The Flying Fifteen Blog

Ivan on the Carbon…..

flyingfifteen — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:03:39 +0000

Happy to back Phil on this one, having laid up the 15 laminates myself, I suspect for the first boat the carbon skin was added after the hull had been laminated conventionally, meaning the laminate needed wetting out afresh. With a conventional inner laminate I would be expecting to use about 9kg of resin, hence the weight gain.Once Ovi’s were content with this technique the carbon may well have have been laminated at the same time as the rest of the inner skin making for little weight gain.
One of the advantages of carbon in my experience is that it takes up less resin for a given strength.

Ivan Coryn

Fly Away Pole Fans… Seen This??

flyingfifteen — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:54:20 +0000

I must admit that we’ve tried fly away poles on two of our Fifteens and not got on with them. Charles is dead keen, so it must be us obviously…!!

Aside from the details, I just don’t like kit in the boat that is not symmetrical. Then along comes P&B with this – the twin spiro …. one for each side !! Click here to see it.

You can see the twinspinno in action on this video – which is a really nice promotional idea from P&B.

The Datchet Chandlery – FF Update….

flyingfifteen — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:03:06 +0000

The Datchet Club has the good fortune to have an onsite chandlery run by Purple Marine. We mentioned recently that Phil Tinsley has been working with them to start to stock FF specific accessories and products.

They’ve made a start apparently – and have off the shelf FF split tail mainsheets, spinnaker sheets and jib sheets. It’s really good that they are showing interest in our class. Lets see if we can keep them involved !!!

FF4000 Coming Up….!!

flyingfifteen — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:24:50 +0000

As I write (17th Feb) I think the latest sail number issued is 3993.

Ovington’s build programs are usually in batches of five, I believe. So we are within stone’s throw of FF4000.

So what kind of fuss do we want to make?? A good chance for publicity, or am I just too FF biased?? Maybe the rest of the world won’t care? Well, I should think that no other keelboat in the World has ever come close to this….. it is modest by the numbers in some dinghy classes, but the absolute number and relatively constant build rate says something about:-

Class Health and Popularity
Longeveity and Value Retention
Amounts of money invested in our Class
The Class survives and prospers despite occasional incursions from Laser and RS, which just come and go

So what happens as FFI approaches the issuance of 4000….? Will new sales stop soon because anyone who should want 3998 or 3999 would want to delay for 4000+ to arrive? If we were Laser or RS, who never seem to start a new class counting at zero any more…. we would simply abandon the idea of ever issuing 3994-3999 and simply issue 4000 and upwards tomorrow. Well, I think the smart people in FFI have a little plan laid to get us past that little knot hole….. We’ll see. Watch this space…

Datchet Racing – Sunday 19th February….

flyingfifteen — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:09:39 +0000

Brilliant Racing at Datchet today – ten teams competing, fabulous conditions and excellent breeze!!

Click here to read the race report and chit chat …..

Largs Championships – First Details !!….

flyingfifteen — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:21:36 +0000

The first details for Largs this summer have arrived. Looks good! Click here to download for a read….

We’ve also put a permanent link to this information in the “Useful Links” list on the right hand side of the FF Blog homepage.

Datchet Winter Warm Up tomorrow – Charles is looking for a Crew…..

flyingfifteen — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 13:29:14 +0000

Charles Apthorp needs a crew tomorrow for the morning racing at Datchet.

First gun is at 1025hrs. Contact Charles direct – if you don’t have his number ping me an email on

datchetman@flyingfifteen.com

Another Comment on the Carbon FF…

flyingfifteen — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 09:04:13 +0000

They could be even lighter if you go to unidirectional carbon. Higher labour costs though as you have to effectively lay up the boat at least twice…