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PostPosted: Mon Mar 02, 2015 4:05 pm 
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I often wonder about some of those videos also, in sarasota bay if we get 15mph winds we also get 2-3 ft chop that's like your in a mixing bowl (totally random and frequent white caps). I think a couple yrs ago some of the watertribers had to be rescued from the bay during the ec challenge. It isn't any better just offshore in the gulf, when its windy we get huge frequent breakers that you dont want to get trapped in (because its so shallow off shore I assume). Actually if you look at the video at around 1 minute into the video you can see the 2-3 ft breakers just outside the pass which a pain to get thru (the breakers are there pretty much all the time). Its especially difficult getting in when the breakers are over 4-6 ft when we have onshore winds.
Bob


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 02, 2015 7:37 pm 
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RandomJoe wrote:
I'm constantly scouring Youtube for longer AI/TI videos that just cruise along for a while. I'm weird that way... :mrgreen:


You're not that weird! I almost check daily for new AI/TI videos.

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PostPosted: Sun May 31, 2015 10:12 pm 
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Ok Guys (TI-Tom / RandomJoe)
You guys check daily for TI videos but I'm pretty sure you weren't counting on how boring these videos are (and long).

Last weekend I did a 30 miler on Saturday and a 15 miler on Sunday.

This weekend I did my normal 15 miles pedaling (my exercise program), I decided to go and try and find one of our friends houses who lives way up on Long boat Key, I had no idea what I was getting into, as there are a gazillian canals on Long Boat, also the largest deep water marina on the West Coast (with around 300 slips, and many boats in the 150 ft range ( who knew lol), their house is right next to the marina, I had no clue it was even there before Saturday lol.
The winds were very light (around 5 mph) and the water was pretty flat. I had to go about 7-8 miles to get to their area, and in 5 mph winds, this could have taken a few hours, so I fired up my motors and traveled in style (remember 5 mph wind lol)
Needless to say it didn't take long to get there, but I did use a little more gas than normal with the engines throttled up a bit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-npwA3izDiw


Once I got up in the canals everything is idle speed no wake, so it took a long time to pedal thru, but it was very interesting (to me anyway)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jFCfBMZKKU


After I got out of there and got back into the bay, I tried sailing the old fashion way for a while (no motors, in 5 mph wind), actually the motors were still in the water but idling only. Really boring for me....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGL9eLWS0iQ


I did that for about two minutes, then ran my motors up to a little over 1/4 throttle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGVV6yUBNl4


To get my miles in I went way down south to South Lido beach and landed on the beach and hung out a while before going home. All in all I traveled around 16 miles, and used a little less that 1/2 gallon of gas for the day (measured). The high throttle settings near the beginning of the trip killed my fuel economy for the day (oops).
This was pretty close to my average speed the rest of the day (around 8 mph is my normal cruise speed). ALso got to tryout my new Dashware Iphone app (records your speed and posts it in you videos (pretty cool).

To be perfectly honest I really had a blast, and it was a lot of fun for me. One thing about South Florida, if you don't have a 10 mph breeze on your face while out on the water, you simply roast out there all thru the summer, and the typical wind most every weekends is 4-6 mph.

PS I have not done anything to my boat in a long time, I'm just using it as is for a while, and having fun.

Bob


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PostPosted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 7:25 am 
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Nice videos Bob! The guys at work call it boat porn when I start cruising youtube for videos. :D
Looks like you had a pretty good day on the water.

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 8:04 am 
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Yea I always seem to have a lot of distance to cover (So FL and the Keys are huge). With no wind or low winds I max out around 10 mph, but when I get a little favorable wind (the actual wind direction doesn't really matter believe it or not), I can easily cruise at 12-15 mph unless it gets really rough. But at those speeds I burn a lot of fuel, I have to limit my max speed to around 16 mph with the motors down in the water for fear of exploding them by over revving (I've lost a couple now). Hey it all works and gets us out to the good dive sites, and Island hopping. I try to only use the boat in very mild predictable conditions ( the conditions that with a normal stock TI you only get anywhere at 3-4 mph (which sucks if you have 20 miles to cover)).
Bob


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PostPosted: Tue Jun 02, 2015 6:06 am 
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those canals just look like a great place for an AI or TI.. I need to get to that area when I dont need to rush back to a job.. Its on the list..


