International AC 62RC Class

First I apologize for not posting this in German. I don't speak the language and I don't trust "Google Translate". Maybe there is some way we could work out the translation issues so we could all communicate with each other?
Some of us are trying to put together a radio controlled AC class-the rules are being discussed here:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2180752
Your input would be most welcome! There is no rush in getting this project together. Issues regarding transport, wings, hydrofoils, electronics and exactly how the class rules should be worded need to be worked out. One of the most important things, in beginning this class, is to have the focus on developing a race boat for sailors who want to race, not necessarily build or do development work. So one of our considerations is to have "one design" rigs, possibly one design foils and IF a movable ballast system is used it would also be one design. The idea is to make the Class as inclusive as possible and have first class performance attainable by all who participate.
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I'm putting together a smaller 51"(1.31m) prototype to test rigs and foils. It is a 15 year old platform for a Formula 48 cat that just had each bow extended. The foils will be UptiP foils, based on the foil invented by TNZ with refinements similar to the Flying Phantom ,GC32 and the Fire Arrow Test Model where the foils have been very successfully used as ama foils. The foil design on those boats reduces rake adjustment to ,basically, "set and forget". I'm going to test the foils using radio adjustable rake and, for the sake of simplicity, a four foil configuration will be tested instead of retracting the windward foil. Retracting the windward foil may also be tested. The rake-adjust system will also allow the testing of downforce from the windward foil, though the boat is probably too narrow for that to work efficiently.The foils may be one design, to encourage participation, or the rule may stipulate that custom foils can be used as long as they are available to all class members. A movable ballast system will be tested. A wing rig will be used and will be one design and soft rigs will be allowed initially. This is to ensure that the wing rig is actually faster than the best soft rig.
I'm familiar with the history of RC multihulls, but this is the first time in history "we" have had a foiling multihull class sailing for the America's Cup! I truly believe if we work on this together that we can come up with an historic RC foiling multihull.
So I'm using my 51.5" platform to put together a foil system to prove that a simple system that anyone can use is possible. I don't expect much to happen until
there is video of this prototype foiling-which it will do in very light air.

Picture of the 51.5" D4Z /AC 62 prototype under development now:

AC 62/ D4Z Prototype

AC 62/ D4Z Prototype

Here is the working Sail Plan for the 51" AC 62/D4Z prototype. This is a soft sail rig but we will test wing rigs down the line. No technology will be used on the proposed AC 62RC Class just because it works on the full size boat. That's part of the reason for using this smaller platform( the AC 62RC model will be 62"(1.57m)) to test various aspects of the concept.

Hi Doug,
basically a good idea but why foiling and why moveable ballast? Ballast has been tried many times and never worked really well. Too much stuff and in the end just not competitive. And foiling? If you see how much effort Ian puts in his boats and still they are flying on the reach only (but very well!). So racing those boats in a triangle or up and down will just not work.

I think we have to solve the issue with the fleet size. Therefore I think more about shrinking the boat, making it extremely easy to build and still maintaining all elements that make them so exciting. I think MultiOne has a brighter future. They could even sail together with the Mini40 and make them look bad once in a while....

Don't get me wrong I really appreciate your approach and I read every article in rc-groups. But knowing that a Mini40 is minimum half a year building time (for an experienced builder!), I just cannot see the payoff for an even bigger boat that might never see a class or foil sufficiently. BUT I love to see me proven wrong :-)

Cheers! Chris

Thanks for your thoughts Chris! The thing that has inspired me to at least complete the 51.5" proto is the success I've had with the UptiP foils on the Fire Arrow test model. It takes two to get that boat in the water with video so the project is temporarily on hold while my "crew" is coaching a local high school football team. But even in the short time its been tested one of the outstanding successes has been the ama UptiP foils and that has given me the confidence to say that I'm very satisfied that an RC cat using a version of those foils is likely to perform extremely well including foiling upwind and down and tacking and gybing on foils! As well as starting to foil in very light wind.
Thats why I'm doing the smaller prototype-to prove that it can be done. I don't expect anybody to do anything until the videos of the cat prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it has a viable foiling system that anybody can use. I believe I can do it. My F3(15 years ago) using a Bradfield foil system foiled upwind and down in light air and heavy and could tack and gybe on foils. I'm confident the UptiP foils can do the same thing now.
You ask: "why foils?" Because the fullsize AC boats use them! You know we can look around these days and see incredible examples of how technology is being used on radio controlled aircraft but we're still sailing model multihulls like we did 30 years ago. It's time for a (big) change!
You mentioned movable ballast. I've used movable ballast systems on rc monohulls 25 years ago and it worked extremely well. A friend put such a system on the original D4Z and he said it worked great. From my standpoint the only thing questionable about using such a system is the expense of the winch to move the weight. It has to move quickly and that means an RMG(Guyatt) winch.
I'm not asking anybody to committ to anything except to offer ideas they may have for this class assuming the foils and movable ballast work like I say they will.
If the foils don't work and the movable ballast doesn't work then there is no America's Cup RC Class-it's that simple. But they will work!!
So think positive and consider how the rules for a boat like this should be set up.........

