"Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

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LASERTOURIST
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"Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by LASERTOURIST »

Hello and happy new year

Did CVRDA ever tried to put up a "ugliest dinghy ever" contest?

Here is a likely contender (no pun intended)

The rationale was probably making a mould out of curved thin plywood , origami style, but it is truely freakish (has been launched in the early 90's and was called SWAIL)

http://www.leboncoin.fr/nautisme/757059928.htm?ca=12_s
JimC
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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by JimC »

Is there much point in anyone else entering?

So impressed with that I crossposted to SA and YY.

For another surprise google Swail and see the alternate rig fr the beast...
LASERTOURIST
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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by LASERTOURIST »

The designer 's name is pierre Souaille, that's the reason for the silly name...

The alternative silly solo rig (right on the bow) is also quite weird...somebody tried to re-invent the wheel...

http://www.bateauxonline.fr/essais/deri ... e-sur-leau
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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by JimC »

I think it could be argued, though, that it makes more sense with that alternate rig than with the one in the advert. The reverse rake aligns the mast at the required angle, and the high sheerline gives an unstayed mast better support. There's a completeness about the package that's absent from the version with a more conventional rig. No-one should be criticised for attempting to march to a different drummer, and I haven't sailed one to really be able to comment on the results. Maybe goes better than it looks, although you'll excuse me if I refrain from actually putting any money on that.
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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by Rupert »

Does look much better with the mast forward rig. Mind, much better in this case doesn't really help all that much.
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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by Michael Brigg »

I rather like it for its eccentricity. There is something rather Grecian trireme about it.

I would call it Menelaus (If Nessa would allow it!) Its no wonder Helen left him.

Or perhaps a kind of gothic style about it from the film version of Limony Snickett's "Series of unfortunate events."

Worth buying one just to see other peoples faces. :shock: :?
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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by Nessa »

It looks like a child's drawing of a boat!
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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by trebor »

buy a nice boat for 600 euros though :D
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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by Michael Brigg »

It seems the styling of the stem is found on old and new...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumblehome

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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by LASERTOURIST »

I think the catboat :mast forward rig was the first marketed (vague recollections of reviews in nautical press)....Question is was the 2nd , version (classic sloop rig) made to correct some behavioral defect or just to give the crew something to play with (jib and possibly asy spinaker) ?

Some boats where even made with hiking racks (Topper Blaze style) but i couldn't find videos of the boat actually sailing.

Cetrainly, the mast in the catboat unstayed vesion is better supported than on a conventional Europe , Laser Finn (thanks to the high bow) but the mast weight is right on the bow (mitigated by the trireme ram bow that might damp the pitching....
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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by JimC »

LASERTOURIST wrote: or just to give the crew something to play with (jib and possibly asy spinaker) ?
Doesn't the ad mention a trapeze? Wouldn't want to hang that off the original rig...
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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by LASERTOURIST »

Paul Elvström once was in charge of designing an AC 12 metres boat, in a period when the then new huge "Maierform" bulbous bows worked wonders on big tankers and ore carriers ...

Tank tests on models seemed promising and America Cup was so tightly boxed in the rules and under Sparkman/Stephens control that a radical approach seemed a possibility (as Australia2 with a winged keel later demonstrated)

Even if he did not go as far as building a bulbous twelve he did build a bulbous 6 M JI as a test boat and it was a complete failure (abysmal ranking in the 6MJI worlds)....Undeterred his design office produced a bulbous Fifty/fifty motor sailor ...which showed marginal fuel economy when powering on an even keel in flat water....and behaved poorly when under sail and heeling in a choppy sea...

Not the best thing the Great Dane ever produced....

The Ram bow on battleships was a different story (During a 19 th century Austro Italian war following the risorgimento and the creation of modern Italy a plucky austro-hungarian admiral with outgunned ships sank the pride and joy of the Italian navy by ramming it at the battle of Lissa)...suddenly ramming became the big craze in naval design and all battleships grew a ram , causing some accidents like the unbelievable ramming of the HMS Victoria by HMS Camperdown .

That "friendly ramming" incident off Lebanese coast in 1893 took the lives of many hundreds of british sailors and was one of the most famous sequences in the celebrated ealing comedy Kind hearts and coronetsThe HMS Victoria then rammed the bottom of the sea, some 150 Metres below, burying itself deep in the mud, making HMS Victoria one of the two vertical wrecks in the world.

Maybe the Swail bow design is about that....enforcing the right-of-way in a tightly fought race.
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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by LASERTOURIST »

and yes , there is definitely a trapeze on the boat in the ad....The infamous wishbone rigged Wizz claimed it could do without a trapeze wire being so wide...but it was comletely flawed design...JM Finot was a great designer of Vendée Globe planig keelboats , but a small dinghy is working in a quite different way...
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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by jpa_wfsc »

Is this some attempt to subvert the rule ...any part of a yacht or its equipment crosses OVER the line....?
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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by chris »

I have an alternative for the ugliest boat. There are many and it is the one in front! ( though some transoms are quite nice)
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