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PostPosted: Tue Jun 02, 2015 12:31 pm 
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Bob what do you mean by over revving ? Are the motors not able to be run at full throttle without damage or is it additional RPM's due to your dual motor setup plus sail power ?
I'm thinking of doing a single motor setup for some outings and just wondering what to watch out for.
Thanks
Chris


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PostPosted: Tue Jun 02, 2015 6:01 pm 
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Chris:
Because of the dual motor setup plus the wing sail power, the boat can now travel faster it normally could without the sails up. I doubt you will have issues with that unless you put massive sails on your TI, and run in high winds with the motor down in the water running at wide open throttle. What I call hot dogging.

The motors depend on the resistance of the water, when trying to push the boat, if the boat is traveling too fast and is pulling the motor, there is no resistance (like running the motor in open air, and the motor can explode from over-revving).

Bob


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 03, 2015 2:17 am 
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Thanks, that makes sense.
- C


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 03, 2015 5:56 am 
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Quote:
I doubt you will have issues


What I think also. I have been using the 2.5 hp Suzuki on a TI with the stock prop and think its sized just about right for that setup. I normally dont run the outboard and the sail at the same time (Im trying to get somewhere so that I can shut the outboard off and pedal sail) and also run the outboard at about 1/2 throttle to get about 5.8 knots. Seems to be a very comfortable rpm for the outboard at that speed. Even at full throttle (where the speed gets up just under 7 knots) it still seems to be a comfortable rpm. 1/2 throttle and 5.8 knots is a very good speed for an 18 foot sailboat.


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PostPosted: Thu Jun 04, 2015 10:58 pm 
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Anymore I tend to try and only go out in very light conditions. Thru most of the summer season (March-Nov) the typical winds when we go out are more often than not between 3 and 7 mph. Unfortunately whenever the wind kicks up so does the chop. With our TI which is very close to the water, it becomes very uncomfortable operating the boat in choppy conditions (just not worth going out). I have a pretty bad back, and operating my boat in choppy conditions is just too painful for me.

My only day available is typically Saturday, and my wife typically has to work saturdays, so most weekends I end up going out by myself up here in Sarasota. My wife used to enjoy going out kayaking and sailing, but anymore she seldom has time, and only likes to go out on our boat when we have the boat down in Key West (diving), which is becoming less and less often unfortunately, we used to try to get down there monthly, anymore in the last yr or so we are lucky to get down there 3 times a year.
My TI has become my primary hobby, I enjoy working on the boat trying to improve things, and always trying to come up with ways to improve performance and functionality of my boat, then going out and testing and trying to improve upon all my stuff. It's something for me to do.

I made a commitment when I bought the first TI back in spring 2010 to use the boat as my primary exercise program ( I was recovering from a heart attack), and promised to pedal the boat 15 miles weekly, not really having any clue at the time how much effort and time it actually takes to go 15 miles in a peddle boat.
However I have held to that promise I made 5 yrs ago, and still average around 15 miles per week, I'm in much better shape now because of it.

