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Check Me On This, Please?

7K views 54 replies 14 participants last post by  sailingfool 
#1 ·
Last Saturday's race, 15-25 knot winds, 25-30 knot gusts (depending on who you believe): The Admiral had to point up high enough to cause the sails to be on the verge of luffing to keep her on her feet. Otherwise the rail would've been in the water all the time.

We had a reef in the main (only one reef point) and were flying only a #3.

Causes (I think): The #3 is old. 31 years old. I suspect it's a bit blown. (Tho not as badly as the old main and the old #1.) The backstay adjuster is toast, and the backstay tension is currently more suitable for anything from a beam reach to a run, rather than close-hauled. I had trouble convincing the guy on the mainsheet to trim the sheet in hard, and use the traveler to adjust the boom position. The main's top batten was missing.

Solutions (I think): A proper #3. (Actually, I suspect we could've benefitted from a #2, if all else was right.) Tighten-down on the backstay. This would've flattened both the jib and the main, depowering both a bit. Mainsheet trimmed all the way in, and the traveler let off to leeward. And, of course, all the battens in the mainsail :p. Oh, and more meat on the rail. (Tho human ballast presents its own issues--like the time, on another boat, where one such crew-member wasn't fast enough, chose his hand-holds poorly, and came this >< far from ending-up in the drink.)

Right? Wrong? Anything else?

Thanks,
Jim
 
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#3 ·
Something else, perhaps. I don't know your mainsail area, boat performance. Could you get hull speed and point high enough to make the mark on just the main (unreefed)?
Sail plan calls for 198 sq. ft. Dunno about the unreefed main alone in that air. Wouldn't an unreefed main in that kind of air give you one heckuva weather helm? We'll have to try that sometime. Hull speed is 6.7 kts (theoretical, simple equation). As it was: We were occasionally hitting 6 kts, but were down around 4-1/2 to 5 most of the time.

During that same race: Were doing well over 7 kts, a couple of times hitting 8, on a beam reach.

What were similar boats (the ones that were ahead of you, going faster, hint, hint) doing?
Couldn't tell you. We got a late start (see my "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" thread in General Discussion).

Jim
 
#4 · (Edited)
Wouldn't an unreefed main in that kind of air give you one heckuva weather helm?
No. The weather helm comes from the degree of heel and amount of force on the sail(s). If you were flying the main only, you would probably not have heeled as much, but you probably wouldn't have been able to get as close to the wind (depending on the design of your rig and the aspect ratio of your main of course).

Hard to say without being there but generally, when you are racing in heavy weather you want a big crew - think five or six people on a 27 footer. You're going to need to let the mainsheet fly somewhat during the gusts and sheet her in quickly, but smoothly, hence that's one crew person's job, and if they're not in really great shape - you're going to have to swap them out every half hour or so.

Ditto the jib if you're flying a big one - although you're not going to be playing it as much. General rule of thumb. Set your lay line (course) to the mark and then trim the sails to get max speed on your course. When you get gusts you fly (loosen the sheets of) the main and the genny enough so that the boat does not veer off course, but maintains her heading. Every time you move that rudder away from the centreline of the boat, you are exerting a slight braking force on the forward motion. Avoid it. It has a much greater effect on your speed than you might think.

Use lots of crew and balance the boat with the sails (smooth and steady movements - not jerking the boom in and out)so that you can maintain course without the boat over on her ear. Better to let the main out a bit further than might seem optimal if it means you're going to sail flatter. You lose a lot of speed heeling excessively.

Also - if you are racing reefed, spend a lot of time wrapping up the reefed portion of the sail. Tuck it snugly along the boom, nice and smooth so that it's not catching wind or flapping. It plays havoc with your airflow over the sail.

Good Luck !
 
#5 ·
More sheet/vang on the main and the traveller eased off would likely have helped quite a bit... you could well be right that the #3 is in rough shape, too round an entry and therefore quick to luff as the boat is pinched up (try the jib car a hole or two aft to flatten the foot and let some upper leech twist away to depower.)

Finding that "groove" where you have drive without excessive heeling is a challenge in the heavier going, and especially so if the wind is shifty as well.