Pictures, L to R- F3-first production RC hydrofoil, Melges 24RC with Trapeze Power Ballast System, and the last two are both the Super Scow RC(36"):

I will definitively follow your built and assist with any stupid idea I have... :-)

Chris

first of all, sorry for my bad english!

i love the idea of moving weight! why don´t you use a servo with a big arm on it? its fast and cheaper!
second why do´t use those wrongway c foils? like in the PSK foiler video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKs0EAxEnXA

OK, Chris. What do you think about translation-would you be able to translate-maybe- the first post or recommend a solution for guys that don't speak English or German?

Junger allrounder schrieb:

first of all, sorry for my bad english!

i love the idea of moving weight! why don´t you use a servo with a big arm on it? its fast and cheaper!
second why do´t use those wrongway c foils? like in the PSK foiler video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKs0EAxEnXA

Zum Vergrößern anklicken....

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Junger, thanks for your post! I've seen that video before but never noticed the foils-I think its a brilliant design for a surface piercing foiler. At this point I there is a good chance that UptiP foils(invented by TNZ) would work better on a course. That's why I'm going to do the test with the small model(D4Z 51").
The distance that the weight has to move on a cat requires a 9 turn drum winch with about a 1.6" drum(about 45") in 3 seconds. I'm not sure an arm servo would work on the cat?
It will take a while but the results will be posted in this thread.......

Pictures of UptiP foils I designed for the Fire Arrow trimaran. The ones for the cat will be a bit different:

the wrong way c has the big adwatage of a very stabel liftreduce whyle eccalerating. The lift gets lower by increasing speed but the drift is not influenced i think, only desadvatage i see is your lataral point (do you know what i mean??) is moving invert...but thats very little

die umgekehrten c foils aben den vorteil von stabiel sinkendem lift bei zunehmender geschwindigkeit haben ohne das man sie verstellen muss. dabei nimmt die abdrift aber nicht zu da der senkrechte teil im wasser bleibt.

UptiP foils and Surface Piercing foils

UptiP foils and Surface Piercing foils

Surface piercing foils(incl. wrong way "C") surely work well, but there is a chance that the UptiP foils will work better upwind and downwind since altitude is controlled with leeway coupling with breaching of the uptip portion of the foil as backup. Altitude on an UptiP foil is not dependent(necessarily) on speed as it is on a surface piercing foil. The advantage of the surface piercing foil is that wetted surface decreases with speed. On the full size AC 72's, Flying Phantom and GC32, the UptiP foils operate as a single main foil which a surface piercing foil doesn't do well. On the D4Z prototype for the AC 62RC model I want to test the UptiP foils both as a single main foil with two rudder foils as well as in a 4 foil configuration(2 main, 2 rudder)
The single main UptiP foil with two rudder foils is the fastest configuration as the boats above have proven. BUT-the problem on a model is the requirement to retract the windward foil and the complication that involves. That is why I'm going to do extensive testing.
The pictures below illustrate altitude control at different speeds and loading with the UptiP ama foils on my Fire Arrow Test model:

"A" shows the main hull still in displacement mode the the ama already flying. Note the altitude.
"B" shows the whole boat flying with the ama carrying more load at greater speed. The altitude of the ama is the same in both pictures:

This is a video of the GC32 that uses UptiP foils in the single main foil,two rudder foil configuration. This is a refined version of the foil system invented by Team New Zealand and requires very little foil adjustment while racing. The advantage is using just a single main foil with the intrinsic altitude control designed into the foil. You could not sail a single surface piercing foil like this.Watch the whole video-it's really good with lots of sailing footage as it goes on:

Great stuff and they sail in a way that has never considered to be possible before. Even within the AC everybody thought that they would foil downwind only. After half of the races they just started to foil upwind as well and it paid off. So it turns out that not believing might be wrong and so maybe a RC boat could also foil around efficiently although I cannot imagine right now.
HOWEVER I am still too conservative or call it not sufficient idealistic to believe that the RC boat could do almost the same. I heard from the C-Class designers that it is much more difficult to get a smaller platform to foil in a stable mode. And that was C-Class cats, not our little monsters. BUT I promise at the same time, that as soon as I see some good efforts and first results I will be the first to join the class and build the first boat here :-)
Keep it up Doug! I love the enthusiasm.

