Short Boats
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Dutch Geezer
- Posts: 119
- Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 5:26 pm
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If you ask any of my customers you will find that if they have a particular colour in mind or a design DD will try their best to accomodate, at no extra charge.
We do have limitations though, we use epoxy gelcoat which very few other companies do, most use a polyester compatable gelcoat which is heavier. We use a 3mm nozzle to spray the gelcoat on and it is very thin, average weight of gelcoat about 500grams. This allows us to put more materials and resin into the construction, which we think is one of the best. We also publish our exact constructions and I will guarantee that if you were to take the boat apart, it would be as advertised, we dont hide glass between layers. We cant tape inside the mould as the release agent doesn't allow us to do it, hence DD boats tend to have fades and simple designs.
The stripe on the rear deck is a trademark of DD, funny a few others like to copy it now and again. main reason for it was at the Olympics and other International competitions where the logo has to be very small, you can still tell a DD boat by that design on the back deck.
Demo boats have to be sold eventually, so sticking to simple colours and designs makes it easier and the trademark still makes it easy to see its DD.
As to the seamless seams it is available as a free option. We do have a slight problem though and its of our own making. Because DD insist in using carbon kevlar sandwich layers between carbon on the top spec boats, when they are trimmed the kevlar fluffs and makes it very difficult to get the fine finish required for a good seamless tail. We are addressing this and are confident that our seams will be as good, if not better than any others on the market.
DD could have made a short Optima like some of the others, 8 months ago, we could have played safe and gone for a 3.65 or 3.8 but DD believed that if the rules said 3.5 then they wanted to prove that 3.5 was as fast and competitive as 4 metres. I think they have done that and learnt a lot about hull design in the process. The Scimitar was DD 2nd short design and it was to be as fast as possible, whilst keeping stability and maintaining turning ability. I liken it to the concept car which companies like Ford produce, very few ever make the production line in that guise but the good points are incorporated into a design which the public will accept. Now DD are into phase 3 when we should see all the lessons learnt over the past year being incorporated.
Will it just be a short Optima, no, will it turn like an Optima, yes, will it be faster than an Optima, yes. Will it be here before Xmas, yes.
Thank you to Guest and Unregistered for giving me the opportunity to clarify a few points.
Double Dutch want to design the slalom boat which sets the standard, if it were just about money, then they would have cut down the Optima and not bothered trying to develop new designs. So be patient, keep the faith, its coming.
:devil:
We do have limitations though, we use epoxy gelcoat which very few other companies do, most use a polyester compatable gelcoat which is heavier. We use a 3mm nozzle to spray the gelcoat on and it is very thin, average weight of gelcoat about 500grams. This allows us to put more materials and resin into the construction, which we think is one of the best. We also publish our exact constructions and I will guarantee that if you were to take the boat apart, it would be as advertised, we dont hide glass between layers. We cant tape inside the mould as the release agent doesn't allow us to do it, hence DD boats tend to have fades and simple designs.
The stripe on the rear deck is a trademark of DD, funny a few others like to copy it now and again. main reason for it was at the Olympics and other International competitions where the logo has to be very small, you can still tell a DD boat by that design on the back deck.
Demo boats have to be sold eventually, so sticking to simple colours and designs makes it easier and the trademark still makes it easy to see its DD.
As to the seamless seams it is available as a free option. We do have a slight problem though and its of our own making. Because DD insist in using carbon kevlar sandwich layers between carbon on the top spec boats, when they are trimmed the kevlar fluffs and makes it very difficult to get the fine finish required for a good seamless tail. We are addressing this and are confident that our seams will be as good, if not better than any others on the market.
DD could have made a short Optima like some of the others, 8 months ago, we could have played safe and gone for a 3.65 or 3.8 but DD believed that if the rules said 3.5 then they wanted to prove that 3.5 was as fast and competitive as 4 metres. I think they have done that and learnt a lot about hull design in the process. The Scimitar was DD 2nd short design and it was to be as fast as possible, whilst keeping stability and maintaining turning ability. I liken it to the concept car which companies like Ford produce, very few ever make the production line in that guise but the good points are incorporated into a design which the public will accept. Now DD are into phase 3 when we should see all the lessons learnt over the past year being incorporated.
Will it just be a short Optima, no, will it turn like an Optima, yes, will it be faster than an Optima, yes. Will it be here before Xmas, yes.
Thank you to Guest and Unregistered for giving me the opportunity to clarify a few points.
Double Dutch want to design the slalom boat which sets the standard, if it were just about money, then they would have cut down the Optima and not bothered trying to develop new designs. So be patient, keep the faith, its coming.
:devil:
Thanks Joe for a fun event and the generous donation of paddles etc. – just sorry we only won a CD!!
J ands H had a run each in the Vajda Tuscan and the Nomad force 365 large volume, which I gather will have the stern cut down in the final version.
J cut 3 seconds off his already decent run in the race and H cut 8 seconds off an ok run.
We can’t be sure if this is due to the shorter length or to the bigger volume, as they are both 10 kg too heavy for their Midas.
Certainly, though, the move from gate 1 to 2 was much easier in the short boats.
There was not much between the designs. They preferred the Vajda, but maybe that was because the Nomad seat was not fitted in firmly enough or because we have already ordered Vajdas. Considering it was me timing and the variability between runs on this difficult course, we would not want to make too much of any the differences. It is a pity H could not order a DD force 360 in the big volume - we would then have done proper tests over the winter. Bring on your new design and they’ll change later if it is better!
My impression is that the shorter boats will be easier to handle and narrow the gap between paddlers of different abilities.
My other thought is that Vajda have it right for the heavier paddler in having the cockpit relatively further back – this giving more volume to the bow to keep it above the waves. The Nomad seems to be a scaled down 4 m boat and fine for lighter paddlers.