The good news is that if you are alert and ready for the gusts, the heading up that you do can chew up some distance to weather up the course and give you an overall better VMG. (we used to call this "survival pinching" - keep the boat on its feet, and after a few puffs find yourself an extra boatlength to weather on your nearest competitor)

The danger is pinching too hard, slowing down and possibly getting caught backwinded on the next shift (and/or doing an "autotack" - hove-to). Like everything about sailing, it's all about compromise and balance.
 
#6 ·
I'm a believer in keeping two sails up on a sloop rig, if you're trying to get above a reach. Small jib, small main keeps things balanced. Large main, no jib, won't give you enough power, and jib alone won't point and gives you lee helm. Beam reach or lower, one sail's okay.

Also, with just main alone in a screecher, it's too easy to get in irons and much harder to get out. That's when you're grateful for the jib.

In the "old days", a storm trysail and storm jib was sometimes called, "a tablecloth and a handkerchief". Not for racing with really, but comfortable and well-balanced. And back then lots of boats didn't have reefing, you'd sail with the jib sort of full, and forward half (or more) of the main luffing. The phrase was (is?), "sailing on jib and battens", or sometimes, "fisherman's reef".

You want your heavy-air sails to be pretty flat, and heavy sailcloth. You can't always achieve that by just roller furling a medium-air genny, nor reefing an everyday mainsail, though with jiffy-reefing you can get it pretty flat. Storm sails need to stand up to a lot of rough use when luffing.
 
#7 ·
You have it fairly right. A bit of backwinding the main is ok. If you keep the jib in tight that is your main source of power.
However the boat will sail better not heavily heeled.
Say the wind was actually 20 that gives you close to 25 upwind. Gusts usually add up to 50%.
Your sail plan in standard sails ie jib and full main is optimised for about 15-17 knots. The force is windspeed squared ie say 256/625 =.4. That is you need 40% of the sail area, assuming you cater for gusts in other ways.
Essentially you were overcanvassed made worse by sails that are probably blown out ie too full.
You are correct that main alone going to windward will give you weather helm. Although it is influenced by hull shape it is mainly due to the balance of sail area fore and aft of the centre of lateral resistance ie the turning point of the hull.
You may be able to get the sails recut but the cloth is probably stretched so at best they would be cruising spares.
You probably need a wind gauge so you know the windspeed fairly accurately.
 
#8 ·
A couple things no-one mentioned (I think)

Cunningham - if you don't mind ugly you can get a pretty good shaped main by attatching something to the second reef point near the mast and hauling down till the draft moves to the right place (forward/flat as possible to depower).

I prefer to work the traveller in gusts instead of the sheet, depends of course on how easy it is to work the traveller. IMHO the traveller is where it's all at in heavy weather after you get the main as flat and tight as possible ( sheet + vang + cunningham ).
 
#9 ·
Replying to everybody in one go...

Sailormann,

Comments noted. Crew is ever a problem--particularly experienced crew. We did note a lot of the boats out there that day did have a lot of meat on the rail. Boats not much bigger than ours had 6-10 people out there.

Faster,

We have two jib car tracks, both mounted on the toe rail: The one to aft is longer. I left the cars on that and moved them all the way forward. Even all the way forward, that car was way aft of the clew. I doubt moving it any further aft would have accomplished much. (But putting a car on the forward track and rigging a second, temporary sheet on the run might've improved that. Didn't think about that at the time. Oh well, next time :).)

nolatom,

Comments noted.

chris_ghee,

The main is a new-ish Dacron main. (The experienced sailor who helped us bend it on the first time remarked "This sail looks like it's hardly been used.") I asked the PO, and he used to bend it on only for racing. Otherwise he'd put the old, original Dacron main back on. Same with the foresails. However, he never replaced/upgraded the #3 and he never obtained a #2. There is another set of sails for the boat, that one of his crew made for her. A main, #1 and #3. The main and #3 I think are Kevlar, IIRC, and the #3 Pentex. We're waiting to hear back on what the guy wants for them. (Around the club they're telling us we should be able to get 'em for a song, as there's a limited market for them.)

