Re: sailboats

Posted by Mark Camp on Feb 17, 2005

I'm off topic a bit, but I was interested in your comment that glass Lightning's race better than wooden ones.

Is this unique to Lightnings?

It struck me as odd, though I admit I am ignorant of the subject, have never raced. But previously I was of the impression that small wooden one-design racing sailboats tended to beat glass ones, all other factors being equal.

A friend who was a very competitive one-design racer (but not of Lightnings) told me that wooden builds had replaced glass, as racers learned that (for that class) they were faster.

The reason was simple. A light, stiff structure is usually critical to racing small one-design sailboats. In fact, glass/polyester has been replaced by glass/epoxy for high-performance craft not only because the initial stiffness/weight ratio is higher for epoxy, but because repeated flexing causes polyester/glass to develop micro-cracks much faster. As a result, the stiffness of the glass/polyester racing boat declines with age fast enough that racers can detect the decreased performance.

Wood has a higher stiffness to weight ratio than fiberglass laminate, and as a result, generally outperforms the latter (all things being equal, which they never are of course.)

In Response to: Re: sailboats by c. mac neill on Feb 17, 2005

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