Boat Tuning

Boat designs influenced by rules? Why Victorian Plank on Edge Cutters show canting keel maxi yachts are stupid and multihulls, smart

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.

First Goat Island Skiff in New Zealand

The first New Zealand Goat Island Skiff has been launched by Ian Howeth. He has taken a year to build it as spare time became available. It was launched during the Xmas break

Will giving my boat hull, surfboard or sailboard a golfball dimple reduce drag & help it go faster

Golfballs go further because of those dimples on the surface. Would it make sense to have those dimples on a boat hull? It is not quite that simple as this little article attempts to explain.

Nice Goat Island Skiff Videos from John Goodman in Texas

Goat Island Skiff movie - waterproof camera and camera boom

More videos of John Goodman’s Yawl Rigged Goat Island Skiff. He is trying out some rigging variations to see if we can simplify the building of the yawl rig version. At the moment this is inconclusive, but wow, he got some good videos

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. 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.

WIKI for setting up and tuning Lug and Sprit Rigs

The conservative viewpoint is that traditional rigs are not very efficient. However allied to efficient hulls and set up correctly, lug and sprit rigs can be very efficient indeed – not too much slower than “modern” rigs, particularly when the same lessons are applied to trad sails and way cheaper. This is a WIKI drawn from the group on the Storerboats forum discussions on setting up lug and sprit rigs for best performance building on the information in my webpage.

Setting up for performance – Balance Lug – Goat Island Skiff

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.

Podcast online – Michael on why Australian Boats are Different – 3 of 3

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.

Podcast Online – Wooden Boat Construction by Michael Storer – 2 of 3

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.

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.

Sailing at Goolwa with AJ, Andrea, Ted, Mike, Mike and Mike Pt1

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 read more →

Table of Contents for Michael Storer Wooden Boats Forum.

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 read more →

PDRacers .. Lug vs Sprit sails

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) read more →

Lug rigs for racing performance

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 read more →

OZ PDRacer – first optional lug rig launched

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 – read more →

Interview on Net of Designer Michael Storer at furledsails.com

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 read more →

Nicely set up balance lug rig photos.

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 read more →

Traditional rigs can GO! Lugs and Sprits

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 read more →

Michael Storer Wooden Boat Plans

Wooden and Plywood Boat Plans for Amateur Boatbuilders – Excellent Performance, Simple Construction, DETAILED Step by Step Instructions Australia, USA, UK, Hungary, S. Africa