In addition to the new main, the boat came with new, or nearly new, light and heavy #1's. The light #1 is Mylar and the heavy #1 is Kevlar. The PO said the former is usable up to about 12 kts and to use the latter above that.

I'm kinda half thinking it might make sense to obtain the Pentex #3 and have the heavy #1 re-cut to a #2 (probably 135%).

Your comments, re: main alone, were what I was thinking of when I replied to CapnHand.

Would love to have a wind gauge. But: 1. They're expensive. 2. From the comments I've seen in the thread I started in Gear & Maintenance, Alas, poor Wind Indicator, it seems the electronic wind instruments aren't very reliable, and are often inaccurate.

tenuki,

Don't have a Cunningham yet. It's On The List :). We have a Harken windward traveler system for the main. It's only that we have to become more adept at getting the mainsheet and traveler right for each tack under different conditions.

Thanks for your comments, everybody.

Jim
 
#17 ·
Inboard Tracks

Replying to everybody in one go...

....We have two jib car tracks, both mounted on the toe rail: The one to aft is longer. I left the cars on that and moved them all the way forward. Even all the way forward, that car was way aft of the clew.
Sounds like you do not have an inboard jib track. Is that correct? If so, install an inboard track (close to the cabin side) - being able to trim inboard versus to the rail gives you a free pointing improvement of perhaps 5 degrees, worth more than any of the other changes you could make, and works with any jib. I would not think a P30 could perform close to its rating without inboard tracks. It would be a real conundrum for a PO to buy racing sails but not use inboard sheeting...
You should ensure you know how to determine proper jib block positioning, there have been a few threads on this subject in the past month.
 
#11 ·
Cunningham is the easiest sail control to rig usually, all you need is about 6+ feet of line and the ability to cleat it off.
I think that depends on how much canvas you're carrying and the conditions under which you're trying to use it. For example: On the J36 upon which we crewed at the tail-end of the summer series the Cunningham was a small tackle system with, IIRC, 6:1 purchase. That boat carries one heckuva big mainsail.

I wonder, though: If the halyard is good and tight, why a Cunningham actually does anything?

Jim
 
#16 ·
Being as MY boat was the one tenuki was on. We also were reefed. BUT, the way my main comes down, the first luff reef is above the boom a bit, vs the rest being level. So we attached a line to the 2nd reef grommet, pulled it down, and the luff was straighted out. We also had the halyard up as tight as it would go. We did a make shift cunningham if you will. It worked well vs 2 wks ago with slightly stronger winds, no cunningham, and a worst reefing job too. I had a lot less weather helm sunday than 2 weeks ago.

Marty
 
#18 ·
I congratulate and commend you for going out and racing last weekend! You have turned a corner. Not only did you go out in snotty conditions that previously would have kept you tied up at the dock, but you are now looking for techniques to improve your skill set rather than writing off the whole experience as an exercise in survival. Bravo for you!

There has been a fair amount of good advice on this thread and certainly there have been numerous books written on the subject of sail trim. What follows are some thoughts and ideas that works for me and my Catalina 34. I sail in S.F. Bay where winds 20-30kts are the norm during much of our sailing season. Others may disagree, but these techniques helped me win my national championship in 2002. Most notably when we adjusted better than the others for higher winds building up during the crucial third race.

Both sails will offer you a better balanced sail plan. Furling one or the other is going to change your center of effort away from CG. You can certainly sail that way, but the boat can behave better if you make it balanced. Think of both of your sails combined as one gigantic wing - trim the whole wing, just don't chop one part off. Old sails are baggy and will bag even more so in strong winds. I'd replace them if the opportunity presents itself. Arimids and Pentex are stronger and less stretchy with the added benefit of being much lighter ("a pound aloft is worth ten pounds on deck"). Dacron halyards and sheets also stretch. For example, we run T-900 and Spectra instead of Dacron. Don't worry about not having anemometer, there are plenty of ways that your boat will tell you how strong the wind is and what you should do. Remember that in strong winds, there is more air blowing by your boat than your sails can convert to forward speed so your goal in trimming is to make them as flat as possible, allowing them to shed the portion of wind that is making you heel over on your ear while converting the rest into the best possible boat speed for the conditions.

