August 15, 2025Aug 15 I have recently taken up radio sailing. I did a 4 week course at Weecher radio sailing club learning to sail DF95s, I have since joined the club and MYA. I mentioned that I had the hull of a Marblehead yacht hanging in my garage and I was told to finish it and sail it. I bought it at a Car boot sail 15 years ago, spent a year on and off trying to identify it. Eventually I found out it is Genie by Vic Smeed. I got hold of the plans but work kept me away from home alone so nothing happened. In the last 2 weeks I have got the hull out, found the plans and I am now acquiring fittings and materials to complete it. I have hit a bit of a brickwall regarding mast heights and sail sizes. The plans are not the best reproduction especially in way of the mast and sail dimensions. Have any of you built one. I am hoping Frank Parsons at Nylet can give me luff dimensions for the 3 suits which will narrow down the mast height. Due to the bad quality reproduction I can only guesstimate the mast lengths to be 53 to 58 inches and the top section to be 23 to 28 inches. I intent to fit RC equipment rather than Vane gear. This is another area I will be asking questions about once I reach that point. Sorry to ramble on, hopefully there will be information from the vast collective tome of knowledge on this site Thanks in anticipation Graham Hunter
August 15, 2025Aug 15 The Vintage Model Yacht Group are also a good source of help and information on older models.
August 15, 2025Aug 15 Author Yes I am already trying that avenue but the search facility on their website does not work and l have sent an email but it has been rejected because the address is no longer valid, not much use there at the moment.
August 15, 2025Aug 15 Try emailing the Secretary, Mavis Paul, at: vmyg.secretary@gmail.com or Martin Bandey, the Chairman, at: Martinbandey@aol.com
August 15, 2025Aug 15 Author Thanks for that, email sent to Mavis on her new email address, so now I shall see what happens
August 16, 2025Aug 16 Graham, I'll be at Weecher racing tomorrow. If you bring the boat I'll give you all the help I can. Mast heights were pretty standard Rig A mainsail luff 80" Jib hoist 68" Rig B main72" Rig C main 65" Hope I can help See you tomorrow Derek
August 16, 2025Aug 16 Are you making the sails yourself or buying them? Marblehead rigs sort of design themselves because of the way the rules work. First thing to decide is the balance between main and jib areas. For a conventional rig this is usually about 60 / 40 (70 /30 for a swing rig). A rig should have the longest luff allowable (depends on you kicker arrangement - read the rules) and as said you take about 200mm of the luff for the B and 400 for the C. Obviously you want to maximise the 'free' areas of the roach and foot. Once you have the luff then you can calculate the foot to give the required area and the maximum 'free' cross widths then come from the rules. If you sail predominately inland you might want to increase the 3/4 width of the main by about 15mm or so and 1/2 by about 7 and hence reduce the foot to compensate. Jib is similar but you can play around with the luff length to some extent. It's tempting to go for a long luff (higher aspect ratio) but the rules force the foot to be too short for the 1/4 width (particularly for a swing ring) and you end up with too much roach to control properly. If you look on Frank Russell's site he gives dimensions for his Gothic design and Graham Bantock (Sailsetc) has quite a lot of information on his designs. Best idea is to create a spreadsheet so you can play around with the dimensions and then draw out likely candidates (I use a roll of lining paper - cheap)
August 16, 2025Aug 16 Author I will be at Burley classic car show tomorrow and the car park at Weecher may be a bit crowded. Eventually I will get sails from Nylet in Dacron to be in keeping with the age of the design. I want to build it to the original plans as closely as possible, fit RC gear, which is another topic to be addressed once I have got the dimensions for the mast sorted out and the rigging and fittings sorted. Already you both have given me clues and helped in narrowing down the mast height as per the plans, it look like the total height will be in the region of 107 to 109 inches the removable top section length is between 23 and 28 inches the reproduction on the plans is flaky in way of mast and sail dimensions. The dimensions you have give, again helps greatly. I have a big roll of pattern making paper so I can make some rough cut outs with the mainsail luff dimensions and see how it all sits Many thanks both of you.
August 16, 2025Aug 16 Graham, I have a copy of the Genie drawing but the area showing the sail plan is quite faint and the table showing the sail dimensions has a discrepancy with respect to the sail plan. Based on the table the sail dimensions (in inches) are as follows:- Suit Luff Leach Foot A 50.0 47.5 12.75 Jib B 45.0 42.0 14.0 C 37.0* 33.0 14.0 * This dimension is 39.0 on sail plan drawing A 75.5 76.5 13.2 Main B 59.5 61.5 17.0 C 48.0 50.5 17.0 Scaling from the drawing the main boom is approx 4.0 inches above the deck The main mast dimension is given as 56 inches, top mast for top suit, 26 inches. top mast for working suit 12.5 inches, smaller suits use main mast only. The mast head/jumper strut section is 2.5 inches long giving a maximum overall length of 84.5 inches. Scaling from the sail plan drawing the longest overall mast length is shown as 85 inches which is pretty close to the total of the individual sections. Regards, Gareth
August 16, 2025Aug 16 Author Your plan must be a bit better than mine, that is brilliant as you say 56 +26 + 0.5 + 2.5 = 85 including the 0.5 inch mast joiner 5 inches longer than a 2m length of 22g 0.5 inch aluminium tube. Now to measure 6 times before I cut, and the tube for the boom and jib has arrived so I can progress. Thanks fore the info, it is now written on the plans Graham
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