I’d like to see some properly controlled tests results. We could do some comparisons with the Tuscan over a few training sessions if anyone wants to lend us a boat (for up to 13 stone paddlers) for testing.
J ands H had a run each in the Vajda Tuscan and the Nomad force 365 large volume, which I gather will have the stern cut down in the final version.
J cut 3 seconds off his already decent run in the race and H cut 8 seconds off an ok run.
We can’t be sure if this is due to the shorter length or to the bigger volume, as they are both 10 kg too heavy for their Midas.
Certainly, though, the move from gate 1 to 2 was much easier in the short boats.
There was not much between the designs. They preferred the Vajda, but maybe that was because the Nomad seat was not fitted in firmly enough or because we have already ordered Vajdas. Considering it was me timing and the variability between runs on this difficult course, we would not want to make too much of any the differences. It is a pity H could not order a DD force 360 in the big volume - we would then have done proper tests over the winter. Bring on your new design and they’ll change later if it is better!
My impression is that the shorter boats will be easier to handle and narrow the gap between paddlers of different abilities.
My other thought is that Vajda have it right for the heavier paddler in having the cockpit relatively further back – this giving more volume to the bow to keep it above the waves. The Nomad seems to be a scaled down 4 m boat and fine for lighter paddlers.
I’d like to see some properly controlled tests results. We could do some comparisons with the Tuscan over a few training sessions if anyone wants to lend us a boat (for up to 13 stone paddlers) for testing.
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guest
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Dutch Geezer
- Posts: 119
- Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 5:26 pm
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guest
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Dutch Geezer
- Posts: 119
- Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 5:26 pm
- Contact:
I have nothing to do with the names, I only sell them. A lot of thought goes into the names which doesn't always translate over to English as well as it could.
Huw Swetman tried the latest Scimitar 85 and seems to think its pretty good. I hope to have a demo here next weekend.
I'm also waiting on feedback from Sam Ouds new boat and we are looking at a further developement of the Scimitar, as well as the new C1 and the short C2 which has had positive feedback from the French who have tried it.
As an aside, anyone got any thoughts on new boat names, after all there are only so many fast animals, Energy forms, letters of the greek alphabet etc.
Huw Swetman tried the latest Scimitar 85 and seems to think its pretty good. I hope to have a demo here next weekend.
I'm also waiting on feedback from Sam Ouds new boat and we are looking at a further developement of the Scimitar, as well as the new C1 and the short C2 which has had positive feedback from the French who have tried it.
As an aside, anyone got any thoughts on new boat names, after all there are only so many fast animals, Energy forms, letters of the greek alphabet etc.
Regarding the boat shapes
I was personally disappointed when I saw the first DD boats, mostly because of the shape of the tail. Slalom boats have developed pointed ends, not by accident, but because it works. A tail similar to the Scimitar was tried about 20 years ago, on a boat whose name I can't remember, and it was generally disliked, because it was unpredictable on rough water. In those days it was called a beaver tail, and it may have been a bit broader than on the Scimitar, and as far as I know, it was never carried forward onto another boat.
I like the look of the Nomad and Vajda boats, but I think they might be a bit conservative. I am surprised that there isn't a short version of the Optima or the Precedence.
My go in the short DD C1 does show the way forward though. It wasn't as bad as some people have made out - it was certainly easy to use, and as Joe has said, I could comfortably make moves in it that I was missing in my own boat - and that was with just one run. Its weakness was when paddling forwards, when it seemed to be jumping all over the place. I think the Vajda boat was just too big for me, and I am looking forward to trying the new DD and the smaller Vajda boats when they get here.
As far as parting with my cash goes though, I think I will wait until I can pick one up second handd.
I was personally disappointed when I saw the first DD boats, mostly because of the shape of the tail. Slalom boats have developed pointed ends, not by accident, but because it works. A tail similar to the Scimitar was tried about 20 years ago, on a boat whose name I can't remember, and it was generally disliked, because it was unpredictable on rough water. In those days it was called a beaver tail, and it may have been a bit broader than on the Scimitar, and as far as I know, it was never carried forward onto another boat.
I like the look of the Nomad and Vajda boats, but I think they might be a bit conservative. I am surprised that there isn't a short version of the Optima or the Precedence.
My go in the short DD C1 does show the way forward though. It wasn't as bad as some people have made out - it was certainly easy to use, and as Joe has said, I could comfortably make moves in it that I was missing in my own boat - and that was with just one run. Its weakness was when paddling forwards, when it seemed to be jumping all over the place. I think the Vajda boat was just too big for me, and I am looking forward to trying the new DD and the smaller Vajda boats when they get here.
As far as parting with my cash goes though, I think I will wait until I can pick one up second handd.
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Dutch Geezer
- Posts: 119
- Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 5:26 pm
- Contact:
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Dutch Geezer
- Posts: 119
- Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 5:26 pm
- Contact:
Some more feedback from the weekend on the short designs.
Paul Ratcliff tried the Paradox, in his own words
" I have hardly paddled since July, got in the Paradox on friday and nailed everything, fantastic"
Han Biner the ROI coach has asked for more development on the Paradox, as he thinks it has great possibilities.
Anyone else tried it lately and willing to own up. :;):
Paul Ratcliff tried the Paradox, in his own words
" I have hardly paddled since July, got in the Paradox on friday and nailed everything, fantastic"
Han Biner the ROI coach has asked for more development on the Paradox, as he thinks it has great possibilities.
Anyone else tried it lately and willing to own up. :;):
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Dutch Geezer
- Posts: 119
- Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 5:26 pm
- Contact:
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mini c1