Sail selection: Some people say that they can carry a 155 in 25kts of true wind. I'm not one of them. I have multiple sails all designed to be optimized at a certain wind speeds. These are your tools. You need to go out and find out which combination works best for you. Generally speaking, a large jib goes best with a large main. Small jibs will work better with a reefed main than a big one. Experiment, try different things. Our rules on sail selection are flexible, but we do have rules.

Working from the bow aft: You want lots of halyard tension (remember that it will creep over the course of the race). Over tension is when you see a vertical wrinkle along the luff. Once this is set, you can fine tune the tension using your draft stripe(s). Normally you want power, but today you want to bleed it off. Move the fair leads aft. This twists off the head and bleeds air. Normally you want the jib sheeted in closest to the boat's centerline. But if you absolutely need to open up the slot between the jib and main (best for reaches, not so good for beating). Move the jib sheet to the outside track. We will clip in the spinnaker guy to the jib and trim that as the sheet rather than physically moving the jib sheet around. Think of both sails as one gigantic wing. Trim for the aft portion of the main. Don't stress if you see a "bubble" develop in the luff region that is just excess air in the slot compressing on the main. The "lifting" air off the outside of the jib is "connecting" with the air on the back of the main which is giving you the lift. On our mast head boats, the backstay tensioner really doesn't bend the mast back. It is really there for taking the "sag" out of the headstay. In strong winds the helmsman will notice that the headstay will bow out or "sag" to leeward in relation to the straight mast. Use the tensioner to move it back. Fix your tensioner if it currently doesn't do its job.

Like the jib, for the main, you want lots of tension on both the halyard and outhaul. Same wrinkle and draft stripe rules apply. Note that the main halyard is more effective in keeping the top part of the sail tensioned and flat (lots of friction on those sail slugs!) The Cunningham is used to put tension on the lower luff and because it is offset, it will also flatten the bottom better. A flattener (a cringle like the Cunningham on the leech) will flatten the lower aft portion of the sail. These controls go away once the first reef is set. After reefing, you still want maximum tension on the luff and you want the new toe and clew to be on the boom. A clew lifting off of the boom puts belly in the main so I use a piece of spectra webbing (with Velcro) to help hold the clew on the boom. I use "maximum" mainsheet tension and adjust the angle of attack with my traveler. Use maximum vang tension too, so if you "blow" the mainsheet, the boom will stay low and the sail flat. Moving the traveler to leeward will twist off the top of the main and will relieve the heel. My other indicator is I don't want any more than 5-10 degrees of weather helm. Speaking of which, if you have done all these adjustments, there shouldn't bee much weather helm to speak of.

Driving: When in a beat, feather! That is steer up in puffs and down in lulls. A gust will move the apparent wind aft so take advantage of it! If the rudder is loaded up with weather helm, the driver doesn't have the opportunity to "drive up" in puffs. So racing in heavy wind is at cross purposes. You want to power up the sails so you can accelerate and go fast, but heeling over on your ear is way slow. Find some rail crew! It is amazing what even one or two people will do on the rail. Once we're set on a course, I have all but one person go to the rail. That remaining person does all my fine tune trim adjustments. Even I, as helmsman, will sit and drive from the high side (40 inch destroyer wheel has its advantages!) One of the "rail crew" has the responsibility of blowing the traveler if we get knocked with a really big gust. In fact, Freya is set up for cross sheeting so when we're double handing, everybody can sit on the high side!

All of a sudden, this is starting to look too complicated like a golf swing (and I probably forgot a half dozen things too!) Don't worry about not getting everything all at once. Keep working at it and before too long you'll bee looking forward to windier races as you will be the one with all the tricks up your sleeve.
 
#22 ·
I congratulate and commend you for going out and racing last weekend! You have turned a corner. Not only did you go out in snotty conditions that previously would have kept you tied up at the dock, but you are now looking for techniques to improve your skill set rather than writing off the whole experience as an exercise in survival. Bravo for you!
Thanks for the kind words, George :).