When I first started going out with my brand new stock TI my main exercise track is to sail around Lido Key (15 miles). I found out the hard way that in the typical very low winds around here, my typical headway was around 2-3 miles per hour. To get my 15 miles in on some days I was out over 8 hrs on the water, where I would typically get overheated, and burnt to a crisp out in the hot Florida sun. In Florida it is very hot and sunny all year round, and if your out on the TI out in that sun with very little wind or breeze it gets very hot, and probably dangerous.
I was pretty disappointed in the performance of my stock TI in the typical low winds around here, so I began working on ways to improve the boats performance by adding more sail in two key areas. The upwind performance of the TI was awful so I started building jib sails to try to improve the upwind performance. When I purchased the boat initially, I was aware of the lack of upwind performance, but was assured up and down that an optional jib sail was in it's final stages of development and would be released very soon. To be perfectly honest if I had known the optional jib sail was never going to come, I would have never bought the boat.
Next was to work on downwind performance which was also pretty bad especially in light winds, so I designed and built several spinnaker designs to give me better downwind performance. I had most of the modifications finished by late summer 2010 and working to my satisfaction, I could get my 15 miles covered in the average conditions around here in typically under 3-4 hrs by utilizing the jib and spinnaker sails as needed. I still pedaled 100% of the time, but pedaling was no longer my only source of propulsion.
Then a couple years ago I started studying wing sails and hybrid propulsion and began to realize I could further improve on what I already was very happy with. Since there was never anything written in my 15 mile per week pedaling commitment about how long it should take to cover my 15 miles. I began improving on my designs and came up with my current setup. Now on good wind days I get my 15 miles done in a little over an hour, and on no wind days it takes 2 hrs. I'm pretty happy with what I have. Some weekends I'm out there doing 50-60 milers (because I can). Don't really care much how others think, it all works for me.
That's my story and I'm sticking with it.
Bob


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PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 4:57 pm 
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OK guys here is my new UPWIND SPINNAKER sail, (just invented it lol). I have only taken it out once but am totally amazed that everything works exactly as predicted.
This video is my sea trials on the thing so be warned it's very boring.

I widened my TI to 12 ft wide last month (extended the AMA's 1 foot on each side, in preparation for putting massive sails back on the boat (240 sq ft). The problem I had before widening the boat was the AMA's would bury too easily with great risk of capsize, now I can't bury the AMA's no matter what I do. I hadn't used my 130 sq ft spinnaker much at all since adding the wing jib 3 yrs ago (the boat was way faster without it), been thinking about the solution ever since.

The sail has a wing on the leading edge that prevents it from collapsing and kind of forcing it to work even when it doesn't want to, so I can now sail upwind with the thing. I was able to sail about 30 degrees off the wind today and it performed actually equal to my normal mainsail, actually at that angle it was a little faster than the main (really hard to judge for sure though the winds were very variable).

The furler works flawlessly (suprise).

On steep downwind obviously the wing does nothing, the sail for downwind only is cut similar to a code zero, but a little deeper near the top (to create lift (something you really need to keep from pitchpoling), so it's actually more a G1 Assymetric spinnaker (or something in between).

The wing only comes into play on a broad reach or upwind.

Here is the video (warning boring as all get out)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLfQmIKm2MQ


Now the following is just theory at this point (the reason I designed it the way I did).
Everyone knows my boat uses the wing jib as a power amplifier, that forces the mainsail to work, where it would normally just luff. However the slot effect only works between 5-30 degrees off the wind, where my boat cruises 8-10 mph (almost directly upwind). However once I get more than 35 degrees off the wind, the wing can't align the air correctly, so currently the worst point of sail on the boat is a 90 degree reach (at that point it's just sailing the old fashion way), yea the jib is still very efficient (because it's a wing sail lol).
Now with this new setup, theory is I should be able to put all three sails up on anything 35- 110 degrees off the wind, and the apparent wind from my normal 8-10 mph forward motion should allow me to sail 12-14mph in 5-7mph winds (like a turbo charger) using the same power settings on my motors (just above idle). That's what the wing on the leading edge is for really. The theory is I am creating a giant low pressure vacuum zone in front of the boat that sucks me along,( or in trekky jargon a warp field for the boat to ride in (lol, just kidding))

The coolest part is with the spin on a furler I can put it out way more often now vs my old spin (which only worked downwind, so I seldom used it).
I doubt I will ever use the spin for downwind only, since a spin can only work up to 1=1 with the wind, without the spin (with the current standard wing jib setup the boat already goes 2x to 3x downwind).

