 "Beth
is simply the most
elegant small
squareboat we know.
She was given the "kamikaze" label by those who watched her
soar out over Lake Alexandrina in a big wind, with a white rooster
tail matching the white knuckles of the white-faced Michael Storer on
his first major proving run.
What that run proved
was that all the
cynics were wrong! Beth and Mike appeared at the other side of the
Lake unscathed and untroubled, and early. Here's the Storer
description of her....." Tim Fatchen
Click
on the
Square Boats Logo at the left to go to Tim's "Square Boats" Website.
Origins
and Inspirations:
I
drew Beth
with a real
intention to build her for myself - my first "real design" after years
of drawing boats on every spare piece of paper that came my
way.
There were lots of different ideas that
I wanted to try out in a light, cartoppable sailboat:
*
the boat to be crewed mostly
by one, but with enough carrying capacity for camping gear or a light
person for company on daytrips
*
performance
equivalent to a
modern sailing dinghy
*
narrow
beam. It's not
necessarily weight that makes a boat hard to handle on land on one's
own, but bulk. Also, I was curious just how far the beam could be cut
down without resulting in constant capsizing.
Around the time I was
framing
these ideas, I discovered some pictures of American racing sailing
canoes from around 1870. Long, narrow and light - these were the
fastest machines of their era. With their lug yawl sailplans and
handsome sheerlines, they had the look I was after.
Many
epic voyages were made
across the breadth and down the length of North America in these and
similar craft. Captain Frederic Fenger sailed his Yakaboo through the
West Indies from Granada, up through the Windward and Leeward Islands
to Saba. Many of the passages between islands were 40-50 miles.
Although
I was unlikely to go
to these extremes, I still wanted the boat to be capable of camp
cruising, rather than just being good for racing.
Detail
Design:
When
it came
to the detail
design, there were more ideas I wanted to try out.
*
I
wanted to see just how
small it was possible to make a rudder and still have control!
American E scows tended to tiny rudders, and Fenger's Yakaboo had no
rudder at all. In the event, I went a little too small. Current plans
have a slightly enlarged rudder with a revised foil shape from the
original.
*
I had been
very impressed
with American designer Phil Bolger's "Box Boats", with
their flat bottoms and hull sides set at 90 degrees. A hull shape of
this sort would certainly cut down my labour - but would the boat
sail well and look good? There was one way to find out!
*
Old
fashioned sails with
modern technology - I'd been brought up on modern high performance
dinghies. Old fashioned rigs - gaff lug and sprit - are pleasant to
the eye, but in my experience they sailed like dogs. Yawl rig also
had a doggy reputation; "one mast is fast" had been drummed
into me. But what if a traditional rig was set up using modern sail
controls and fitted to a hull with high speed potential?
So
Beth was
designed as a lug
yawl sailing canoe, with simplified hull shape, a narrow (32")
beam, and length designed to match available plywood sizes.
In
working out the sail area,
all the antique racing canoe information I was able to find suggested
sail areas of around 67 sq ft. I thought that my box hull would have
better stability than the older round bilge types, that sails of
Dacron would stretch a lot less in strong winds than cotton, and
finally that sailing techniques had improved in the last 120 years
(!) So I took a blind stab and went for 85 sq ft. I did draw the
sails with a couple of sets of reef points...
Building:
The
building
process started
off with a bang. I spent a long night making up the side and bottom
panels and bulkheads. Two days later, David Wilson and I assembled
the hull shell in around half an hour! Advantages of the simplified
hullshape. David was as startled as I at how fast it had all
happened, but dampened my enthusiasm a bit when he christened it "The
Hatbox".
Building
then slowed to a more
normal pace as conventional decks were fitted, and slowed as six
timber spars were tapered and rounded.
In
the end, it would have
taken about 70% of the time needed for building most performance
dinghies. Cost in 1989 was around $A1600, including sails; about
$A2500 now (about $US1600).
Another
BETH page: Building
and Launching of one of the first Beth Mk 2 - The very beautiful
"Kanangra"
Sailing:
Launching
day
came round and
we put her in at the municipal pond at Mount Barker, in the middle of
a Small Boats day. The wind was very light, so there was little
chance to get a feel for her capabilities, although her high initial
stability was easily demonstrated!
Over
the next several years, I
sailed Beth extensively in New South Wales, South Australia and
Victoria. She has accompanied me on most of my holidays, used mostly
for daysailing with occasional fun racing thrown in. Beth is the
first thing unloaded at holiday destination and last packed when
leaving. She always draws a lot of interest from other sailors
particularly when they realise her speed is well beyond that of other
"antique" boats.
But
the biggest advantage to
me is that I can easily handle her by myself on shore - I do not have
to be continually asking other people for a hand to move her about.
Performance:
Beth
is fast,
performing at a
similar level to a club-racing Laser dinghy. She is a little slower
upwind but requires a much smaller physical effort. As the waves and
wind get up, she does comparatively better as the waves tend to slow
her a lot less than the blunt shape of the Laser. Downwind, there are
no excuses as she will pass almost anything picking up and surfing
down the smallest waves.
The
rig is
particularly
forgiving when gybing in strong breezes. In 25 knots I would expect
to ditch a Laser about one in four gybes. With Beth I would expect a
capsize about one in 20 gybes. Part of the forgiveness seems to be
the flexibility of the rig (the "boing" factor), and some
is due to the fact that the balance lug mainsail is not all on the
same side of the mast.
The
mizzen is interesting to
handle. It can be trimmed to provide a light helm upwind. If
oversheeted in a breeze, it stalls the rudder which kicks up an
impressive roostertail. But despite the reduced rudder grip, the boat
does nothing dramatic, with the rudder biting in again as soon as the
mizzen is eased a bit.