I once read that even cruisers should race, as racing teaches skills that may make a critical difference when the chips down. Now I know, first-hand, what is meant by that.

Both sails will offer you a better balanced sail plan.
That was my understanding.

Old sails are baggy and will bag even more so in strong winds. I'd replace them if the opportunity presents itself. Arimids and Pentex are stronger and less stretchy with the added benefit of being much lighter ("a pound aloft is worth ten pounds on deck").
We have new for everything but the #3. And we might be able to get a good deal on a Pentex #3.

Dacron halyards and sheets also stretch. For example, we run T-900 and Spectra instead of Dacron.
The skipper of the J36 we've crewed on suggested we replace the main halyard with something he called "12-strand." Less stretchy. He offered to put the shackle on for us :).

Don't worry about not having anemometer, there are plenty of ways that your boat will tell you how strong the wind is and what you should do.
Oh, I'm not worried about it, I just think it'd be a cool thing to have.

Remember that in strong winds, there is more air blowing by your boat than your sails can convert to forward speed so your goal in trimming is to make them as flat as possible, allowing them to shed the portion of wind that is making you heel over on your ear while converting the rest into the best possible boat speed for the conditions.
Yup. Knew that. Just trying to figure out what I could have done to bleed-off a bit more.

Sail selection: Some people say that they can carry a 155 in 25kts of true wind. I'm not one of them. I have multiple sails all designed to be optimized at a certain wind speeds.
The PO of our boat was one of those who would fly a 155 in 25 kt winds. He insists she'll handle it with panache. I dunno. As I noted earlier: I'm thinking if we could pick up that Pentex #3, then maybe have the heavy 155 cut down to 135... My thinking is that the light #1 is good only to 12 kts. Above that we could fly the #2 with a full main, up to probably somewhere around 17-20 kts. Then reef and we ought to be good up to 25 kts or so before we have to think about the #3.

Move the jib sheet to the outside track.
We have only outside tracks. A short one up around the beam, a longer one aft of the beam that reaches back to the beginning of the cockpit area.

Fix your tensioner if it currently doesn't do its job.
The tensioner is currently out-of-commission, unfortunately. We really could've used it Saturday.

A clew lifting off of the boom puts belly in the main so I use a piece of spectra webbing (with Velcro) to help hold the clew on the boom.
Ah! Yes, the clew was lifted off the boom. I knew that was an issue, but didn't know how to fix it. Now I know. I'll have to get me something I can easily put thru the clew to pull it down.

All of a sudden, this is starting to look too complicated ...
Not at all, George. Once you understand what each of the individual bits do, how they interact, what effect they have on sail shape, what sail shape means wrt the way the wind acts on them, the concept of CE, etc., it's really not so bad. Now, being in a race and remembering all of it at the time, and on time, that's probably going to take a while :).

I didn't address all of your comments, but I certainly read them. I think I'm going to print them and stick that in my copy of Sail and Rig Tuning. Thanks for taking the time to comment so extensively and in such detail.

Jim
 
#19 ·
Hmm... Maybe you guys were just pinching a bit too much. If the rail dips in the water a bit it should not be a big problem while going upwind in a race, what is the heel angle on your boat when the rail touches the water? I'd say maybe 30 degrees? Of course you will need to round up if the wind gusts; (and/or ease the traveler). One thing you also need to realize is that helming the boat involves bearing off a bit to get the boat moving and then once she is up to speed you can point higher and keep the speed while reducing heel. It's kind of like riding a bike; there is a controlled stability and if you can't achieve the balance you won't be able to go at optimal speed. Also, when you reach hull speed the wake should create a small pocket that the boat sinks into and the water along the rail will flow along the curvature of the hull. You might actually be heeled more than when the rail dips in and you have lower boat speed.

I think you need a little more time practicing and learning what makes your boat sail fast before trying to put it all together to be competetive on the race course. It never hurts to beercan while learning but don't put too much emphasis on getting optimal performance yet. "You know enough to be dangerous"; so and keep it safe by sailing conservatively and don't T-bone anyone at the start (stay out of the way if in doubt about right-of-way)! It's your first year of ownership; start next year by getting some good daysailing practice before you hit the race course.
 
