“Lead” in sailboat design. Joe self designs a rig.

Joe sent me a question about why his self designed sailing rig for my Electric Quick Canoe design works better if he moves the leeboard forward of the theoretical point for a balanced helm.

He has stumbled upon a nice observation of a design element called “lead” (I lead you … not the metal Lead).

I explain

Boat designs influenced by rules? History shows us canting keel maxis are stupid

This is an article about how bias in thinking produces weird results in terms of boat designs.

I compare a silly boat design trend of 100 years ago with modern canting keel maxi yachts.

Personally I don’t think they should be allowed to use engines to run the keels and the various systems – if they do then they should be disqualified from the event results. The conventional human powered boats should be listed as the winners of events.

The Canon – Tools for thinking about sailing and boat design – Books and Articles

One of the most important things as a designer or sailor is to keep an open mind, but also to be able to analyze things in light of real experience and prior knowledge. These are online and paper resources that force thinking in different ways.

This article, after a bit of a spiel, goes on to give some great resources that “opened my eyes” at different times in my life.

They focus on areas of structural design, sailing, sail aerodynamics and touch on a bit more.

“All boat design is a compromise” – Rubbish

Reprint of an article I wrote a few years ago for Watercraft magazine in the UK.

The article points out why I think most of the discussion about boat design being a “compromise” is rubbish and taking that point of view means that the design is sure to be compromised.

What happens if we don’t accept the compromise?

Podcast Online – Wooden Boat Design by Michael Storer – 1 of 3

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.

Riverboat restoration and new interior - storerboatplans.com

Design process from simple to complicated – Plywood Murray Riverboat

The problem with design is that it is relatively cheap. Sometimes fixed price. But it is not realised what successive design iterations are doing to the boat.

In the end Chris was unable to complete the boat. Partially because the hull turned out to be in much worse condition than expected. But also despite some nice positives coming in terms of usable space below, other things just seemed to get more and more complex.

Rules of thumb for boat and yacht design – are they legitimate?

There are lots of tips for building and designing boats on the net.

“Rules of thumb” are often quoted to help with the calculation of how much sail or how much keel or centreboard area or how big a mast is allowed to be and many other areas. Can a boat be stretched or shrunk or lengthened?

But how correct are they? Are they the best guide?