Here's a few shots of a beautiful - but still unfinished - piece of work... the Dragon. This version has a FizzKit sail engine inside. Now, what kind of sense does that make to the average virtual sailor? It is all about getting that sailing experience close to the real thing.
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| A Dragon-like Dragon |
First, it means the Dragon can be made to sail and behave like a real Dragon.Secondly, it means superb WWC support. That includes full support for wind, waves and currents, - with shifts, localization and variation. Thirdly, it means the boat has those key instruments built in, - compass, speed and wind indicator plus telltales...Finally it means the crew can trim and balance too. Someone can trim the main sheets, and someone else can trim the jib and the gennaker. Oh, and the sailshape can be trimmed too!! Flat sails for flat water and so on...
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| The builder, Victor Cruiser on the right |
The FizzKit is obviously a true sail simulator kit. It is designed to simulate anything from a foiling Moth, - over a planing Dinghy such as the International 14 footer, - to a traditional long keeled classic such as the Dragon. It is a massive piece of work. Several months of full time work actually. There might be small and unnoticable glitches, but it works great and the
Flying Fizz and the
Shelly Fizz are both very good examples of what is possible. However, even the Flying Fizz does not use all the features of the Fizzkit sail engine.
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| The real deal |
Since the FizzKit is so much about recreating the true and realistic sailing feel, here's a shot of a real Dragon. Note the slight difference in fullness on the bow. Apart from that tiny detail the hull of virtual Dragon looks pretty picture perfect. The sails still need some work, so I won't show them. Not just yet.
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| Imagine a fleet |
The sails are there, and they work. Absolutely. They just need a little adjustment before they look perfectly Dragonlike. I know Victor is fiddling with that. There's much to be done with sails. Shapes, telltales, luffing sales and also decicions about sail technology, - tweaking of the type of sailcloth used... Yes, the FizzKit supports different types of sailcloth as well as myriads of other boatly details...
Stay tuned for more on the Dragon... or click dragon right under here (category), if you must read more.
Looks very promising... Thanks for sharing this with us.
ReplyDeleteFrom the moment on when Victor handed me his first prototype (still on BBK and with holes in the hull) I was amazed and excited about the dragon. I never sailed on one in RL but I know it's a beautiful boat and a very nifty racer as well. Let's hope Victor will release it soon so we can race the crap out of this boat :)
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