New Ariel Speed Record !!!
11.4knots SOG !!!!! strictly under sail !!!! Beat that all you west coasters/racy types. Varified by chart plotter on a very windy , very high wave ,broad reach coming up from out front of Bimini towards West Palm beach. Man these ole gals go on a reach !! It was one of those majic days with a double reefed main/jib combo and both the wind and waves on the border line of scary.Did 27NM in 3hr 10 min with the peak surge being 11.4 !! Just for the record you west coast guys.....the 4 1/2 knot gulf stream push had NOTHING to do with it...honest. :p I'll be off for quite a while more..anchored out the majority of the time and most marinas when we do stop don't have wireless.
breaking the speed barrier
No JEALOUSEY, yeah, jist a lousey sinking feeling of will I ever make it!
Well of course I will! the wind in my thinning scalp, the sand between my toes, the frosty at a beachfront cafe.......
But we do have this thread here that came along with the past intact!! That's cool and breezey.
As to exceeding the numbers for the A/C hull....
Let me just say this: I've seen 100s of hulls on the hard at the yard where I slave dilligently on Little Gull. Numbers be damned: the Ariel hull I'm working on is THE MOST PERFECT KEEL-HULL SHAPE ever conceived. From entry to bustle it is clean and true. The rudder at the end on the keel must make the least amount of fuss thru the water than any other.
The rounded angles of the hull at the forward waterline, the break in the blige amidship, the tuck and rise of the hull leaving the waterline at the stern. Without flaw. The sculpting of the ballast keel without any bulbous. As fine a stem entry sweeping into the bottom of the keel as can be imagined. I cannot see how any better, easier, shaping of this deep underbody that becomes the rudder can be done. It's all curves with a single purpose of slipping 5500 pounds thru the water. No bumps, no flats , no wingy-thingys.
The underbody shape of the Ariel is without flaw. This is the essence of the word finesse. I haven't seen it better anywhere. Not even the folkboat. Not talking engineering, talking bout that warm feeling you get when something LOOKS right.;) You mean
that gorgeous babe will let me touch her!!!
I'd guess much less fuss than a fin keel and rudder on a skeg or stand alone. When this kind of underbody turns even slightly, eddys are made, and while by definition you get lift you also get the water being glued to the boat on the other side. How much wetted surface there is in relation to weight is important in the dinghy/finkeel shape underbodies currently in fashion.
But I think the rounded, natural, fish like underbody on 338 is as near to perfection any boat of this type has even been conceived. Carl Alberg, who never let anyone mess with his lines, and I guess, with the many boats of all sizes he drew, certainly experienced a sort of swedish satori which produced the perfectly proportioned waterline and underbody on the Ariel/Commander. How often did he repeat it? Every enlightened line came together to blossom as the true nature of sailboat.
Alberg's own sailboat was C-302. Isn't that so? WHY? Did he know something we don't know?
It's beyond the measly numbers and the comfortable BS of yacht design formulas. Because that garbage can't explain why the Ariel goes faster or looks better than it's supposed to. Can they? Certain socalled inanimate objects sometimes make it over to the magical side. The Ensign? The Alberg 30? The Triton? NOPE, only the Ariel/Commander made it to this other side.