Kittiwake K2 and OPUS rig kits available again

Hello. It’s been awhile.

Last year brought major changes for me, both in my work and my interests. ScaleSailing had to take a back seat while my new business partner and I launched our T-shirt design business, “odd guy art.” We have great plans for that business, and it will continue to take much of my working time. Also, some of you may know that family health matters complicated the latter half of the year. Thankfully, that worked out well in the end.

So, I have chosen to get ScaleSailing back in the water, as it were, by seriously streamlining the business. I intend to concentrate solely on the production of the Kittiwake K2 and OPUS rig/sail kits. A few of my custom accessories will be available, too, but I will no longer sell servos. Check out the products page at ScaleSailing.com for the new line up.

The Kittiwake K2 will be supplied as the same craftsman quality (yet easy-to-build) kit as before. With the comprehensive step-by-step building instructions and the extensive CD of building photographs, K2 is regarded as one of the best kits on the market. The kit builds a beautiful, fine-sailing wooden boat. Two years of increasing production costs and smaller production runs mean that I will no longer try to compete with the cheap (mass produced) kits on the market. However, ScaleSailing kits will still be produced with the same care and love that I always applied in the past and I truly hope that you will still find them to be great value for your money.

Graham

ScaleSailing

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The first OPUS Rigs ship out

The first OPUS Rig (TM) kits are shipping out of the footy boat yard today. During next week I will be filling the rest of your pre-production orders and building up inventory so I have rig kits ready to go in quick order.

The weather has been a little milder here of late, above freezing in fact. So with any luck the water will be turning soft earlier this year than the last two years. When that happens, I am looking forward to doing more trials with the OPUS Rig on other hulls, especially the K2 as I have had a number of questions about that already. I am very keen to hear feedback from OPUS Rig users as to what hulls they are using it with and suggestions of mast socket positions. I will add such suggestions to the building and tuning instructions for the rig.

Graham

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OPUS rig kits under way

Six OPUS rig boom assemblies ready to go.

During this week and next I will be completing the initial batch of OPUS rig kits and filling my pre-production orders. These 6 are part of the initial batch of 24 rigs. OPUS rigs will have an attractive yellow sail as standard with white as a special order option. The sails will be plain yellow without the large OPUS logo in case you might be wondering about that. You can add the footy logo using our template available seperately if you wish or just freehand it!

The extruded carbon mast socket tube  (3mm internal) is included in the kit, the rig simply drops into the tube. Switching OPUS rigs is quick and easy requiring just the main sheet to be unclipped (the sail control thread) then you lift out the whole rig as one. All sail tuning will therefore remain intact as you store the complete rig as one piece. Switching rigs doesn’t get any easier. Extra carbon mast socket tubes will be available so you can order a set of 3 to go with a rig if you are experimenting or want extra rig positions to help in tuning your footy.

I will be making the rig available through our main ScaleSailing web site by the end of this week, so watch out for that at http://www.scalesailing.com/product.htm

Any questions? Ask away 🙂

Graham

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OPUS rig kit

Well it’s been a long haul what with the major computer crash and loss of all sorts of important things but it’s a new PC, a new year and a new start 🙂

To kick off 2010 we have the new OPUS rig kit available now as pre-production kits. Meaning that I do not have stock on the shelves yet but any orders I receive will be filled in received order as I complete the initial kits, finish the instruction sets etc. These will be the same as full production kits it’s just that you will not get them quite so quickly.

The OPUS rig available initially has 140 sq.in. of area and is a good sized ‘working rig’ for average conditions from light winds up to a good blow.

The kit consists of a pre-assembled carbon fibre/aluminum boom unit which carries the rig pivot and mast mounting stub. The sail will be pre-cut with holes and requires a series of sailcloth loops to be attached along the leading edge to attach it to the mast. The carbon fibre mast tube requires a little epoxy work to attach the carbon fibre mast crane and binding on the lower end. After that it’s just down to tying a few knots and plugging the whole rig together. A mast tube will be included in the kit too. So you will be required to do some work, reasonably accurately, but nothing too difficult to achieve on the proverbial kitchen table 🙂

There will be full written instructions (working on that now) to our usual step-by-step standard plus a whole new section on the ScaleSailing Photo CD which will cover all assembly plus a ‘how to tune your OPUS rig’ section which we hope you will find very useful.

The OPUS rig will suit many of the footy designs on the market with the addition of the mast pivot tube included in the rig kit. A little experimentation will be required initially to find the correct position, maybe add a set of three mast tubes to allow experimentation. Once a database of converted designs is collated (with your help thank you) then that information will become available too.

I have sailed the OPUS rig throughout 2009 including taking 2nd place at the 2009 Sheboygan Footy Fest which had a good competitive entry again last year, on it’s first serious outing. It is an easy rig to sail and easy to set up for good performance. I hope that you will enjoy it if you decide to give it a try. See http://www.scalesailing.com/product.htm

Graham

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All content of this blog including text, photographs and the model designs are the sole property of Graham McAllister Designs.
Copyright 2010 by Graham McAllister Designs. OPUS is a trade mark of Graham McAllister Designs.

