Phase 2 Design Study

I’ve shown the Cabrillo Skiff at a couple of well trafficked Internet boating Fora now (Boatdesign.net and Sailing Anarchy’s Dinghy Anarchy Forum) and have had a host of comments to digest. Along with those comments, I have cooked up a few changes of my own for the design. The boat shown in the following renderings represents the collected enhancements, if you will, for the Cabrillo Kid’s Skiff concept. 

I have widened the aft side decks just a bit. While the changes are not really very radical, they are wider. I figure that most of this will be addressed by each individual sailor as they tweak their boats to suit their own preferences. I’ll probably see a nice use of adhesive backed neoprene, or maybe even some color keyed, indoor/outdoor carpeting along the rails, as the boats are modified for best comfort and rail edge radius.

The forward deck has been raised, as have all the joining surfaces that relate to the foredeck height. All the primary curves, as well as the resulting swept surfaces have been checked for fairness, and develop-ability (nice word, huh?)

The new deck height does a bunch of things for the boat.

1. Water will be shed much easier

2. Forward areas of the boat will see enhanced buoyancy

3. Interior deck surfaces will have a slightly greater drainage angle for shipped water

4. The mast pocket is deeper, providing a much higher degree mechanical of support.

There is now a “Turbo” rig option for the Cabrillo, complete with a carbon bowsprit from a windsurf mast section, making it a pretty economical adaptation. The new, larger main is 80 sq. ft. with a spinnaker that is just under 60 sq. ft. in area. The larger main should provide a real power difference on a boat this size. The spinnaker is on the kinda tame side of the equation, as this is a training boat and its real mission is to give the new sailor the feel and handling issues of a faster skiff, while not making the ride so zany that it becomes a real problem. The transition should be comfortable and a fairly simple adjustment for the young sailor.

Save for the slightly scaled-down spinnaker, this rig is pretty much the same setup that I have used on a multihull trainer I designed, the SOLO12. I’ll provide a separate posting for the three boats in the Solo Trimaran series in the very near future.

The mast for the breathed-on Cabrillo is stiffened with shrouds, as well as the forestay holding the spinnaker. There is also an option to include trap wires for the kid who wishes to take things to the next level.

I figure that this boat will need to have a skipper of right around 140 lbs. to handle the Turbo version of the boat in 14 knots of breeze. That opens the potential sailing audience to a pretty wide bunch of people. I was asked some time ago just how much could the boat handle in weight. The answer is that the Cabrillo has been designed with displacement figure of 250 lbs. Remove the boat’s all-up weight and you’ll pretty much max-out at just over 150 lbs. for the crew.

All in all, the project looks like it’s just about ready to crank out some plan sheets, and get rolling on the build process of the first boat. I’ll probably have the hull panels cut on a CNC machine. I plan to offer the boat as a pre-cut plywood kit, complete with fiberglass cloth and all the small bits necessary to put the boat together. The kit purchaser will need to get the required epoxy/hardener from a local, or mail order supplier, as well as the sailing hardware, ropes, aluminum mast sections and the specified sail.

Chris Ostlind

Lunada Design