February 2004

IN THIS ISSUE - For quick reference click on the links below
1.Whats happening at Tboats
-World Views
-Tboat range
-Sailing manual
2. Europe Visit - T680 update
3. Around the yards
4. Owner built technology
5.Design Developments

Design Pages Updated this Month
-Updated Tboat list
-T1020 OneDesign
-T780 canting keel
-T1080 Sport with canting keel

What’s happening at Tboats.

World Views
From New Zealand point of view the losing of the Americas cup to the Alinghi syndicate was a disaster of the biggest magnitude. We had worked so hard to gain the cup then keep it over the next few years it was indeed sad to see it go. The cup brought many benefits to new Zealanders and our economy. We ended up with a really neat waterfront café/bar area, a lot of credibility gained by NZ’s boatbuilders and a lot of fairly wealthy yachties.

From the selfish point of view of being a boat manufacturer I was pleased to see the cup go. It was a difficult time competing with the wealthy syndicates for labour to build boats, not to mention the US dollar was at a high against the NZ$ creating an artificially good market for NZ built boats in the USA.
How times have changed, the US dollar is at an unusual low against the NZ$ and the Americas cup has gone to Europe.
I believe there will be a real surge in yachting in general in Europe, mainly because of the Americas cup going there. We already see a lot more interest in our boats and that is a reflection of the progress sport boats have made there in the last few years.
Sport boats are the coming thing in Europe.
How times have changed, the US dollar is at an unusual low against the NZ$ and the Americas cup has gone to Europe.
There are a lot of New Zealand boatbuilders struggling for work so I have decided to centralise most of our manufacturing back in NZ again.
Part of the change around has been the development and interest in our OneDesign boats. This will form our manufacturing base in NZ.

Tboat Range
I have often been criticized for the large range of boat we have available and in an effort to simplify choices for our customers have defined three main areas of activity for our design and build.
1. OneDesign – Full production one design boats
2. Owner build – Designs that are available for owner construction with options to purchase components for these boats
3. Custom design and boats – Boats designed by us for a client that is either built by themselves or their boatbuilder.

This range of boats can be viewed at http://www.tboat.com/About_tboats.html


The new and larger OneDesign Tboats are a development of the concept used in the T870 and T980, a very good racing boat with a basic but comfortable interior. We have been pushing the design limits to maintain an easily built boat with a functional interior. The technology we are developing will allow us to bond in the interior with little or no other structural grid. This will provide a great looking and lightweight interior with more headroom because of the lower cabin sole.
This year we are introducing the T680, T770, T30, T1020 and the T1150 as the new range of OneDesign Tboats.
The new T680 will be a sparkling performer as will our T750 sport being built in Europe.
Due to the ever increasing demand for our Owner build boats we are increasingly developing our drawings and build methodology, refer below for more details.
We also have a number of new designs on the drawing board such as the new T780 canting keel boat and the new T16 pilothouse fast cruiser.


Sailing Manual
In process is a complete manual for the club sailor.
This manual will take the sailer through all aspects of sailing, boat preparation and tuning to help them get the best from their boats.
It will have work sections for covering the rigging adjustment and include sections on crew work and tasks on the boat broken down to each member so that it is easy to just point a new crew member to their relative page. The manual will be available to purchase direct from the web in sections or the complete book.
Each month I will be summarising the latest section in our newsletter.

Europe Visit - T680 update
I recently had the opportunity of spending some time in Europe and visited the factory in Turkey where the T680 is being built. Turkey was cooler than expected but that was overcome by the warm and friendly people wherever I went.

I was absolutely impressed by the finish of all the moudings. Murat Ucer and his team have done a great job to date. While the progress has been slow they say "good things take time" and this is true of the T680,
I had the opportunity of sitting on the deck plug and with Jan Myslik from Europe was able to fit the deck gear and get the feel of the boat.

I know designers are meant to say this, but I was totally impressed by the roomy and functional cockpit and the way the deck gear was laid out, one of the benefits of having a couple of prototypes sailing before having to commit to the final design.

One of the features of the boat is the under deck leading of the spinnaker sheet forward to the ratchet turning block and winch. The other feature is the spinnaker chute up forward.
We got to try one of the rigs out on the boat and it all looks very impressive.

This boat will certainly turn heads wherever it goes and will be a great performer on the water in true Tboat tradition

Latest delivery date of the first boat is mid March 2004, I cant wait!!!
Steve Thompson

Around the Yards
The new T1150 is nearing completion in Nevada USA by Jim Betts.
The structural work is complete with the deck bonded and painting continuing.
Launch date is nearing with the first serious racing to be the Pacific Cup from California to Hawaii two handed.
The T30 plugs have been started in Auckland, photos of this boat as soon as we have them.
Several owner build boats being built in Europe, Australia and the USA.

Owner build Technology
In response to the increased demand for our owner build boats we are developing our drawings and building methodology to further help our builders. We plan to make the full size frames packages available in Europe. This way we can supply a full frame pack direct. We have been developing our drawings and owner build technology to further help with the ease of construction.
Additionally we have been forming trade associations with suppliers of components for our boats to help with the cost and supply of materials and sails.
We are now able to offer at the very best rates sails, mast and rigging, construction material, cordage and deck gear packages.
Also we are involved in the manufacture and supply of very well priced and lightweight petrol driven sail drives specially made for our types of boats.
We intend releasing a CD that has all our build methodology with illustrations and video so that our builders can easily skip to the relevant section.

T750 wins NZ Sport boat Nationals
One of the orriginal T750's Atomic has just won the NZ Sport Boat Nationals beating all the latest new boat in a light air competition in Auckland.


Design Developments
The newest project on our drawing board is the T780 with a canting keel and forward cunard.
This is an exciting addition to our sport boat range and will be part of our owner build stable. The boat features an amazing stability curve for its size and yet has a reduction in weight from equivalent sized boats. The resistance to canting keel boats being dangerous if caught with the boat on its side and keel the wrong way is overcome using hydraulics with an electric remotely controlled pump. Allowing the keel to be moved in the most precarious positions.
Of interest also will be the new style of fast cruiser we are designing.
The first is a pilothouse type 18meter with good accommodation, lifting keel and water ballasted for fast day and ocean passages.
This will be a very simple but fast boat.
The second is the 15.5 meter racing yacht with family accommodation. This boat will be capable of winning yachting regattas and taking the family away on extended cruises.
We have been doing a lot of research and development on foils lately and have developed software to help analyse the total lift and drag of marine foils at different Reynolds numbers. From this we can better develop foil sections to suit our boats to greatly enhance the overall performance.

Happy sailing, Steve and the Tboat team