#33 ·
Hmm... Maybe you guys were just pinching a bit too much.
That's possible.

If the rail dips in the water a bit it should not be a big problem while going upwind in a race, ...
I agree. But, according to The Admiral, the cockpit coaming was going in the water! I suspect what was really happening was either the occasional wave over the coaming (I saw that, myself) or, possibly, the coaming might've dipped into the water if we were heeled-over far enough and a wave raised the bow.

(I crewed on a P28 that we cruised and raced for two or three seasons. I saw lots of water over the side decks, and I saw water come into the cockpit on occasion. I don't recall ever seeing the cockpit coaming dip into the water--at least not all the way to the top.)

I think you need a little more time practicing and learning what makes your boat sail fast ...
Agreed. We plan to do that.

Jim
 
#23 ·
Jim,

Not sure how hard it would be on your boat to do this, but I put some 2' tracks on the cabin top of my Jeanneau 30. I use these with my 110. This allows me to have about an 8* sail trim. Pretty tight by any std. Allowing me to get within 30-45 true with out an issue. I then have some 6-7' long tracks along the base of my cabin, outside the shrouds, which come down alongside the cabin for fairly tight sheeting on my 142, ie my current biggest head sail. I have pics of the cabin top if you want to see how I did this.

The only real issue I have at the moment, is the winch's are a bit small on the cabin top. Hopefully I will address this with some bigger ones, or get ST;s for the cockpit/big genoa winches, and put the non tailing ones on the cabin top, and save the 15's for halyards etc on the inside of the cabin top.

marty
 
#28 · (Edited)
#32 ·
Tenuki

kids will not be too board with one old man, the really old man on the other hand! You have to under stand my thinking of life, youre old about 30, ie when you have kids, 40's youre real old, ie kids are now teenagers, 50's you live again, as the kids are out of the house, and not teenagers, where they know everything, and are into the 20's, wehn they realize they do NOT know everything!

So there, one old man, and one really old man! Forecast is for 5-15knot northerlies, that is enough to move us with 20 yr old sails up. Less than that, it does get boring!
 
#38 ·
SEMIJim, thank you for the kind words. Due to our somewhat breezy conditions out here, our local YRA discourages 155 jibs by giving us an unfavorable PHRF adjustment. The only guys that go that way are some in the sport boat crowd. So for me, the 130 is my #1. And I use that sail for everything from 0 to the low twenties (When I have rail crew. High teens when it's just my wife.) After that, I reef which allows me to sail in winds in the high twenties before things really degrade. At that point, my boat is way over on her ear and is way off her target boat speed. I'd rather be fast than be macho. Fortunately, most of the "upper end" on race days seems to be in the twenties so my 130 is my tool of choice. I have a "blade" that will beat like nobody's business, but unfortunately, it has nothing off the wind. I have never raced with it but it is fantastic to double hand with the wife. We will often bend it on if we're planning on doing a lot of beating that day. This has been my wife's favorite sail but lately, she's been complaining about it's lack of power (the sail has a high clew (a.k.a. "Yankee foot") I've also been experimenting with a Code 1 which is allowed as an asymmetrical, to see how effectively I can beat with it in really light air (yes, it occasionally happens).

The fractional guys have it so much easier. They can use their small jibs on coach roof tracks (or barber haulers) without a problem. The big jibs that we mast head guys use interfere with our shrouds and stays. If you rig so the sheet runs between the stays on a beat, then the sheet binds on the shroud when you go off the wind. You are forced to run a double set of sheets or run a really small jib which defeats the purpose of a mast head boat. And, IMHO, not worth the effort. Besides, a modification like that is a violation of my boat's class rules. I'd invest in a folding prop way before installing coach roof tracks, but that's just my personal opinion.
 
#39 ·
I've been reading this thread for a while, and as another newbie I'd like to thank everyone for their comments. I still have to re-read some of it, but it's helping.

