Sunday, February 17, 2013

The Shelduck Boat

Shelduck is undergoing her early sailing trials following her successful maiden voyages at the Beale park boat show in England. She started life as a tender, but has turned out to be far too pretty to be used solely for that purpose. However, for people who don't want to tow a tender behind their yacht, she is light enough (48 lbs) (a whole lot more than other boats) and beautiful enough to be hauled and stored on deck.

And when you reach your anchorage, you can drop her overboard, raise her little lug rig and explore those places inaccessible by yacht.

She has buoyancy fore and aft, under the cambered seats, and two rowing positions, depending on crew. The boat is intended to have a movable seat/waterproof box for the rowing alone position, and a chunky gunwale and full length keel should stiffen and protect her and make her easy to beach. 

At present she has a dipping lg rig which looks the part. The whole family have learnt to dip her with varying degrees of skill and you've gotta love the quirkiness of its rig. However, it might not be everyone's liking, especially if you are trying to teach youngsters to sail. For this reason the boat comes with an easier alternative, but it has to be in an awkward location, near the forward buoyancy tank.

The major design change however was fitting a small centre-board. This sits under the central rowing/sailing seat and was reluctantly added after extensive trials with everything but. It adds another 10lbs or so, taking her weight up to around 58lbs but the benefits in not sliding sideways when sailing more than compensate for this. The reason it's a hinging centre board rather than a simpler dagger board were because there are specifications for minimum downflooding height and a centre-board enables the boat to cover the top of the case at the lower, aft end and so fulfill the RCD with ease. Also the Centreboard is directly below the sailor, so a daggerboard could not be raised at all while sitting on the only sailing seat!

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