we slept on board, it was fitted back as well.
On that Point what are peoples understanding of a “Standard galley”? Do you need the shelfs?
Murray
Red Hot Poker Edited by murray caldwell
Peter Cyriax
Posted
Hi,
A Sonata main does seem to last a reasonable amount of time, though it is heavy and also slow compared to an IRC main the same size made of kevlar or carbon laminate, which would cost about 30% more and last twice as long, for racing.
The No 1 Genoa is another matter entirely. I’m with Ed and Gareth on this one. Pentax stretches and the sail loses its shape, typically developing a slight hook in the leach after only a few hours beating at the top end of the No 1 wind range. I took mine back to the sail maker and he said:
“I can see what you describe. The sail has stretched slightly. There is nothing I can do about it. The Sonata class rules don’t allow me to use a suitable cloth. If I just use heavier cloth the sail will be very slow in light airs.”
This simply loads un-necessary costs onto anybody who wants to be competitive.
IMO
Peter Cyriax
Posted On 10/12/2014 at 20:01, murray caldwell said: …
On that Point what are peoples understanding of a “Standard galley”? Do you need the shelfs?
I don’t believe there has been any such thing as a “standard galley” since Hunter’s stopped providing manufacturer support for the Sonata. There are no published drawings. What you need is a stove, any stove. Mine weighs 100 g.
Also…. what shelves ?
Cheers
Peter
murray caldwell
Posted · IP (edited)Peter, Just looking for what the minimum is required to confirm to this rule! The fitting of the standard galley unit is optional. If this unit is not fitted, a 10kg weight shall be fixed to the starboard side of the support strut. It shall be a minimum of 1000mm above the strut base. My last boat was not measured and when it was he made me put a shelf in like the original picture he had. Like this
Murray Edited by murray caldwell
Peter Cyriax
Posted
Hi Murray,
WOW!
I’ve never seen anything remotely like that in a Sonata.
Very pretty, of course, but it takes up a lot of space.
All I have is a partition high enough to contain the settee bunk cushion and a portable camping stove set into the flat surface that is the continuation of the settee bunk top.
That’s how it was when I bought it. Martin Hartley signed the certificate the previous owner handed on to me.
In fact, because I like racing offshore, I’m thinking of moving the stove into the fore peak. If you move the settee bunk right up to the main bulkhead the main cabin will become much more livable, and crucially you can (just) fit quarter berths giving you two windward sea-going bunks on each side.
Cheers
Peter
Gareth Martel
Posted
Hate to tell you this Peter, but it sounds like your boat has been modified before out bought it, and (in my opinion) you definitely need to carry a weight penalty. The picture from Murray is what I believe to be a standard galley unit, although I believe some boats have different ‘fronting’ to the shelf, plexiglass sort of stuff (certainly my previous boat did).
I have also been told recently that the rules require me to carry a stove even if I have the galley unit penalty weight, which I must say I disagree with, however could be argued given the wording of the minimum equipment-
C5.1 Portable equipment-……
(8) A cooker in the galley area.
Personally I would be of the opinion that if you don’t have a galley area, you don’t carry a cooker. To settle the matter for the regatta I put a disposable BBQ where the galley area would have been (it is a cooker!) but it is the only time I have ever heard of a boat with the weight penalty being told they need a cooker.
Gareth
So…
Peter Cyriax
Hi Gareth,
I DO have a galley area, it’s just not very big. And a stove.
Martin Hartley saw pictures of my Sonata before I bought it, and confirmed to me that it is legal. He inspected it and gave it a racing certificate in the same state that it is in now.
Cheers
Peter.
Gareth Martel
Posted · IP On 11/12/2014 at 21:29, Peter Cyriax said:
Hi Gareth,
I DO have a galley area, it’s just not very big. And a stove.
Martin Hartley saw pictures of my Sonata before I bought it, and confirmed to me that it is legal. He inspected it and gave it a racing certificate in the same state that it is in now.
Cheers
Peter.
Hi Peter,
I have no doubt that you do, however I don’t believe from what you describe that you have a standard Galley unit, and certainly that does not seem to be in keeping with what was told to Murray. All Sonatas I have been on with galley installed have appeared similar to the photo from Murray (and thats quite a few, mostly for late night beers ). It does sound like Martin may have been incorrect on this.
Maybe you could upload a pic, and we could get some clarification. From what you are describing I could install this with very little effort, and it would weigh virtually nothing, and if that was class legal then I could get rid of my corrector weight, especially given that some seem to think that a cooker is required in addition to a corrector weight!
Clearly we need a bit of clarification on this.
Gareth
Peter Cyriax
Hi Gareth,
I’m 100% in favour of clarifying the rules.
In this case I think it’s quite simple. There is no published document or drawing describing the “Standard Galley”, and hence, in the absence of manufacturer support from Hunter’s, the phrase has no meaning. The Sonata is a National class, so it it has to be possible to build a conforming Sonata pure;y from the Class Rules plus any published documents it refers to.
The attached pic was taken by the previous owner of Bear Cub, showing the interior facing forward from the companionway. Martin saw this and explicitly commented on it, and confirmed that her certificate was valid and that I would be permitted to race her before I bought her.
Cheers
Peter
Edited by Peter Cyriax
Peter Booth
The galley in Murray’s picture is almost the same as Firebird and indeed many of the Sonatas I have seen and I suspect that it was what Hunter provided on a factory finished boat. I don’t know if the kit boats came with a kit to complete for home finishing but they are so much alike that I think they must have. The upper shelf was not fitted when I bought her but she had a certificate and I added a cupboard rather than the shelf.
I am of the opinion that Peter C’s bulkhead has a significant weight advantage and therefore should have further correctors if it is permitted. It is my personal opinion that the boats were originally designed to be a one design cruiser/ racer and fitted to be as alike as possible and I do understand if you only wish to race then there is little point in having all the business down below both from a cost and work point of view, however I feel strongly that there should be no possibility of a weight advantage from such and the weight should if anything be slightly in excess of a fitted out boat. One of the great pleasures of the Sonata for me is taking part in the friendly class and whilst it is nice to win occasionally that is not the be all and end all of my sailing. So please let’s not be too dogmatic in trying to achieve the lightest boat on the water. I also agree that the rules could really do with a critical examination.
Peter B
Peter Cyriax
Hi,
I’m more than happy to have the rules looked at; but as I said, Martin passed Bear Cub’s interior before I bought it. I have changed nothing in that area.
The opened up bulkhead makes for a much more pleasant interior, and I figure it saves about 3Kg.
For cruising (as I ,mentioned) I’m thinking of moving the galley into the fore peak so I can get two proper sea-going bunks (settee bunk + quarter bunk) each side. I could build a crude version of the galley area shown in Murray’s pic and temporarily install it while racing, if that’s what you think is fair.
Cheers
PeterEdited by Peter Cyriax
Gareth Martel
Peter Im not sure what to say here, theres been an awful lot of modification to your boat, including the bulkhead which I believe is not meant to be touched.
I would be interested to hear what Martins thoughts are.
I am certain it is not class legal, although I would be in support of finding some sort of weight penalty to allow it to race in class. You certainly can not enter it as is into a class event without carrying lead.
I have to say that I agree with Peters (Booth) sentiments above, we should aim to discourage people from taking away further from the boats. The ability to remove bits from a one design boat should never have been allowed within the class, however I suspect that it was done to make the boat more competitive on handicap. I would rather have all the trimmings inside So, and have all boats the same.
GarethEdited by Gareth Martel