Are we ready for reproductions yet?

General chat about boats
realnutter
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Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by realnutter »

I found this on the webs...

Image

Would be a fun way to up my boat building skills from stitch and glue...
Matt

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JimC
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Re: Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by JimC »

realnutter wrote:Would be a fun way to up my boat building skills from stitch and glue...
I might still have a bit of wood left over from UnSkol's old wood bottom. You could incorporate that and call it a restoration in the best Merlin Rocket style...
realnutter
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Re: Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by realnutter »

As in "I've restored it into a totally different era" ?
Matt

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bornagainmothie
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Re: Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by bornagainmothie »

I think it depends who you ask....and what you would like to do with it...

http://www.mothboat.com/ along the East coast of USA are building and racing new moths from old designs.

The IMCA would happily measure and register your moth as long as it fitted the 11ft x 7ft x 8sqm rules.

http://mid-atlanticmusings.blogspot.co. ... ral%20Moth Martin Scott in Cornwall has recently completed a most beautiful new build of a classic Mistral design which he called 'Evolution'.

The only problem with a new boat here in UK would be finding a suitable series to compete in, should you wish to. You might struggle to keep up with the foilers at the Moth Nationals and its not old enough to be a classic.

Actually, I like the idea of a second generation classic. Some of the designs of their day were brilliant but sadly let down by poor construction methods or technology. Unfortunately, Moths have suffered more than most in this respect as they went through a period where lasting a full season was a novelty and consequently there are very few left for us to restore as true classics. Having a rare classic may help the value (works with cars, not so sure with boats) but it would be more fun to race against a few more of the same type if that were possible. Maybe some reproduction where originals are no longer possible is worth exploring?
realnutter
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Re: Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by realnutter »

bornagainmothie wrote: The only problem with a new boat here in UK would be finding a suitable series to compete in
That's why I'm asking.... I'm not a particularly competitive sailor.. (I sail a Minisail and have nearly finished building a Cape Cod Frosty (you'll have to go look that up))

I just like to mess about with and in boats... And creating things is fun... So If I built a completely uncompetitive (by modern standards) vintage Moth replica would the CVRDA let me sail it?
Matt

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Pat
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Re: Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by Pat »

Ouch, dodgy territory here after the "restoration" of Merlin 1065.
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Rupert
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Re: Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by Rupert »

It is something we have discussed before, but I don't think we have ever actually had anyone in the situation. If I was running an event and you asked, the answer would be yes, just as we had a Cornish cove boat at the Whitefriars Nationals, but as a general "wing"? Maybe it would fit in well? After all, the yotties have "spirit of tradition", don't they?
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davidh
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Re: Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by davidh »

As one who was on the 'inside' of the Merlin Rocket story, can I just put this into some perspective.
It is clear that there is a very real problem with boats that are older than a certain age as the glues used are failing. Add in rot, damage and the poor quality of materials used at certain points in time and the idea to build an old boat 'new from scratch' can be appealing.

If that were to be the case of what happened, then I do not think there would have been half of the heated exchanges that we've seen of late. You rebuild the boat - as was, and then it is just a job for the handicappers to make sure that if it does sail with the old boats that there is a level playing field. But that isn't what happened. Using cars as an analogy, they took an old Cortina, rebuilt it as a Focus rallySport but then passed it off as a Cortina. What upset people wasn't the rebuild (because it had been beautifully done, a boat that is a masterpiece of the boatbuilders art) was that it was foisted onto us as something it wasn't.

That the boat then went on to win major classic events - when it clearly wasn't a classic, is as much a failing of the 'system' as the boatbuilder. However, I would like to think that we have all learnt some lessons from it and moved on.

So, if someone built a tunnel scow moth, or went to John Claridge and got the frames for a Magnum 5 or 6, then I for one would applaud the effort. As long as it is passed off as a newly built old boat I think you'd get a lot of admiring glances.
Just don't try to pass a newly built boat off as an old boat; they can be classic, or a new boat can be classical, but the two are not the same thing!

D
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Ed
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Re: Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by Ed »

Hard one....

I think that on the whole (from an association viewpoint) I agree totally with Rupert. I wouldn't want to turn a replica away from a CVRDA event, but don't really see how it could race within any of the main wings.