Chris

AC 62RC Class

AC 62RC Class

Well Chris you need to help finalize the rules. All that takes is a little thought and some suggestions. But if you wait that's ok too! I get into it and want to rush,rush-that's why I keep saying: "there is no rush!" To encourage other guys, I'm going to post on the rc groups thread that if we get it working you'll join in.
Thanks ,man, that is very encouraging!!!!

Hi Doug,

I put together a pretty quick and dirty translation of your first post - just to get an idea what this is all about.

BR, Cord



Hallo zusammen,

ich habe den ersten Beitrag mal auf die Schnelle übersetzt - nicht Wort für Wort, sondern eher sinngemäß:


Zunächst einmal bitte ich um Entschuldigung, dass ich diesen Beitrag nicht auf Deutsch verfasse – ich beherrsche die Sprache nicht und vertraue auch „Google Translator“ nicht.
Eventuell gibt es eine Möglichkeit der Übersetzung, so dass wir alle miteinander kommunizieren können.

Derzeit arbeitet eine Gruppe daran, eine ferngesteuerte AC Klasse zu gründen – die Regeln werden zur Zeit hier diskutiert:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2180752

Euer Input ist herzlich willkommen. Es gibt keine Eile dieses Projekt kurzfristig abzuschliessen, aktuell werden Themen wie Transport, Wingsails, Foils, Elektronik und das genaue Wording der Klassenregeln erarbeitet. Einer der Schwerpunkte der Arbeit liegt zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt darin, ein Boot für Segler, die Regatten segeln wollen zu entwickeln, dabei aber gar nicht oder wenig entwickeln oder bauen wollen. Ein Ansatz in dieser Richtung ist eine Art „One Design“ Rigg, möglicherweise one design foils, und, falls es genutzt werden sollte, auch ein One Design System für beweglichen Ballast. Das Ziel ist es, die Klasse so eng wie möglich zu definieren und allen Teilnehmern den Zugang zu erstklassiger Leistungsfähigkeit zu ermöglichen.

Derzeit baue ich eine kleinere (1,31m) Plattform auf, um Riggs und Foils zu testen. Es handelt sich dabei um eine 15 Jahre alte Plattform eines Formula 48 Katamarans, die am Bug einfach verlängert wurde. Die Foils werden als Uptip Foils ausgeführt, basierend auf den Foils von ETNZ mit Verbesserungen wie sie beim Flying Phantom, GC32 und dem Fire Arrow Test Modell umgesetzt und erfolgreich genutzt werden.
Das Foildesign dieser Boote reduziert die Anstellwinkeleinstellung auf eine einmalige Einstellung. Ich werde die Foild unter Nutzung einer fergesteuerten Anstellwinkelverstellung testen und, zur Vereinfachung, eine 4 Foil Konfiguration nutzen anstatt die Luv-Foils hochzufahren (aus dem Wasser heraus). Hochfahrbare Foils werde nevtl. Auch noch getestet. Das Anstellwinkel-Verstellsystem ermöglicht es zu testen, ob vom Luv-Foil eine abwärts gerichtete Kraft erzeugt werden kann, die aufrichtendes Moment erzeugt, auch wenn das Boot vermutlich zu schmal hierfür ist.
Zur Verbesserung der Zugänglichkeit zur Klasse können die Foils als One Design ausgeführt werden, alternativ können Eigenentwicklungen zugelassen werden, sofern sie allen Seglern zur Verfügung gestellt werden.
Beweglicher Ballast wird getestet. Ein Wingsail soll als One Design Rigg genutzt werden, anfänglich werden noch normale Segel zugelassen sein, um sicherzustellen, dass das Wingsail gegenüber den besten konventionellen Segeln eine besser Leistung bietet.
Ich bin mit der Geschichte der RC Multihulls vertraut,in überzeugt, dass wir eine einmalige, Foil-baierte RC Multihull Klasse auf Basis der ersten foilenden Americas Cup Boote erarbeiten können. Ich werde meine Plattform daher nutzen, um nachzuweisen, dass ein einfaches System, das jeder nutzen kann, realisierbar ist. Ich erwarte keine großen Ergebnisse, bevor nicht ein Video vorliegt, dass zeigt, dass diese Plattform foilen kann – was bereits bei sehr wenig Wind der Fall sein wird.