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Dragon Tales 2…

The final prototype of the Dragon is being built and this is being documented to form the photo building sequence for the new kit ‘photo. CD’ in the instruction set.

As mentioned in the previous post about this boat the deck will feature a dinghy style spray rail to deflect water from the mast tube. This gives Dragon quite a distinct appearance and for me more of a feeling of the real thing. The rail is tabbed into the deck for easy location. The large hatch gives quick and easy access to the radio control equipment. Construction of the hatch is based on concentric laser cut ‘rings’ of plywood to ensure a good fit. Subsequent varnishing controls just how tight the hatch fits. On the two test boats for this method no fastennings were required, the hatch simply snaps on and has proven watertight even in heavy winds.

Construction will follow our usual clean and simple approach. The forward cavity contains the two part plywood mast tube foot which locates the carbon mast tube and is sealed at the bottom with epoxy. The servo tray/keel support is in the main radio bay. There is lots of excess bouyancy provided by the foam core construction so like the Kittiwake K2, Dragon will be unsinkable 🙂

Graham

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Kittiwake K2 hits 400+

The Kittiwake design of footy has become something of a standard in the footy world to my immense joy. At the beginning of October K2 number 400  was part of a three kit fleet which went to the Czech Republic and they have become  some of the first (if not the first) footys to be registered in that country.  I hope you enjoy them and the fun racing they will give you and your friends Phillip.

In August three kits went to Osaka, Japan too, I think they were the first K2’s to arrive there too. I should make an up to date list of countries where Kittiwakes create their little wakes, just for fun.

People who are unfamilier with the name have asked me what a Kittiwake is. Well from Wikipedia…

The kittiwakes are two closely related seabird species in the gull family Laridae, the Black-legged Kittiwake (R. tridactyla) and the  Red-legged Kittiwake (R. brevirostris). The  “Black-legged” and “Red-legged” are used to distinguish the two species in North America, but in Europe, where R. brevirostris is not found, the Black-legged Kittiwake is often known simply as Kittiwake. Interesting huh 🙂

So now we are looking forward to racing through the 400’s and celebrating the sale of Kittiwake K2 number 500! In the meantime we are going to do something I will call ‘K2: Ten Specials’, every tenth kit starting with KW2:410  will be a little bit different  in having coloured sails  or a mix of colours instead of the standard kit white sails.  These specials will be listed on the ‘Specials’ page  http://www.scalesailing.com/specials.htm  at our web site. As each ‘K2: Ten Special’ kit is produced I will list it there. If no one pre-orders it at that stage it will simply go out to the next customer in the usual numerical order. These will sell for the normal price. First come first serve of course and only on the numbers I list on the specials page so you can’t ask for KW2:480 until that batch is in stock and listed ok 🙂

Have fun footying…
Graham

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a lovely summer

Well it’s been a lovely summer so far here in sunny Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The lakefront is looking beautiful and the lake itself is sparkling daily. My walks along the river have never been more fun and the Opti’s dancing in the harbour more delightful. The coffee tastes great, the music lively, the arts scene busy and the company is entertaining. So this is where I have been, choosing life!

The Kittiwake business is not being neglected though, sales have been good this summer and enough to keep me busy with those rather than any new additions to the fleet. A batch went to Canada for a youth construction project which I hope is going well. I had the first Kittiwake K2 go to the Czech Republic a few weeks ago and a batch of three will be leaving for Japan this week. Supplies have been challenging though, my usual source for carbon extruded tubing has been very slow fulfilling a current order. This is not impacting the K2 kits but it has stopped me being able to start production of the OPUS rigs just yet. Hopefully this will be resolved soon, no doubt there is a huge shipment on it’s way across an ocean somewhere.

Dragon continues to sail well and will be having one change before the final production version, a larger rudder. I have come to the conclusion that the una rig is a little more reluctant to tack than a sloop rig as on the K2 and a more powerful rudder will bring it back to the snappy tacking I think these footys need.

Other news is that the 3x cell battery boxes with integral receiver switch are selling very well. It’s a nice simple solution, I convert the boxes with a servo lead so that they plug directly in to your receiver without a seperate switch harness. Three of the Lithium Energiser dry batteries give plenty of voltage (they are marked as 1.5v but give more like 1.75v even under load) for operating a footy. I have been using the 3xAAA box in the Dragon prototype and it just seems to keep on going and going!

Other other news, my daughter in England just bought her first house so I’m ‘chuffed to bits’ for her about that. So I’m told I need a plane ticket to go and help with the painting and decorating. Cheap accomodation, I can camp out on the job 🙂 . My MGB engine work has just been completed so I’m looking forward to getting my hands back of that and starting assembly intead of stripping things apart. That looks like an over winter rebuild now but I’m determined to have it ready for the spring. Of course my daily runner Ford, isn’t, running that is. But it’s a Ford right, pity it’s only a 4 cylinder or I could get it ‘clunked’!

