Beta- Footy Design Plan Review

Just Footies, or will you collect other classes and boats like static or scale ships?

 

Chad, I am only a little bit confused.
What is the purpose of this thread?
Is it as a depository for FOOTY plans?
Sorry mate I am just a little thick, your advise is requested.
Cheers,

 

Chad has a whole section for just plans ( the best idea I've ever seen!) It doesn't seem to be complete yet, so we'll need to wait for the go-ahaed before contributing anything.

You may want follow the link and create a bookmark for the new section.

 

Do you think we should set up guidlines on what information goes with a set of plans, like a materials list, building instructions, etc? I hope people will contribute their own tips for building a boat.

 

Great! Would you lease let us know when it's activated?

Is there anything special we need to know to make things work out? files sizes, file types, etc.?

thx

 

I have posted my free plan for Flatfoot.

 

I just posted a review for the Flat Foot as follows:
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"Only recommend if it is simple to build and sailed for non-racing.

This is not really a plan as it does not show all the detail for building a completed boat. Need a lot more details including mast, keel and rudder placement and internal layout. If this is to be a helpful forum, a minimum set of requirements to post a boat should be established including expected performance (A --F) for racing. An "A" rating for top performing design vs. "F" for lowest performing."
----------------------
I am not coming down on Flat Foot as he is the first to submit a plan and requirements were not clearly stated. I applaud him for that. Thank you Flat Foot. Having one place to see various design suggestions vs. searching a lot of verbage is a good idea. I believe all of us do creative original things when we build a boat and I am thinking that I will submit one or two from my build.

This could be a good section if we could get the authors to submit plans to a set of requirements as suggested above. Having just completed my first Footy, a gold colored Razor named "Gold Foot" (aka 007), I know the questions the beginner will have and all the wasted time it takes to figure out the details and end up with a boat that does not sail well.

Maybe what is needed is a build section where data from all over the internet and various forums is consolidated into categories. For example, I would like see sections such as the following:

Working with Balsa Wood
Working with Adhesives (Epoxy, CA Glue, Fillers, Microballons, etc)
Making Sails
Boat Finishing for Light Weight, but Smooth and Glossy.
Building the Rigging (Carbon Fiber, Lines, Fastners, etc)
Electrical Considerations
Building Custom Battery Packs

For each area, require links to vendors to make parts easy to find and buy. Anyone want to help put some structure to this so it is useful.

Let's make this a useful forum and continue fleet growth.

Best Regards, FastFrank
www.tanglewoodmyc.com

 

While it's certainly true, ffastffrank, that beginning builders want a lot more info than we often supply with our plans here, please recognize that producing detailed plans is an awful lot of work.

I prefer building and sailing to drawing plans...I suspect Ian is the same way! While I have always tried to share info I thought could be helpful to other Footy builders, there's really no incentive for me to spend the many hours needed to develop detailed plans that I don't need and won't use myself. Even going so far as to convert my Freeship plans to .pdf format for publication (like Razor and Cobra) takes quite a bit of time.

So I'm happy to provide people with the files I use for building, but I encourage builders to study pictures, read about design and building techniques, and get a bit creative when building one of my "plans." That's how I've learned, and that's all part of the fun of Footys.

Your point is well-taken, though...so I think, from now on, I'll publish my stuff as "hull plans" so noone will be mislead.

Bill H

 

Chad -

just an opinion - be careful of how you list this forum addition - since the word "plan" can have many meanings to a lot of people....... mostly based on experience. The following IS NOT related to only the FOOTY Class !

I can probably step in, and using a top, side, front view of a boat - be able to pull off the lines needed. Someone else may only need the lines and their experience provides them the opportunity to build the boat. Others may need the line drawings, and perhaps station shadows/templates, while others yet again may need not only the photo, drawings, templates - but also the written "step-by-step" text. Finally there are some who, provided with ALL of this information, can hardly make it through a plastic kit assembly.

TomoHawk - While a bill of materials needed may be helpful, any associated costs are likely to change, as are construction techniques. To try to tell someone how to build a boat, will generate all numbers of responses, making the process even more confusing, and thereby intimidating, no matter how difficult it really is. Just look at any forum topic in general and you will see the wide variety of opinions. Insert a "newbie" into this and I don't think it will be helpful - just confusing.

Chad, I would recommend an agreement among subscribers, that they can post of plans in whatever their format, having the poster give a brief overview of what is included/not included in the plans, and a way the potential builder can contact the poster and they can deal one-on-one with "HOW" to build. To try to go beyond that is more than most plan services can do - and that's their specialty.

Thus I would see .......

CLASS
DESIGN NAME
LINK TO PLAN
POSTER'S NAME/METHOD OF CONTACT
DESCRIPTION OF PLAN

Might look something like this ........ (example only)

Class: F-48 / Mini40 Multihull
Design: GHOST TRAIN
Link: http link to plan
Posted by Dick Lemke (PM/or email contact info)
1.2 meter/48 inch sized multihull (trimaran - 3 hull)
includes line drawings, station templates, rig design,
multiple sail area plans for different wind strength.
Plan Format: DWG format and PDF
NO written or step-by-step instructions
Primary Use: Racing
Recommended: Experienced Builder

This would provide as much info as needed by potential builder to decide - and eliminate discussion. There are plenty of provided "discussion" capabilities in your forum, so keeping this one to a "Post Only - No Reply" should be considered.

Again - only my opinion if you proceed to open for all classes of boats - great idea by the way !

Dick

 

Makes sense to me, Dick...good suggestion.

Bill H

 

Where are the plans?
I've seen mention of the Bob About plans.
I'm looking for the full plans for the rigging.
All I've found is a fairly low res jpg.

 

Plans for Bobabout are on the footy website, in the plans area.

 

For most of the plans I have, you only get the templates for the hull panels, and some basic instruction on how to assemble it was somewhere in the Footy section. Except for a few extra things like measurements for the mast and keel location, keel & rudder dimentions, etc. The rest is left up to the builder. All the rest of the innards, like the keel supports, servo mounts, radio placement, etc. is left up to the builder too, and that's also part of the Footy experience.

FlatFoot is a very basic "plan" if you would call it that. It was just a picture of the card template before trimming with measurements marked on it, which was the designer's goal. We discussed how the hull should look when you add the reinforcements, and that was it. Obviously it requires more effort to build than other designs.

Flatfoot obviously isn't aimed at the real beginner like Bobabout is. So including a comment about the build difficulty or experience needed, like Bill said, to build when submitting your plan is a very good idea.

Even though the Footy class has a basic hull design, equipment, finish, etc., a "real newbie" could still find it difficult to build one, depending on which one it is. Hopefully those people will not get discouraged and instead get on their computers and read up on all the comments people posted in stead of giving up. I also hope that these people have someone who can advise them. When you submit your plan, add a comment urging anyone with difficulty to contact you or read the associated comments, or even put some links or pointers to documents relative to the build, and make it stand out with bold-face or large font, or whatever you like.

 

I'm having trouble displaying these links. They don't seem to work. It seem at first sight that this Idea didn't make it.
It's a good Idea, though!

 

This thread kind of died, Marc.

All of the plans that have been made available are on the Footy website and the Footy Seniors site.

Bill