First Garden shuffle

I did a quick garden shuffle this evening to start working out the rigging for my Rx3 Lay down sailing boat. I have decided on using a centre sheeting system for the main sheet.

I also started looking at how I could rig the spinnaker. The bowsprit is a little too low but I think I can work around that.

The 35sf mainsail is from an Optimist and the spinnaker is cut down 420 spin also measuring about 35sf. So that gives me 70sf of down wind sail area! If it works it could be fun on a hull that weighs just under 20 Kg!

Second version of my Rx3 lay down sailing boat

After much thought I finally decided it was worth starting to build a second version of my lay down sailing boat rather than continuing to tweak the original prototype any further.

I have cut out the basic hull. The picture to the left shows the sides temporarily held in place to give an idea of the final shape. I am incorporating quite a few changes to this version due to the lessons learnt in sailing my first version of the Rx3.

The main differences are that I am using 75mm core instead of 50mm to give just a little more all round buoyancy. She is also just over 1 foot longer at 10'3", and just a little narrower to make car topping easier. I have also raised the gunwales towards the bow. These changes should give me the additional free board in the bow that was lacking in the first version.

Hopefully I can get her on the water in the next couple of months as I am really keen to discover how this version sails!