I did have a comment about the inboard tracks though. My boat was made with inboard tracks that look very similar to the P-30 pic that was posted. There are no outboard tracks. I've noticed in the few beercan races I've been in that my boat points as well or better than anyone who doesn't have laminate sails, even though my sails are the original soft as a t-shirt 27 year old rags. After reading this thread, I suspect that being able to trim the jib into the spreaders is the reason why.

Take their advice Jim. Inboard tracks work for me.
 
#40 ·
Even if you were flying a #3, the sheet would end-up going hard around the front of the forward lower shrouds. That would be bad enough, but just imagine a #2 or #3. And in both cases it would go over the safety line.
Even with inboard tracks it's relatively rare to sheet inside the shrouds.. the inboard track simply gives the sail a better angle of attack, and more inward pull to improve the angle of attack without removing the camber of the sail. Most older designs that try to sheet so narrow as to go inside the shrouds will likely stall out the underbody and not really gain anything in terms of progress to weather.

The #3 will likely come in to and perhaps touch the outside of the upper shroud when fully trimmed.

Yeah. I'm thinking a strip of wood at the leading edge of the coaming would be desirable. (There's a name for that part, I just can't think of it atm.)
A turning block on the rail could lead your sheet around the coaming and to your aft turning blocks, avoiding the use of wear strips.
 
#42 ·
Say it isn't so

No its not...

I have inside tracks ....In fact I don't even have tracks to sheet outside the shrouds...
Alex,
say it isn't so, that Giu lacks outside tracks. We all thought Giu had everything, if not TWO of everything, and it must be sobering to you (no wine tonight!) to discover an omission.

But don't dispair, like most problems this is also an opportunity, just jump on Portagee Air and fly to USA and visit West Marine (they may recognize you from the last time...) to pick up some 1" track (30 mm to you), get back to the boat and install the track in a likely place.

Now here's the key, once installed, remove and reinstall the track several times in different places, filling the old holes with some white plastic goop. Real race boats have lots of extraneous boltholes, sort of like they've been through a war... Giu will both have outside tracks AND look more serious.

Isn't Sailnet great!
 
#45 ·
This is interesting. On the rough dimensions of your boat 3' from the centerline would give you an angle of 11 at about 2' behind the mast, whereas 4 gives 15. It may be that the clew height means the car would be further back decreasing the angle roughly a degree a foot.
Some suggest that the sheeting angle be 8-10 particularly with a ¾ rig less so with a masthead rig. However while one can perhaps achieve a greater pointing angle, the true gauge is VMG. Other variables coming into it are wind speed, hull shape, and sea state, in that you may need more drive to go through waves. Heeling more than about 20 also slows you badly no matter how fast it may seem.
One wind tunnel report I read suggested in light and heavy winds the greatest forward drive was given with jib at 16 and the main at 8. However in medium winds an alternative best drive/heel ratio was at 12 and 2. This may vary boat to boat in practice and twist comes into it.
According to your boat polars etc http://pearsoninfo.net/30/usyru_data.htm at 20 knots true the best VMG is at 41 to true wind, and more in lower wind (46 at 8). Both give an apparent wind angle of 31. From memory Marchaj (I have lost it) gives peak forward drive with an angle of 22 over the sail which fits with a 10 degree sheeting position. On the other hand the lower 16 puts you about right.
What you achieve depends on the car position, which depends on clew height and the amount of twist you want.
I don't know if you can sheet the number 1 inside the stays. I imagine not. If you could then it is possible that the polars are based on your current arrangement and some improvement may be gained by inboard sheeting.
While you may be able to gain in pointing it is VMG that counts. You may well be pretty close.
Rather than making changes you may find that making up an in-hauler of a block on the jib sheet allows you to experiment with the sheeting angle.
It could also be useful to work out what the distances and angles are for the various sails.
 
#46 ·
This is interesting. .............................

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Rather than making changes you may find that making up an in-hauler of a block on the jib sheet allows you to experiment with the sheeting angle.
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When the jib is being trimmed to the rail, the sail is outside of the lifelines, no in-haul is going to pull the sail inside, thorough the lifelines and stanchions, not to mention that without an inboard track, there's nowhere to connect a block for an in-haul. Otherwise, you sure said quite a mouthful...
 
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