This should fix my performance problem sailing on a reach.

Yea it's kind of complex, but once I get it debugged and ready to go, I'll shoot some video.

Then again it could be a total disaster and not work at all. It's just an aerodynamics theory at this point (lol)

I'm just in total shock that it all worked first try.
FE


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 2:22 pm 
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Location: Gulf Shores, Alabama
Nice job Bob. I have a couple questions for you regarding your spinnaker setup.

How well does your spinnaker furl and what's the trick for a nice tight furl? Does your sail have a pocket with a piece of pvc or something solid in the luft to aid in furling? As you know, I'm not satisfied with the Hobie spinnaker and was thinking that maybe I could convert it to work like your setup using one of my old mast toppers. I have a small ronstan furler so it's worth a try. But the challenge is a nice tight furl of the spinnaker. Any tips Bob?

And I've sailed with you a few years ago and saw your setup but cannot remember the details.

Thanks,


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 3:49 pm 
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That looks like the ultimate spinnaker to me fusioneng. Nice work.

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PostPosted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 4:54 pm 
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Jim:
I'm pretty sure it was spring 2012 when you came down, you were thinking about getting an AI so I took you out and let you sail mine for a while. It was probably the worst influence of your life with all my mods and gadgets (lol). 90% of what I was using then is still being used today (ie... The mast topper system, the bowsprit, the motor mount, all the PVC furlers, all the masts, and the spinnaker is the same exact stuff I had originally all made in 2010. Obviously all of it looks like crap now after 6 yrs of really hard use. Hey I figure if it all still works fine why not, I'm just out to have fun not win a beauty contest (lol)
The spinnaker mast is just 1/2" PVC pipe. Actually the PVC furlers for the jib and the spinnaker I made originally for our Oasis and one of our old Revos back in 2008, I had sold those boats a long time ago and the furlers were just laying in the garage.
Obviously I made the new wing jib 3yrs ago and mounted in the old jib mast (which is an old painters extension pole) so you haven't seen the wing jib.
All I did with the old spin is sew on the wing stuff on top of the old sail. The old spin was a really puffy g2 type spinnaker sail. Just recently I cut it way back and converted it to a code zero (much flatter now, but not as flat as a real code zero.
With the old spinnaker the only attachment points were at the bottom and top. When the spinnaker was deployed it was completely separate from the furler pole. To get it to furl tight I had to keep tension on the control line during furling, I sometimes had to do it twice because it was too loose the first try. BTW It's pretty important for it to furl tight, some of it might have to do with how the sail is cut.
With the new upwind spinnaker it is attached to the pole all the way up, attached every 8" inches or so with air slit in between each of the attachment points. With enough wind the wing part blows up like a balloon and becomes rigid (however I need 8mph wind for that to happen. I suspect I just got lucky and it wraps nice and tightly around the pole but I still have to keep tension on both the furler and control lines when furling/unfurling.
We are only talking about ten bucks of PVC here, It wouldn't hurt to just tie your hobie spinnaker to some 1/2" pvc and see if it furls to your liking if you like furlers vs spin chute bags. If you ever watch Sewsew deploy his it is indeed a sight to behold. Or you can copy the one on WETA's they are also way cool.
However having big sails furled up can cause havoc if the wind pics up, you need to have halyards so you can drop them and lay them on the deck if it kicks up (thats what Randy Smythe does I'm pretty sure). However whenever I drop the sails I have to climb back to the back of the boat unclip the halyard line and walk it back to the front of the boat and pull it tight so the halyards can't tangle in other crap, haven't figured out a workaround for that one yet, fortunately I don't need to do that very often. Part of the price you have to pay having a complex boat (lol).
Hope this helps
FE


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