More on Chainsaw

Some history:

Chainsaw has had a few lives.

The first version was a ply hull with balsa/carbon laminate chines which I sailes at the 03 Milang nationals with alloy wings and again at the penultimate 04 Cootharabah nationals with carbon wings. At that regatta the laminate chines split from the transom and the hull was roughly patched up to compete on the last day.

After the regatta it was used as an experimental base for some early hydrdofoil experiments, including a bow rudder, trailing edge wands, flap less main foils, dihedral and a few others I forget to save embarrasment.

That first hull was written off at the end of that season cut up and dumped, and in the winter of 04 I built the second Chainsaw hull which became the basis of the 04 version of my moth.asn.au biuld a ply moth series articles. This is the best hull shape of the series, most like a modern Hungry Tiger/Prowler/Bladerider shape.

But based on the earlier foil experiments I put the mast and wings much further forward in an effort to separate the foils without going to a gantry. It also had low freeboard, flatter wings and an elevated trampoline in an effort to reduce wndage. Foil development however progressed very little, with carved timber foils and poor upwind performance coupled with poor downwind height control. Not huge sucess as a foiler. This is the boat I sailed baddly and slow at the 05 Black Rock worlds.

The season ended with me sailing the boat with conventional centreboard and rudder, winning a heat of the NSW chaps in light winds and giving some confidence in the hull shape.

The boat was stripped down and left without decks for a year to dry out, while I sailed my new (Hungry) Tiger on a Chain which reused the carbon wings, plus Thorpe mast and boom.

Chainsaw was resurrected in the winter of 06 while I was concurrently building my new Development IC. Both have unstayed masts and so mast and sail development exchanged ideas between the boats.

The 06 Chainsaw involved stripping out the hull, relocating the fincase and installing the new tube mast step a bit further aft. It has struts to elevate the alloy wings which are further aft and cantelevered out of some glass tubes bonded to the struts. The lot is a relatively cheap experiment in configuration and structure, but is remarkably stiff and strong, and surprisingly light. Mytermis minimised. I simply eliminatd as many moth components as I could.

06 Chainsaw benefits from the foil mold I built after the 05 Worlds with generous advice from John Ilett. Both TOC and Chainsaw have home made copies of John's early model foils and this has at least assured reliable if not competitive foiling. At least we stopped breaking things and losing them in the bay.

So Chainsaw now is a viable foiling moth which is availabel at a reasonable price because not very much of it actually cost me very much, mostly being left over bits from other boats.

It has encouraged me sufficiently to build furter on the theme and I will be building a new improved, lighter, simpler, faster and even more minimalised version when I have the shed space available.