John Goodman who recently spent 5 days semi racing a Goat Island Skiff in the Texas200 event got back to me with some observations and even some pictures of aspects of the boat and the sailing.

I have responded with suggestions to make some further improvements. Between John and me there are some useful tips about setting up a boat for more speed.

However the standard setup of the Goat is fine for most – it is still pretty quick in standard form.

There is advice for both lug and sprit traditional rigs here.

This podcast/mp3 talks about why Australian (and New Zealand) wooden boatbuilding is different from the rest of the world..

Click to listen to the talk. This is the third of three.

This is the second of my talks in the USA. It focuses a bit more on construction and some of the methods that can be used to keep a boat light and simple, but very strong and stiff.

It also discusses how there is a “creep” in boatbuilding and design that increases the weight of boats way over what is really needed for a strong structure.

This talk is the first hour of my exposition on boat building and design. There are two more parts to come. This covers some of the background and design issues. The second is more on the building side and the last is a bit more about why the Australian (and New Zealand) wooden boat tradition is different from the Northern Hemisphere.

You can stream the talks over your internet connection or download them as a podcast.

From Clinton Chase’s blog clintchaseboatbuilder.blogspot.com

On November 1st I was pleased and honored to introduce Michael Storer, an Australian Boat Designer reputed for his simple, elegant, and approachable boats, to a group of 21 members from the wooden boat community in Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Some knew of Storer’s work, others have built his boats, and many knew him as an important name and wanted to learn more about the man and his message.

But here is the set calledGoolwa, sailing with AJ, Andrea, Ted, Mike, Mike and Mike First a mood Photo from the Murray Mouth where Ted’s shack is. OK Saturday about 10am Rigging The three Ducks … one with the lug rig … in light winds it was the fastest by a long way. It has [...]

It is a bit hard finding information on my forum as the list is not very ordered, so I have attempted to fix this.There is a general building section then each boat is in alphabetical order.To see all the images you may need to become a member, however, they are a good bunch and will [...]

Ok … lug vs sprit We finally had two PDRacers with either rig option on the same stretch of water. The event was the Goolwa Wooden Boat Festival. The Sprit sail design and making method is in the plan for the PDRacer (a whole $20 for 90 pages – really a course on modern boatbuilding) [...]

There has been a fantastic discussion about some of the racing possibilities of balance lug rigs on my forum I have learned a huge amount from sailing my BETH sailing canoe and the Goat Island Skiffs over the years, but recently ran into Brian who uses a lug rig for racing traditional British boats. So [...]

Just got an email from Dan Taylor in Washington State, USA. He is the first to provide pics of the OZ PDR with the lug rig option. The sail looks very nice indeed and the light wind and a perfect sunny day were the other necessary ingredients. Here are his email and the pictures – [...]

Furled Sails – They call themselves the “World’s First Sailing Podcast” based in North America. Anyway, last week Christy and Noel called me up chatted to me for a couple of hours. So they have an interview with me on their site followed by a part 2 next week. This looks like the permanent linkhttp://www.furledsails.com/article.php3?article=760 [...]

Any reasonable sailor can look at the pics to the right and see that this rig is doing all the right things. The twist is controlled, the sheeting angles are relatively narrow and the boat is moving along nicely in a light wind and a leftover chop. This is what I mean when I say [...]

Here is a video of a Lateen Rig on a large yacht going like a rocket. It was filmed in Dubai, so I suspect that it probably doesn’t qualify as a low cost rig – but it is still traditional including in aspect ratio. It blasts along very seriously for some time until a large [...]