To install: Create an AS-29 folder in your Virtual Sailor/boats directory, and unzip all the included files into it. Done!
Phil Bolger
is arguably the most controversial boat designer today. Most of the excitement,
both pro and con, is generated by the boats we most associate with the
man... the designs with straight sides and flat, rockered bottoms. The
boats built with common, inexpensive materials, and sporting house paint
finishes.
The straight sides Bolger often employs elicit much commentary. He says
that they carry the beam down to the waterline... why not use the beam
for buoyancy from the start? Others insist that the beam at the deck be
wider than at the waterline, as though Bolger was using a waterline beam
at the deck. "Reserve buoyancy", they claim, is missing from the boat.
But one look at most Bolger designs would immediately belie this claim.
There is reserve buoyancy in abundance from the high volume of the topsides
and cabin.
"The boats are ugly", others say. Well, why wouldn't they seem so, at first
glance? Isn't a part of beauty spawned from familiarity? And these boats
are still unfamiliar, on most waters. But as Nietze stated, "The pretty
can never be beautiful, the ugly often is". Ugly as in, "that with substance".
These boats, with their true, purposeful form, may strike you hard, at
first, as ugly... but it's substance is enough to carry it, and win you
over. Once you understand, you may see the beauty.
I think of Frank Lloyd Wright when I see the AS-29, and many Bolger boats.
Wright saw new materials in new ways. He did not misuse modern technology
by mimicking the structures of the past, by using materials whose properties
begged to be used in new ways. Bolger, like Wright, sees a material's true
qualities ("qualities" as in positive properties), and how they will advance
boat design. He wouldn't, for instance, take plywood, cut it into strips
like spiled planks, and attempt to create a "classic" from the cut-up bits.
The broad expanses of the AS-29 are original on the earth. Airy, purposeful,
the AS-29 uses plywood to it's full advantage. In this wonderful boat,
function has actually wrestled the old form to the ground, and created
a new form of it's own.
The hull form of the AS-29 is essentially based on the sharpie, those flat
rockered bottom work boats often used in coastal and shallow waters. This
type has been popular with shell fisherman in the Chesapeake and Long Island
sound since the last century. The flat sides of the sharpie lend themselves
to plywood construction, and in the AS-29, those sides tower out of the
water. But watch the boat, heeled over, from below. The sides and bottom
carve a graceful and functional shape through the water at all angles of
heel.
The AS-29 has a dream list of specifications, rarely if ever found on a
cruiser of any length: One foot draft! Flat bottom (with twin bilge boards
raised), so the can sit on the mud of a tidal flat. Self righting, with
self draining cockpit and built in bridge deck. The masts can be lowered
by a boy to go under bridges, as they are counterweighted. Roomy interior,
and standing room in the galley. And the boat was designed to cross oceans...
it was originally intended as an OSTAR racer. So this is a boat you could
build in your backyard with simple tools, sail across the Atlantic and
back again, charge up the Chesapeake, glide under a 12' bridge, nose up
to a sandy bank, roll up your pants and step off the bow! It's big enough
to live in, and cheap enough to actually build. And to build it, you don't
have to loft it first.
As for this 3D simulated AS-29, I've tried to capture the feeling of the
original boat, but took some liberties with the interior. For instance,
I left out the companionway ladder and one cupboard so it was easier to
explore around in. I also chose to leave the soles at the approximate height
of the actual boat, rather than raise them to avoid the "flooding effect"
in Virtual Sailor. So if you explore the boat while under sail, you will
do so "knee deep" in the oceans, sloshing around you. This is a normal
eccentricity of the program, possibly because boat interiors where not
originally predicted by the designer.
This boat also features full running lights, "always on" low level cabin
lights, and a lit stove (boat alcohol stoves burn with a mostly blue flame).
To see these features, sail at night, and keep the "lights" feature off
(press "f7" until you're told, "lights off"). The boat also has moving
rudder and tiller, and a spinning prop (when the engine is run... "+" and
"-" keys). The outboard is loosely based on a British Seagull, but is larger
and more powerful than any they offer at 15 HP. A better choice for the
AS-29 would be one of the modern four stroke jobs with a separate gas tank,
but I like the Seagulls, and it ain't real anyway!
I have also included a panel for the boat, which will automatically override
the default VS panel when sailing the AS-29. However, it can also be used
with other sailboats of under 20 knots. Simply copy and paste the panels.bmp,
locked.bmp, and free.bmp files into the folder of the individual boat you
wish to use them with.
Do not copy them into
the "models" directory, or you may overwrite the default panels.
Thanks to Jeff Koppe, Matthew Sebring, and Daniel Polli for all their help
in learning the art of virtual sailboat design, and helping to troubleshoot
this boat. Thanks, of course, to Ilan Papini, for creating such a wonderful,
adaptable watercraft simulator.
The
files included in AS-29.zip are freeware, and may be distributed free of
charge as long as this file, and all other files included in the original
"zip" are included, and unaltered. 12/00.