WICE – a Wooden ICE

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With Roger Stollery’s carbon fibre ICE appearing at all the open events in increasing numbers, I wondered if it would be possible to make a wooden version.
At first I was told there were no drawings – only the moulds but after talking to  Roger he kindly sent me a copy of his workshop drawings. At first glance making a planked version looked virtually impossible. However after giving it some thought I decided if I concentrated on the wetted portion and made a caricature of the upper works it should look ICE like.

 One of the advantages of working with wood is that that it is easy to develop the design as you go along. So I could see how the hull looked and make the deck up as I went along. One of the trademark features is the concave stern, so somehow reproducing that was a must.

This is the first time I’ve tried to make a record of a build. Unfortunately I occasionally forgot so there are ‘jumps’. The build took two weeks. This is how it went.

Here are a couple of drawings with the details of how it was achieved

wice_drawings.pdf
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Initial trials in the canal seemed promising but at the first races (Birmingham Open) were disappointing. Comparison with carbon ICEs suggested that the WICE fin was raked back slightly and the centre of gravity was slightly aft.

Bulb was also thought to be a little light at 240gms.
A new 290gm bulb fitted slightly forward and batteries moved forward ( two groups of 2 AAA cells held with Velcro either side of the fin.
Sailing in July SMFL performance was much improved but I made too many mistakes at the helm for the results to show its true potential.