International AC 62RC Class

Cord, thank you very much!! I really appreciate your effort!

PS- if anyone knows Andreas(AC 45) would you invite him to join these discussions. I tried to send him a PM but the machine said his box is full. And please invite anyone that is interested to come forward with suggestions and ideas-all are welcome.
Remember, if we can do it, this will be the FIRST Radio Controlled Americas Cup Class catamaran in the history of mankind! We have a golden opportunity here to demonstrate 21st Century technology as applied to RC multihulls and maybe impress new people with the dramatic performance that is possible.

International AC 62RC Class Rules Proposal

International AC 62RC Class Rules Proposal

Here is a rough outline of the tentative rules:

1) LOA-62.3"(5.19' / 1.58m)
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2) Beam-43" (3.58' / 1.09m)--See Rule#6 below....
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3) Sail Area--Total: 2800sq.in(19.44sq.ft. / 1.81sq.m.)
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4) Minimum Weight:
--- Boat-no ballast system-13lb. / 5.91kg
--- Trapeze Power ballast system: (may be used or removed at will)
a. Max Ballast 3.5lb / 1.59kg. (plastic coated lead may be used in any amount up to this maximum)
b. Ballast Moving System: RMG 380 winch or equivalent
c. Ballast Rack-open design-see prototype-max weight-1lb/ .45kg
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5) Radio-8 channel max
a. telemetry legal
b. video-open
c. electronic gizmo as proposed by Magnus legal if strict one design in terms of function.(see rc groups for comments by "blunted")
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6) Transport:
a. boat must fold or slide apart for ease of transport
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7) Materials and Construction:
a. Vacuum bagged carbon legal
b. autoclave illegal
c. this needs to be carefully considered so that materials and construction methods are available to everyone so that "home builders" will remain competitive with professionally built boats.
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8) Foils-should be strict one design. The reason for being strict one design is to ensure that anyone that wants to race one of these boats can do so without engaging in a foil development process. There may be a one year grace period to consider what foil design best suits the interests of the class.
a. Foil control systems shall be strict one design.
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9) Rigs:
a. Following the full size rule, the rig shall be strict one design.
b. A trial period shall be agreed whereupon soft sail rigs are raced against solid wings. Consideration shall be given to allowing both soft sail rigs and wings as long as the areas are identical-that is solid wings shall be strict one design and soft sails shall be strict one design. The idea here is to ensure that if we adopt a solid wing as standard that we have proven that it is actually faster than a soft rig at model size.
c. Mains/ wings must be reefable or consideration given to a maximum of 3 alternative rigs.
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This is just a proposal-everything including length is open for discussion.

International AC 62RC Class

Here is the first version of the D4Z /AC 62 Prototype UptiP main foil shown above the Fire Arrow ama UptiP foil for comparison in shape:

Daggerboard chord-2"(50.8mm)
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Uptip chord-2.5" (63.5mm)
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Daggerboard Span-11" (279mm)
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Uptip span-11" (279mm) including radius

International AC 62RC Class Rules

International AC 62RC Class Rules

Add this as #10: " Hull and beam design are open within the parameters of the Rules above."

Again, these are proposed rules and open for discussion. No rules will become final before the proposed foil system is tested and proven.

International AC 62RC Class

A question has been raised over here about the length of the boat. At 62.3"(5.19'/1.58m), shipping from Nashville, Tenn. to Cocoa Beach would cost $72. But if the boat was shipped in a 59"(4.92' /1.5m) box the cost would be about $30-shipping by UPS.
The question is : do we change the length of the model because of the extra cost. My vote is no-for us to do that would be crazy, in my opinion. But your input on this question and the rest of the rules is important.....

Doug Lord schrieb:

A question has been raised over here about the length of the boat. At 62.3"(5.19'/1.58m), shipping from Nashville, Tenn. to Cocoa Beach would cost $72. But if the boat was shipped in a 59"(4.92' /1.5m) box the cost would be about $30-shipping by UPS.
The question is : do we change the length of the model because of the extra cost. My vote is no-for us to do that would be crazy, in my opinion. But your input on this question and the rest of the rules is important.....

Zum Vergrößern anklicken....

What is the exact reason behind the 1,58m length? I think it should be better to build according to 2m so the boats could be interesting to be sailed in both classesm the new AC62 and the 2m. By that we simply attract more people like the whole French 2m group which is the biggest RCmultihull community worldwide, I think. In addition the bigger the boat the easier it will foil. And 1,6m is not easy to transport anyway, I have such a boat in my workshop. Maybe I should join you with this one....