A blog is born.

So I've been getting some requests to start a blog about my monofoiler project. Here you go, this goes out to all the peeps.

First, a little history.

I started thinking about this project in mid March 08' after finding foiling Moth vids on youtube, seeing Rohan Veal and Adam May skimming across the water on what looked like a sailboat/airplane, I knew I had to do it. I put aside my plans to build a single handed skiff and started looking into homebuild Moth foilers. After a couple weeks of research I came to the conclusion that, although the Moth is a great boat, It really didn't fit me well. For one I weigh 190-195lb so I'm out of the competitive weight range. I'm also not a big fan of hiking straps, I didn't like them when I sailed lasers as a kid, and I'm sure I wouldn't like them now, especially after spending all my time since highschool sailing trap rigged cats and performance dinghy's.
Right about that same time I found out about another foiler class, the RS-600ff, which is a RS-600 single handed trapeze boat retrofitted with a foiling kit. Now this boat was more my speed because it had a big sail and a trapeze, but it to had its drawbacks. It was being marketed as a one design (which means no homebuild option), its still a big bulky hull where the foils where an afterthought, and there is no US fleet. I quickly came to the conclusion that if I wanted a boat that fit me I would have to design it and build it myself.
I started off by talking to anyone that I could. Local A cat guys, moth bloggers, moth sailors, Na's, random people, Airplane and glider designers, sail makers, carbon fiber manufacturers, anyone who might have some info or idea. I also started spending a lot of time on Boatdesign.net soaking up everything I could about design and construction. (and learning Rhino OSX design software when I wasn't thinking about my boat).
After Talking to all these people and mulling over all the information I had gathered, I started constructing a class box formula that I could use as a basic framework for my design. My basic criteria were, manageable size, enough sail for average sized people, light construction, and good performance.

Final(ish) Formula:

LOA: 4 meters + 50cm (max) gantry
Beam At Gunnels: 75cm (min)
Beam at racks: 1.8m (max)
SA: 11sqm (max)
Mast: 7m (max)
Boom: 2.4m (max)
Trapeze: yes
Minimum Weight: to be determined

**no kites
**no windsurfers, no multihulls
**open foil design (centerline mounted only,)
**1 sail only
**only to be raced 1up

The Construction:

Core: Foam
Hull Skins: Carbon
Deck Skins: Carbon/Kevlar
Mast/Boom: Carbon
Racks and Gantry: Carbon
Reinforcements: Red Cedar


I named the class after my favorite airplane of all time (the SR-71 Blackbird), and started to draw. After two and a half months on my computer, I finally had a design.
Its been a couple of weeks since then, and I have actually begun to build my mould frames and strongbacks.
I will post some build pics as soon as I have something worth showing.