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« Last post by Tim Noyce on June 08, 2023, 08:17:21 AM »
Guys, I've not been on here for ages but as ex Badgers Owner I have a lot of the answers to your questions.
The pin was just an 8mm piece of stainless and it was drilled with a washer and a split ring at each end. The stock was essentially fixed and stayed on the boat and rarely taken off.
The gantry has always been fixed, and originally the mechanism was a worm gear / twist grip inside the stock itself. It was a very neat system designed by Richard Taylor. It worked ok, but it was quite time consuming to wind on and off as to make the ratio sufficient to be able to overcome the load, it meant that the pitch was such that it took a lot of twisting to go from one end of the range to the other. This stayed on the boat until we capsized once and came up and the whole thing had sunk to the bottom of the ocean (or was it Lake Bala, I lose track). After that, i looked at what could be done to make things 'easier'. I owned the boat, but was generally the crew at that stage and the feedback I got mostly was that the t-foil was tricky to operate. I went for a rope system so that the stock just hinged and there was a bungee to lift it into the raised position. The rope system was lead out to the racks and then it was a simple pull the rope to pull the foil on, and let it off to release. This was quicker and simpler... and also meant I could adjust it as the crew! Also, when s**t got real you could just uncleat it and you'd be back to a more neutral handling boat.
I've seen your other posts regarding the foils too... That t-foil was made in a female mould with gelcoat and carbon laid up from the inside. I broke so many of these foils over the years as we experimented with the layup and expanding foam but this one survived and we just kept using it. To me, it looks like the gelcoat has just flaked off. I would just use some filler and paint it. It's not structural at all.
The daggerboard was also made by me at a 'Sticky Weekend' we used it for a number of years and it was much improved over the original daggerboard that came with the boat. (these were also female moulded and we also broke countless of these) The board DID fit the hole in the boat, but obviously as it was made freehand from a cedar blank the fit compared to the case was never perfect. It relied a lot on having velcro in the back end of the case to ensure the board stayed far enough forward in the slot to not jam. There was a bit of a technique involved for it to work, but it was never really a problem. It looks to me as if since it left my ownership people have just attacked the foil to get it to fit, which essentially, was never going to work. In hindsight, I should have cut the case out and fitted a new one with that board when it was new... but I was time and money poor and I never bothered!
Did the boat not come with any covers? My wife Kate made some lovely covers for that boat and it looked incredible! Shame.
Feel free to ping any more questions. The boat had a bit of a chequered history as it was built as a budget production boat, but it was obviously a prototype which served its purpose very well... mostly destruction testing. Lots of bits fell off and then were reattached with adequate carbon. Lots of fun though and quick at times. I am sure that if I'd been 20kg lighter then it would have been even faster! ;-)
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