by AJ Moritz » Wed Jan 14, 2004 7:55 pm
Judd,
The Dumus - Heritage 12 (EC-12) can be a very competitive boat as like any other National Championship caliber EC-12 if she built correctly. Can not stress the meaning of OPTIMIZED enough in this regard. The key is to build the boat optimizing the deck, fittings and rig for the lightest configuration possible. This would be paramount with the Dumus! Because of the Dumus’s narrower and shorter keel area, she needs to have as much lead as possible to fill the keel cavity. This of course is insuring that she floats on the legal water line as prescribed in the Class Rules.
A skipper-builder can set-up or configure EC-12 for what conditions it will be sailing in. I.e, EC-12 skippers in Tucson AZ or in a desert type climate would be best served to configure their EC-12 for light-air. The Dumus is a great light air boat due to her narrower and shorter shoal-draft keel. Again, with a light-weight deck - "balsa core laminated deck", fittings and an optimized rig installed, the weight savings would be then transferred down low into her keel. This will pay in dividends on race day! She will perform a lot better going up wind and allow a much improved righting-moment which means she would be stiffer up-wind rather than to tender which allows for to much leaning over. Her waterline should be slightly over 42.5" when configure the weight of the lead ballast. If your Dumus is built with maximizing weight savings above the water line and aloft, she will perform well. Obviously there are other factors that goes into building a well balanced-competitive EC-12.
The BIG Question that you may need to address to our new Class Secretary - Rick West is rather or not the Dumas hull is Class-legal. You may not be aware of some changes in regards to a newer version of the class legal hull (mold) manufactured by Class approved manufactures. The new hull design was introduced in the late ‘90s so that all newly purchased hulls are from the same Class-controlled mold and all new hulls are the same. If you look at the History of the EC-12 Class with its array of slightly different hull configurations, you will you would better understand that it was a mix bag of hull shapes which counteracts the sprit of a one-design class. Dumus is on one end of the design spectrum where other mfrs. were offering their own EC-12 hull version that by in large were faily close to the now class std hull.
In the early to mid 90s, the class concluded that something would have to be done in order to instill conformity through out all manufactured hulls. This new endeavor was called "the 95 Std hull" which today, all approved hull manufactures must comply to…. Dumus is an exception to the 95 std hull & Class Rule of approved mfrs. In other words, Dumus had not complied with the new class std hull shape by going through a re-certification process using the class-controlled mold.. Thus it may not be legal. If you were to purchase an existing (already class registered) Dumus EC-12, she would be grandfathered into the Class which as I understand it, is acceptable.
I hope this helps!