Simon's Canard.

[Simon.O.]

Here are a few shots of progress so far.
This is very much a build and see what happens.
I am confident that I will have a lot of lift under the centre rear which will be usefull to lug those Ni cells around.

[Simon.O.]

I am waiting for the clearcoat to cure so I can put the top skins on the wings.

[Dr. Jet]

I'm dying to see if this works. If it does, I can see a 400 mm version in the future for the SLOBS. .

[Avanti]

Herb Stewart has a canard he says it is fast like a hydro and turns like a tunnel, this should be an interesting build keep us posted Simon

[Doug Smock]

Interesting build Simon, keep up the good work.

John, Herb will be racing with us this weekend, what about you??

Doug

[Simon.O.]

A bit more progress.
The weather here is crap and I am house bound with a proper cold, fever shakes and all.
On the plus side I can get some boat work done. The canard is about a week away from hitting the water as all I need now is some decent weather to lay on and cure the varnish.
My rigger has had some surgery and is recoveing well too !

Here is the Canard prior to varnishing the latest skins.

[ED66677]

Looks really good!

[Simon.O.]

Here it is finished.
It went in the water for the first time today. I use a common power setup for 4 of my hulls so it is easy to swap in a can / esc / 6-pack in there and 1 of 3 small octura props.
It hauls !!
Nose up and onto the plane nearly instantly.
As the sponsons are very similar to my rigger I expected it to get up and go, but this got up and went .......WELL !!!
The sponsons run about as dry as my rigger and the front step just kisses the water. This hull has all the lift I need and as yet no sign of blow over.

There was a lot of debris on the water today so I could only get short hops before something got fouled on the rudder or prop, I had already torn the tf off the hydro on a floating branch so I was a little cautious with this one as it was its first day out.

It looks real nice up on the step and turns like its on a tether, but it has one very interesting characteristic. The tail is very loose and there is a drift to the RIGHT !!
Now this can not be prop walk. The sponsons are paralell and all other dimensions are good.
There is no skeg on the strut and I believe this may be an issue. I know when I removed the skeg on my OB on the tunnel it was wild in the tail too.

I have a couple of old turn fins off my baby mono that I will temp fit to the transoms of the sponsons to see if this holds it a little straighter. I can then look at a skeg on the strut or even a fin on the rudder standoff in front of the rudder.
Anyone else have any handy tips for this one.

I am looking forward to tuning this one.

[Ocean Racer]

Sweet boat. How long did this boat take you to build?

[Avanti]

very nice, are you going to paint it or leave it natural?
where did you get the plans for the hull?

[Avanti]

Interesting build Simon, keep up the good work.

John, Herb will be racing with us this weekend, what about you??

Doug

Doug, sorry I just saw this

I would love to come to one of the SAW events when I have something worthy. I am working on a few boats, but nothing spectacular as of yet

[ED66677]

Congrats Simon, nioce to see that the work you did paid at the end!

[Simon.O.]

Sweet boat. How long did this boat take you to build?

Jay
Total project time has been about 6 weeks but real hours on the build would be about about 30-40 hours at a guess. I have had a few other projects on the go, there is the 29" 700 powered mono, my semi scale patrol boat that I started 25 years ago, fine tuning the rigger, repowering the tug, running all the boats at the pond, and then from time to time actually going to the station to do some work.

very nice, are you going to paint it or leave it natural?
where did you get the plans for the hull?

John
I have not painted any of these balsa boats yet as I am not a keen painter and have not really come up with a good idea for colours. I really like the way Darrin has a team look to his fleet and would like to do something similar to my boats. I really like the varnish so I would look to putting colour on 1/4 to 1/2 the surfaces only. If anyone does photoshop well go for it and make a suggestion.
Plans..................hmmm, now there is the problem. At the top of the page somewhere there are the photos of the card cutouts I made, that is about as close as there are to plans. The rest is scrawled on my bench and in my head.

Congrats Simon, nice to see that the work you did paid at the end!

Thank you, had a LOT of help from here, so all those who contributed to the canard and rigger design discussions I thank you all.

I just wonder how foils will go on a rigger

[G Doggett]

Great project Simon, keep thinking outside the box !

When you say ' drift to the right' do you mean the boat wants to turn right , or is the transom drifting to the right, ie boat turning left ?
If the boat tends to veer to the right because of prop walk I suggest you mount the rudder on the L/H side so that the drag from the rudder will help to offset prop walk.
I have found this works well on cats as they usually corner flat, so dont need to have the rudder on the right like a DV or mono.
Graham.

[Ocean Racer]

Thanks for the response Simon.