The journey so far

Boat 1 -The Starkers

I had sailed an IOM for two years and think I am beginning to understand how the boats are fitted together and pimped for speed.  My challenge, racing the IOM is dealing with speed in a breeze and how situations around marks develop so quickly one needs to be very precise at steering when under pressure. So a possible solution to developing my skills more rapidly was to buy a faster boat and get used to the speed as well as understand how another boat design work and could be optimised.

In looking into the Marblehead designs, I note that the Grunge is the boat of choice but unfortunately there were none available when I looked.  The were a few Starkers designs available built  by Dave Creed which seemed to be a good platform to get me started and one in particular took my eye so I took the plunge and bought it.

Over the autumn and winter this year, my plan is to optimise the boat.  It has a standard A rig, B, C 1,2,3.

The A is a standard swing rig and the others conventional.  All will need re-rigging as the cord is over four years old and whilst not used cannot be considered to be reliable.  

My plan for the boat was to sort the rigging and sails so that I have a reliable package which I can put on the water and race with confidence.  The boat was only sailed a few times times by the previous 2 owners since 2016  so there is a lot of work to do.  Here is a starting jobs list.

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Fair top of rudder so it fits flush to the hull.  

Fit Futaba Servo and new 1000mA Lifo battery 

Check all the electrics are working smoothly and calibrate winch

Replace endless sheet cord and adjust lead approach to drum so there is a direct line with no friction

Replace all sheets

Replace backstay and jib leech topping lift with wire.

Check weigh boat

Calibrate sheeting angles

Check all mainsail heads are set to just below top band.

One or two of the fittings may need replacing as they look a bit dodgy

Tune all rigs and calibrate and log settings

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Test sail and check boat is waterproof

Buy more deck patches.

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The jobs were straight forward and I had loads of spares so no additional cost.

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​If the hull is competitive which I believe it should be then I think an order for new sails will be on the cards as well as a lightweight swing rig and maybe a gismo to control leech tension upwind.  For now I will work with what I have and assess whether the investment will be worth while.

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Looking around on the web I found the following references

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Marblehead section on the MYA Web site. This provides links to all the relevant Marblehead web sites

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Pimp my Marblehead by BG on the MYA web site

Great information on how to pimp up older designs.

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More from the man himself on pimping.  Here is the web link but have put extracts of the text below because it adds to the jigsaw.  Its well worth reading the full article HERE

Originally Posted by Brad Gibson on RC Groups.com

Weight- Anything with a designed displacement upwards of 5 kg ready to race will struggle in light winds. The current competitive parameters for an all round design live between 4.4 - 4.8 kg with the most recent winning designs sitting in the 4.7- 4.8 range.- Any hull weight with radio and rudder installed ready to sail, less rig and fin/ballast, should not be more that 900 - 950 grams. The better boats live within the 780 - 840g region.- Beam Waterline should be no greater than 160mm. Current designs are as low as 130 -150mm. Hull weight is 840 grams, less rig and keel. Overall designed displacement is 4.9kg. - With a newer thin profile stiff fin we go a fraction deeper on the fin and shave 100 grams off the lead. Lighter boat, similar righting moment with less drag. Win win!- The original Bantock rigs are stiff as hell for their weight so very little to do there other than modernise the sail plans to modern ratios if you desire, and replace sails accordingly. The original rigs were set some 85mm off the deck to the lower mast bands, so we follow what works on our IOM's and modern M's in cutting down the goosenecks to get things as low as we can. These last points are more fine tuning but give us a little more from the boat across the wind range. 

Sailsetc/Bantock swing rig plan

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How to program an RMG Smartwinch

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I am starting from scratch setting up the rig.  The spars are Sailsetc carbon and the sails are little used Housemartin and they all look fantastic.  All the luffs are tied on and I understand the trend is now for sleeved luffs.  My challenge is, on the IOM, I have precise settings for all rigs and all conditions.  On the Marblehead I have two measurements.  The jib boom on the swing rig should be approx 40mm from the mast and the jib foot approx 10, off the boom.  Other than that, I will be doing all my initial sailing by eye.

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Over the coming season I learned that my boat was too heavy and the rig not up to scratch although its performance was good in C rig conditions.

In competitive racing I was well off the pace and being thrashed by Grunge designs.

As luck would have it a Grunge came up on the market so I grabbed it. The boat wasn't perfect but it was a Grunge and that would be a competitive starting point

Boat 2 - The Grunge

​This design is so nice to sail and has dominated the class for so long. I thought I had the perfect boat but soon realised I would have to do some work on the rigs and probaly invest in a lightweight rig. I raced it a lot and enjoyed the boat but I felt there was more to get out it but it would require investment.

Boat 3 - The F6

Phil Holliday at K7 yachts was building the F6 design from Red Ant Radio Yachts. The hulls were light and the design seemed proven, so rather than invest in new rigs for the Grunge I elected to get a new F6 with all new rigs including a lightweight swing rig. With any new boat there are teething problems and I had a few with the rigs, but no more serious than slipping bowsies. The boat is all round nice to sail and a design I will stick with.