Let ’em race!

Three hand-made wooden sailing barges are racing in front of our new building at Wright State Lake Campus. If all goes well, this can happen by the end of this sailing season (2009).

Three research opportunities

The engineering question is how to make a safe sailboat so cheaply and simply that almost any parent and child could put it together on a shoestring budget. An engineering task like this demands creativity, and also forces engineering compromises as performance is sacrificed to achieve simplicity of design.

So our physics question is this: What are consequences of these compromises? Hydrodynamics is a branch of physics that studies the motion of air and water. Both the engineering and physics aspects of this project are well suited to students in their first two years of college. The “low tech” nature of this investigation permits students to make those command decisions usually reserved only for the professor in charge.

The third question is social: Can a viable boatbuilding and racing group exist on a campus like this? All three questions are open and largely uncharted.

Physics and Engineering Issues

How do barges handle when close-hauled against the wind? Do they fail to develop a weather helm when heeled, as our preliminary experiments suggest? Do barges excessively “crab”, and if so, why? How does “broadseaming” affect sail performance? What is the enhanced turbulence associated with discontinuity in the slope of the bottom? How do incoming waves “stop” a moving barge? These physics questions can be investigated using scale models and perhaps hydrodynamic codes.

There are even more engineering issues: What is the most efficient sail for polytarp, which is known to wrinkle and stretch? Can a structure be fitted at the bow to inhibit pounding and spitting? What is the best way to give the barge sufficient strength and stiffness? How should the surfaces of wooden barges be protected? Can these two-person barges be fitted with multiple sails and masts? Can they be adopted for rough seas and high winds? Can the design be scaled up to make a coastal cruiser?

Funding

We need between $500 and $1000 to construct three barges … perhaps a wee bit more. So far two mechanisms to raise these funds are in place:

Free coffee is available in the physics room whenever students are not taking a test or listening attentively to a lecture. To avoid the specter of a professor glaring at students drinking coffee without sufficient tipping, the tip “box” will be placed in the library. The coffee will remain free as long as the tips significantly amplify the cost of the donated coffee. Tip generously if you can afford it, since some students can’t, and since 15% of the tips will be donated to “Big Brother – Big Sister”.

Reproductions of Lydia Bachochin’s drawing will be sold, and eventually her original will be auctioned to the highest bidder. The detail of this 8 by 11 inch pencil drawing can be seen by examining the “Large Image” on Vandegrift’s WSU website (Google home boatbuilding ideas).

Lydia’s work is not only impressive in its own right, but in the unlikely event that this effort manages to significantly alter the cultural landscape of Grand Lake, the value of her drawing will greatly appreciate. Lydia has reluctantly agreed to accept a 15% commission on the sale of her artwork. (Her original asking price was 26 cents.)