Reflexed, Perplexed

 This is the most difficult idea to do so far.  No, the actual physical part of it is actually easy, it is the mind numbing, over stressing designing of it that is difficult.

The old, what if I get it wrong!  So what you see here is the fourth incarnation.  I have tried several ideas to pull off this Reflex Idea. Just as  refresher, a couple of posts ago I posted the Glenn Henderson short version of what a reflex is and what it does.  Chris Beckwith, the i550 designer also commented that he thought it was a great idea.

None of that helps with the stress of trying to get it right though.

What you see here is panels of 1/8" thick Divinycell H80 to form the basic shape of the Reflex.  I wanted to be sure that anyone who wants to could add a reflex if it worked well so using panels like this seems the easiest and very easy to duplicate. Divinycell is a dense core material that is still somewhat affordable.  There will be about $ 40.00 worth of foam used in this modification.  I also is very hard to sand so will work well for this application.

 I started from the transom and used a 12 inch stripe, followed by a 6 inch strip then 2 inches and finally 1 inch. This means I effectively added 1/2 inch to my freeboard, about a 1/2 inch to the beam at the chine. The effectual "sloop" will be from the rudder post to the transom.

The beam at the sheer is the issue.  If the beam is measured as a max beam, it is fine.  If the old current rules are used and the issue with the beam at the sheer at the transom is not corrected (technically, many boats may not pass the current rule due to the extended line rule 4.10 and a less than maximum dimension that is used.), then it will not pass the current rule.  Or it can, depending on how you measure  it.  I may have to reduce the thickness of the Reflex at least on the topsides to 3/8" of an inch rather than the 1/2".

This is all based on my old SR25.  The reflexis on the topsides as it is very effective upwind when the boat is heeled somewhat. The amount on the SR25 seems like it was about a 1/2 inch so that is what I tied to accomplish.

The next step will be to glue the foam in place, add fairing compound and start long boarding it into shape. When done, it will not be very noticeable at all.

Once these are glued and faired,  I can cut out the hull rectangles in the hull and the cockpit that will form the new rudder cassettes.  The hardest thing to figure out has been holding everything in place so that the angles stay correct and the hull bottom lines up the way it should. 

I just have to keep reminding myself that we built the thing so we can fix, redo, remove any modifications we may screw up or not like in the end.  Fun times ahead for sure!