John Winters wrote: > > ... I saw my first "Swiss Rudder" back in the mid > sixties. The owner said, "Believe me it works." After a couple of races he > was back to his original rudder. The "Swiss Cheese" spinnaker also made a > comeback on the sixties after lying dormant for three or four decades. It > too disappeared or maybe they just made the holes too big. While you can make a rudder "holey" you can never make it "holy". With all of this talk about "swiss-cheese" rudders and sails, I am surprised that no one has hit upon the obvious. We all know that one component of hull drag comes from friction, which is a function of wetted surface area. So why not simply reduce the hull's wetted surface area by applying the swiss-cheese idea to hulls! Given John's comments above, you don't want to make the holes too big. I would recommend a half-inch forstner bit, with the drill set at low speed to avoid chipping the gel coat. If any brave soul is willing to try this out, make sure that you do a "before and after" speed test over a set distance, and report your results back to the list. Dan Hagen *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Oct 07 1999 - 09:42:20 PDT
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