Although come to think of it, there is a kindof precedent. When we had Tideways turn up, we always ignored their age, looked at their construction and put them in the 'vintage' wing, although most should of been 'classic' and quite a few in the Old wing.

But personally, I would worry about encouraging 'reproductions' in CVRDA events. Although I totally understand the rationale to building one, I just feel it could easily dilute what the cvrda is about.

As for the re-building from a thwart problem, I don't really see that as having any real relevance to the original question here......and to be honest, I think Dougal has that covered :-)

Best wishes

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JimC
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Re: Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by JimC »

Ed wrote:But personally, I would worry about encouraging 'reproductions' in CVRDA events. Although I totally understand the rationale to building one, I just feel it could easily dilute what the cvrda is about.
It is hard, because there are so many shades of gray (damn that book, its such a useful phrase but now it has unfortunate connotations). Take Unskol for instance. New below the waterline to a new design, because it had already been rebuilt below the waterline, but not very well. I didn't have data for the original hull shape, and the revised one wasn't, I felt, great. If I were manic rich win at all costs man I suppose I would have commissioned Morrison or someone to design a new and optimal underwater shape, but instead I put something together based on the ideas I had for a Cherub 40 years ago. Then when I can get hold of a second hand carbon Moth mast I shall probably put a track on it and rig that, simply because its easier to live with. But manic rich win at all costs man might change all the same parts for all the wrong reasons.

As I'm at least 3 stone too heavy now for the Moth I shan't trouble the podium anyway, but I think in general we have to trust the handicapper to unfairly penalise excessively updated boats. Otherwise its easy to see how everything I've done, which I hope would not preclude my boat from being welcomes at CVRDA events, could be done by someone with utterly different motives.

And then a "100% restored" Scow Moth might well be considered to have an overlap with the CVRDA ethos. Its a style of boat that has more or less vanished. But what about a "100% restored" Firefly?
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Re: Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by Rupert »

I have far less of an issue with what is proposed here than with someone trying to pass off a boat as a classic when the design has been altered beyond recognition. In fact, they are polar opposites, and need to be separated in people's minds. If Matt built this boat using the design and construction methods of the time and brought her along, I'd be happy to let her race, enter the pretty boat contest, win overall, but NOT win any wing prize. I'd invent a new wing specially for the day. Vintage, Classic, Old, Lost and what? Trad?

But, if built stitch and glue, using epoxy fillets, with a carbon mast and Mylar main? Suddenly the fit with the cvrda is rather poor!
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Re: Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by JimC »

Rupert wrote:if built stitch and glue, using epoxy fillets
Mind you stitch and glue is what, 54 years old technology (1962 for the Mirror wasn't it?) and hot/cold moulding with gap filling glue (precursor to epoxy fillets?) only about 70, so the effective age gap between the technologies isn't that wide... and semi frameless boat building with the skim giving the primary shape is at least 3,000 years old I reckon...
realnutter
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Re: Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by realnutter »

I don't think there's much chance of me building it any time soon - I just don't have the space...

I would use modern glues though! And that plan is dated 1978, and calls for the seams to be taped, presumably with polyester resin...
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Re: Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by Rupert »

I'd assumed it was older than that, but then the rig should have given it away.

I suppose what I'm trying to say in a more general sense is that reproductions built as they would have been built are a better fit than updated ones, or you'd end up allowing modern versions of designs that are still going strong today, which would rather defeat the object of the cvrda.
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bornagainmothie
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Re: Are we ready for reproductions yet?

Post by bornagainmothie »

And that plan is dated 1978, and calls for the seams to be taped, presumably with polyester resin...
Although WEST epoxy appeared in the UK around 1977/78 it was used in the states long before then.
I was surprised to find reference to epoxy resins in the US Patent for John Shelley's Moth design from 1967:
https://www.google.com/patents/US3295152 ( pdf format is best presentation)

"Fiberglass tape 98 is cemented over the deck chine 44 by known techniques utilizing epoxy resins and the like."

In fact Epoxy resin was patented in Switzerland in 1936, and Howard Hughes used three different types to build his "Spruce Goose" in 1947.

Its a great pity that most of our classic dinghies were only stuck together with Cascamite when they could have lasted much longer if they'd used classic epoxy!
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