"Bootiful"

Bootiful is the carbon fibre brainchild of all Simon's experiences, chiefly his genius at designing windsurfers.

She is a catamaran that uses proven windsurfing technology.
Despite her 60ft length she weighs just 750kg, 90 per cent less that a conventional racing catamaran of the same size.

Her two flat bottomed hulls will skim the surface of the water like windsurf boards while another radical aspect of the design is the absence of rudders. The aim is to cut as much weight and water resistance as possible, so Simon and his two crew will steer by moving the mast and sail sited on a x-shaped crossbeam, backwards and forwards along the two hulls. This will be done using pedal power.

As the boat speeds up it lifts out of the water until it is skating on the very back-end of each hull. Very long, deep fins prevent it moving sideways.

"The design process has gone full circle," said Simon. "The future for ultimate speed has returned to custom-built catamaran-type craft."

The carbon fibre catamaran uses proven windsurfing dynamics, and is designed to cut weight and water resistance. That means no rudder. The crew will steer by moving the mast and sail backwards and forwards along the 60ft flat-bottomed hulls.

There are two cockpits, one on each hull. Which one is used will depend on the direction of the wind. Two of the crew adjust the hulls using pedal-power. The third member controls the angle of the sail using a winch.

Seen here during sea trials, "Bootiful" has demonstrated during early tests that the record is in sight.
Once trials have been completed and the conditions are right all indications are that "Bootiful" will break the magic 50 mph barrier.

Latest modifications to "Bootiful"

Over the spring this year we have made several modifications to the boat to make it go faster and be easier to sail.

The hulls have grown "wings" out of the transoms so that tracks could be moved 400mm further back. This allows the rig to be moved further back so we have greater luffing up power. Last year we could not luff up at all if the sail was sleeted out! It will also allow us to sail with a greater stagger between the hulls so when the leward hull is fully forward the windward hull will be further back. This will make Bootiful plane at a slightly higher angle of attack more bows up. This should produce more lift reducing the wetted hull area hopefully leading to higher speed. The optimum angle of attack is 5º. Last year we were running with less than that. The steering blocks, pulleys and padeyes under the cockpits have had to be moved to accommodate the 400mm rearward movement of the tracks and at the same time we have changed the blocks so that the single blocks have been changed to double on the decks and the singles have been bolted by the padeyes underneath the cockpits. This system will not be used straight away but means if the steering forced required on the pedal winches becomes too high the 2:1 reduction can be changed easily to 4:1 to double the power of the winches.

We have also removed the "other side" steering winches from the front cockpits to give more room for cameramen, sponsors, yachting correspondents etc.
Harken have made us new custom steering cars to move the hulls back and forwards. The old ones had started to corrode badly where the helicoils for the bolts had been taped in. The new ones have more metal round the bolt holes which have been anodised too this time.

A new halyard lock has been designed, manufactured, tested and then fitted on to the track at the mast head. It uses a stainless steel triangular paw which comes out through a slot in the track to lock the top headboard car in place at the top of the mast track.

Last year the sail constantly slipped down slightly, as the halyard was locked off on the X beam and kept stretching. This lead to to much twist in the sail slack appearing in the luff, the boom end getting close to the water and the bottom batten getting caught on the rear cross stay when we tacked.

All four stays were tested to destruction over the winter, 3 failing at 2 tonnes and one at 200kg or less! They were supposed to be good for 6 tonnes. Regnart rigging had discovered that PBO our stay material was degraded by normal light as well as ultra violet and needed replacing. Our new stays have black covers. We have also glued 4 strain gauges to the titanium end fittings of each stay so that we can measure the force in each stay with a strain gauge reader when we tighten the lashings. We can also read the tension in one stay while we are sailing.

Other modifications include:- Compasses have been fitted into the two steering winches each side so steering the boat will be easier.

New stronger stiffer canopy hoops have been made to stop them being broken off. The front boom end has been reinforced as a couple of small cracks were found and a new lightning conductor system has been fitted as the resistance was too high in the old one.

Also we are just about to blow new cockpit canopy bubbles from a tougher plastic to replace the old ones and repaint the crossbeam with new non-slip as it is starting to wear off.

Finally if anyone fancy's helping with the maintenance and modifications of the boat do give us a call as there is always something to be done.

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