Anyway, I hope your summer sailing is proving to be fun too. If you are in the northern parts like me, enjoy it while you can, get out of the basement 🙂

Graham

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racing battery boxes

I have secured a supply of 3 cell battery boxes with integral switches. These boxes are in AA and AAA battery sizes. I am converting them for RC Footy use by the addition of a universal receiver plug.

These battery boxes make for a neat installation and save the space and weight of a seperate receiver switch. However you must use ‘Energiser Lithium’ batteries to provide enough voltage from 3 cells rather than the usual 4. These boxes are available from ScaleSailing at $5.90 for either size (AA or AAA). Using any battery size and type you wish is now legal under the new 2009 Footy Rules.

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introducing Dragon and the OPUS rig

Over the winter I have been developing a different style of una rig and a new footy to test it on. Early talk about flexible rigs and their benefits for use on footys centred around the flexible mast but apparent complexities in their design meant there was little development in that direction. Later the  ‘McRig’ came on the scene and it’s simplicity was infectious and it has become rightly popular. Rather than the mast bending it used a torsion bar for the mast pivot allowing the whole rig to flex from it’s base. I wanted to go back to those earlier discussions and see if I could make a bendy mast rig work.

In developing OPUS I was inspired by the una rig on the Laser dinghy. The curved mast on the Laser is shaped by the sail pocket. I decided to create the mast curve with a backstay instead which allows the mast to be shaped independant of the sail thus allowing some sail camber control. A pure Laser rig would have the mast set too far forward for a short hull like the footy so I have adopted an offset pivot on the main boom so the rig now became a una swing rig. I have been careful to allow no flex at the base and boom mounting so all of the flex and gust reaction is handled by the flexible carbon mast and sail itself.

The OPUS rig was tested briefly in the light Fall airs here before the winter freeze set in. Over the winter the idea was developed further and hand held tests in varying winds were photographed and studied to see how the rig was behaving. Clearly the rig worked nicely as a swing una rig which would make it a nice rig to use were it simply a stiff unit. What I was looking for was how would it behave in gusts as this is becoming a key element in racing footy design.

steady breeze                        stronger                              gust reaction

Well the results looked good, in a gust when the rig is close hauled or in a reaching position the mast bends away to leeward as might be expected but it also curves back more under the action of the sail and induces more twist in the sail. We know that bending away and dumping some wind in a gust is good but increasing twist is possibly even better. The movement adds upper drive due to the twist while dumping air and also keeps the lower area of the sail as set and driving the boat forward.

‘Laser’ style swing rig in action on the Dragon prototype.

The ScaleSailing Dragon/OPUS combo saw water again on the Friday of the NCR in Orlando, FL. I took the opportunity to sail the boat and with a good but variable wind blowing was able to see how the newest version of the rig behaved on water compared to land in a variety of wind strengths. It looked good on the water, I particularly like the elegant shape of the curved mast which was different from everything else on the water that day. The sail approximates to an elliptical shape which is typically considered to be an efficient planform. Tacking was quick and easy with the sail filling quickly and the boat accelerating away well. I think this initial sail size I have chosen handled the stronger wind well and should make a good ‘working’ rig to cover a range of conditions. Being used to sailing two sailed sloop rigs I did love how easy it was to turn on to the run downwind and not have to hope the jib popped out opposite to the main. Yet there was no odd behaviour as is sometimes reported for the classic two sail swing rig set up. I am prepared at this stage to say that this OPUS rig works and works well. Clearly there will be things to learn in tuning it, controls available are mast shape via the backstay, sail foot shape and initial twist shape via sliding rings on the boom.  

As an aside, construction of the prototypes proved difficult to get the required accuracy so I had a friend make a special tool which now allows me to make the boom/pivot/mast stub assembly quickly and with the required accuracy. When the ScaleSailing OPUS rig comes into production the boom assembly will be supplied ready made along with a prefabricated mast/masthead and sail ready to simply plug together and play.

All content of this blog including text, photographs and the model designs are the sole property of Graham McAllister Designs.
Copyright 2009 by Graham McAllister Designs.

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Orlando regatta, quick update

We are still away on our travels and I found an unwatched computer 🙂 so am taking my chance for a quick update. The Orlando NCR regatta weekend was great fun and very well run by everyone involved. I’ll have some photos and thanks to add once I get home. Racing wise I had an average Saturday and a decent Sunday which pulled me and Pond Sprite up into 5th place overall, out of 23 starters. So I am pretty happy with that. Pond Sprite went well, especially in the lighter wind races when she came through the pack for good finishes from bad starts… in other words the boat is better than I am.

Friday gave me a chance to get some more testing time too on a new design called Dragon. Dragon is a ‘long’ fairly narrow design in the current style and is also my test bed for a new style of una swing rig I have been working on which I call the OPUS rig. In the fresh breeze I was very pleased with the rig’s performance and ability to react to gusts etc. OPUS and Dragon drew some nice comments, more about this new rig and boat along with photos next week when I am back on the boatyard computer.

Until later,
Graham

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