Fit a mainsheet traveller system or leave well alone?

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

Ohh, that is a low blow Savior, very nasty, kind of like saying to someone that their wife is fat...

Depends on your perspective. I quite like motor sailors, there are few around the club that I am eyeing off as my next boat when I get too lazy to sail.

I don't think Savior is being nasty, just wrong. Perfectly fine to have the opinion that it is a motor sailor (and to some people it would be considered just this), but it is plain silly to state it as though it was some kind of FACT.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

I wonder if those new low friction rings would work? Probably too much friction for playing the traveller, But maybe ok for the occasional adjustment, specially if you can run the line to a winch at a pinch.

Might work, but I'd like to keep the winches free if I can. Between the staysail and the foresail, it is already busier than I'd like. As you may remember I am attempting to use the free upwind staysail winch to get tension on the running backstays so that I can finally take those monster highfield levers off the boat, but I still have not come up with a satisfactory arrangement. So I am still using the monster levers.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

Ohh, that is a low blow Savior, very nasty, kind of like saying to someone that their wife is fat...

Ha, my poor attempt at humour missed the mark again... Oh well.

Have you got any photos of the current traveller setup. Another thought is to rig the tackles to advantage. Saves one block and a suprising amount of friction.





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[GILow]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

Have you got any photos of the current traveller setup. Another thought is to rig the tackles to advantage. Saves one block and a suprising amount of friction.

I'll try to remember to snap a photo when I go to the boat this arvo. Having trouble getting away from the gardening today.

[El Pinguino]

This is what I have.... made in the UK by an outfit call IYE.
Having that block on the centre line means that when motoring or alongside I can set it up 'runner and guy' so the boom isn't swinging around.

Works good....

[Snowpetrel]

Only slight issue with a centerline block like that is it causes the main to sheet in slightly as the traveller is dumped. Probably more a theoretical problem than real..

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[GILow]

I am seriously a twit.


So, I've just come back from the boat, and I forgot to take a picture.


However, what we have is track similar to El-Pinguinos (Thanks for the picture sir), probably around 50% more "heavy duty". Compared to what is around us, it is a bit lighter than the tracks of similar sized boats, but then those boats all had mid-boom sheeting, which would put much more strain on the track.


I'm gonna take a pretty easy gamble and say it is strong enough, it has done the better part of 50,000 miles, and still feels smooth and firm, so it will do. It has two cars for the traveller, in much the configuration recommended by Uncivilized a few posts back. (If you'd asked me before today I would have told you it was a single car.)


I did drop in the chandlery on the way to the boat where the options in second-hand stuff were limited and I did not really have a clear picture in my mind of what the traveller looked like. Then I wandered around the club snooping on various arrangements and talking to boat owners. The arrangement that seemed most easy to adapt to our setup would be a block with becket either side of the traveller attached with D shackles, then double cheek blocks for either end of the traveller track, each with a jamb cleat. This will give me 3:1 purchase, which may or may not be enough. Gut feel says it will be enough, since I currently slide the whole assembly by hand, which last I checked was 1:1. The thing is, with the current traveller, the geometry of 3:1 will be very easy, but 4:1 will be tricky. Anyway, back to the chandlery again tomorrow, I think they had a couple of collections of second-hand blocks that might do the job, and at the price, they'd be worth having on board just in case.


El-Pinguino, I really like the cleats as an alternative to jamb cleats. A common theme when discussing people's setups at the club was complaints about the jamb cleats slipping at critical moments, though in each case the complainant had mid boom sheeting.


Fingers crossed, but I wish I had remembered to take a photo.


Matt

[cwyckham]

I've never seen a traveler with jam cleats, only cam cleats

Chris - SailMentor.com

[GILow]

Whoops. Yes, I meant cam cleats.


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[Snowpetrel]

Mine has old school clam cleats (v cleats or jam cleats). It works, but a clear behind it for security would be nice.

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[mstrebe]

Originally Posted by GILow

All this underlines one of the weaknesses of the Swanson 42. I am reading this and thinking about how I have stopped playing with sail shape because it is so hard to tell the difference. Our acceleration is very very low, so any changes take ages to become apparent. On the last boat I was forever tweaking the sails, adjusting shape and trim because you knew straight away what the effect was.


Does anyone have suggestion on how to detect improvements or degradation from sail trim in a very heavy boat? Aside from sailing for a few hours and recording the distance covered?


Matt

I use a GPS watch to see SOG in real time as I trim. In smooth sailing, you can tell instantly whether you're gaining advantage or not with your trimming efforts. In swells it takes a little more time to average out the speed.

A Garmin Quatix that can stream instrument data to you and show you STW would be even better. While you could do this with a smartphone, a watch frees up your hands.

Or put a small MFD at the forward cockpit so you can keep an eye on speed as you trim.

Anyway, works great for me.

[GILow]

Thanks mstrebe, you are on the right track I think.


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