Beth
turns
out an unusual mix
of the old and new - the performance of modern boats but the manners
of old boats! Just look at all the things that conventional wisdom
would say are inefficient: lug sails with the mast interfering with
airflow on one side, flat bottom, no hull flare, sails laced to
spars, wooden spars, small rudder, narrow beam, tiller lines, yawl
rig, pointed stern. Yet her performance is up there with a modern
sailing dinghy.
Serpents in Paradise
Department:
Beth
has a
couple of minor
limitations. In light airs (glassy water with no ripples at all) she
refuses to sail much on port tack, as the minimal airflow over the
lee side of the sail is upset by the mast. It's faster to paddle when
there's no wind - remember, she is a canoe. In more wind, she sails
almost identically on either tack.
In
a sloppy
and confused chop,
such as the traffic-churned Sydney Harbour, there is a tendency to
wallow a bit. She deals with aplomb with a very large chop, as for
example Lake Alexandrina in South Australia, provided the chop is all
coming from the same direction.
Her
performance in a beam
reach could be a bit better - I cannot get my weight far enough
outboard to get her really up and going. She's still fast but there
is a definite feeling that she could go a lot faster still if I was
about four feet taller... (See
blue text at bottom of page).
Finally
I
would only really
recommend Beth to people with a reasonable background in competitive
dinghy sailing - if you can handle a Laser in a blow without getting
into a mess you qualify! AND... the good side - you don't need to be
as fit as a Laser sailor. Beth is a fast, light, responsive boat -
you need the skills to handle her. If you don't quite have that level
of skill but live in an area with predominantly light winds, then she
would be great light weather, sunny day boat.
Another BETH page: Building
and Launching of one of
the first Beth Mk 2 - The very beautiful "Kanangra"
Plans:
A
couple of aspects have been
modified in current plans in light of extensive experience with the
prototype. In my original drafting, there were sudden curves in side
panels where the bow merged into the mid-section and where the
mid-section turned into the stern. Sometimes these curves resulted in
embarrassing loud sucking sounds which, apart from personal
suggestions, implied a lot of drag. The curves have now been smoothed
out!
Based
on
prototype
performance, the rudder has been enlarged slightly and the foil
section improved, the diameter of the mainmast increased slightly,
and the centreboard lengthened for better upwind performance.
Plans
are
highly detailed, and
fully dimensioned. That means no poring over them with your scale
rule and getting scale conversions wrong: the measurements you need
to know are written in clear type and in the area that you are
looking at.
__________________________________________________________
Leaning
Planks and Trapezes:
Several
people have written or emailed me about how a leaning board or
trapeze would solve this "problem" (see blue text above)
Of course the early
sailing canoes developed leaning planks not long after the era of
Beth's predecessors - around 1882 - primarily through the work of
Paul Butler. But look at what happens when you do...
First the mast, or rather both masts have to be
thicker to deal with
the
higher loads. The increase of above deck weight will make Beth
considerably less stable.
But probably the biggest difference would be in the
sail controls. At
the
moment Beth has a simple 3:1 mainsheet, a 3:1 downhaul for the
mainboom and that is about it. Higher righting moments will double
mainsheet loads, when the now 5:1 mainsheet is eased the sail will
twist considerably - hmmm - need a boom vang as the vanging effect of
the balance lug is now not enough.
So get rid of the balance lug and fit a boom vang - there is no point
in
just mucking around with vangs - no point in anything less than 8:1 -
there is some expense in this relative to current trucker's hitch knot
that gives the purchase of the current downhaul. The original
downhaul has both vanging and downhaul effects - now the functions
are seperate.
Now with her much higher speed upwind and when
reaching the flat
hull
bottom will pound very badly - hitting waves at much higher
velocities. To gain control when the larger sails want to take charge
the rudder area should be increased.
With the higher righting moment it also makes sense to increase the
height
of the sail area - which means the centreboard should be deepened and
reinforced to deal with the higher side loads - all things that modern
dinghies and raceboats
take for granted.
The result is now that Beth is faster, but the cost is
excessive, not
only in money terms. Now she is much slower to rig, takes serious
amounts of concentration to keep on her feet, the rigging -
particularly the mechanical advantage - have made her much more
expensive to rig (originally 8 blocks mostly small - none ball bearing,
one horn cleat, one small cam cleat
and one clam cleat) - with the greater mechanical advantage it makes
much more sense to move to better quality (and more expensive) ball
bearing blocks.
Modern boats are set up in this way and keep moving
in more and more
expensive directions - and what is the end result?
... the boats all still go much the same speed as each other
because everyone has to get
the same gear to stay "in the hunt" - so the racing is little
different. The real difference is that in Australia, at least, all
the little sailing clubs that used to be in most corners of our
waterways have simply died out through lack of members.
There are other factors that have caused this dramatic change, but the
expense of the boats and their increasing complexity has been a
significant part of it.
An example of good modern technology are the rudder and
centreboard
profiles - I supply full size templates to allow accurate shaping -
improves the performance markedly. The boat accelerates
better out of tacks and goes upwind very nicely indeed.
Control is positive in strong wind and rough water. GOOD
TECHNOLOGY!
Another place is the spectra or vectran halyard for the
mainsail -
means you hoist the sail on the beach and it stays hoisted for the
whole day if necessary - there is no need to adjust for
stretch. The reduction of stretch also helps minimise the
sail twist as the sheet is eased for both performance and handling
benefits. A few years ago such ropes were expensive (despite
that, I forked out for a Kevlar halyard for Beth #1 which proved
reliable and cost effective) - now there is only a small differential
in price so modern ropes are even a better investment. |
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