Looking for CamberSpar Experiences

[eyschulman]

In a good breeze downwind my boat would be traveling upwards of 20k and the faster you jib the less stress on the rig. boat speed minus apparent wind = wind over the deck of boat.For a fast multi there is hardly any pressure on rig. If you cannot get a reasonable speed up you can rig preventor lines on camber spar like two jib sheets wide and sl. foreward (for heavy conditions) then you can just ease the sail over. I actually used the lines more to go wing on wing to help keep spar out like a foreward preventor on boom when I din't feel like working hard at zig zaging down wind.

[Captain Bill]

Dave852, I know what you mean about bending the pole. I got hit by a microburst from a dissipating rain shower. I released the sheets and started turning into the wind. About that time the thing passed over and the wind swung 180 degrees in about 1 second. The main was saved by the boom brake, but the jib went past 180 degrees until the stop knot at the end hit the rope clutch. The gust was at least 50, maybe a lot more. When the sheet reached its limit something had to give and the pole bent. I was pretty amazed because the shower looked like barely a sprinkle. 1 minute later the cloud had completely dissapated and there was clear blue sky.

[markpj23]

Bill,
I had a closer look at our setup during this last passage. Ours is set using the hole closest to the forestay, or said another way, the most forward hole. This imparts tension to flatten the sail, enough so that the forestay is noticeably bowed forward at the slide when the jib is up.

I can't see from looking at it how changing the position to use any of the other 3 holes would do anything except lessen the flattening tension on the sail.

Not sure an outhaul would be worth the extra rigging, hassle when tacking, etc. But I'm sure I'm missing the whole design point....

[Captain Bill]

That's an interesting observation Mark. I have been aware of the bend induced in the forestay, which I have seen in all pictures of Camberspar's in action. I always assumed that this was the "automatic tensioning" of the forestay which is advertized as one of the benefits of the design. I was under the impression that the aftmost position would put the most tension on the forestay, so I'll have to take a look at that next time I have it up. My impression was that the aftmost positions also put more tension on the camberspar pocket in the sail which prevents the camberspar from rotating outboard as much which results in a flatter sail.

It sounds to me like you think that an outhaul is something that needs to be added to the rig. What dave told me is those three holes are the outhaul. It's not like an outhaul you can adjust while you're underway. It's one you adjust before you raise the sail based on the current or expected wind conditions.

Maybe I'll give him another phone call. He doesn't have a computer and doesn't use e-mail.

[eyschulman]

When I started useing the unit it was relatively new and the main advantage for multihulls particularly those with rotating rigs and no backstay was to tension the forestay and tighten the whole rig- more wind more pressure on rig. A fixed mast with swept spreaders or backstay would not gain all that much from this unit and may be better off with a Hyot boom on jib.

[markpj23]

Bill,
Maybe I'm using the wrong definition of "outhaul"? To me it means an attachment point for another line led from the aft end of the camberspar to a block as far outboard (and probably forward) on the pontoons as possible. Heaving around on the outhaul would then force the end of the spar outboard towards the pontoon, perhaps to force the spar to the desired side for "wing and wing" downwind sailing, OR to move the sail closer to the wind when going upwind, as a traveler would do. It would also prevent the jib from swinging wide arcs from side to side while sailing DDW, or nearly DDW.

Have I got this completely wrong?

[Dave852]

Originally Posted by markpj23

Bill,
Maybe I'm using the wrong definition of "outhaul"? To me it means an attachment point for another line led from the aft end of the camberspar to a block as far outboard (and probably forward) on the pontoons as possible. Heaving around on the outhaul would then force the end of the spar outboard towards the pontoon, perhaps to force the spar to the desired side for "wing and wing" downwind sailing, OR to move the sail closer to the wind when going upwind, as a traveler would do. It would also prevent the jib from swinging wide arcs from side to side while sailing DDW, or nearly DDW.

Have I got this completely wrong?

I would call that a preventer.

[Captain Bill]

Mark, I think you are confusing an outhaul with poling out. 2 different things. There is a youtube video describing the use of an outhaul on a mainsail.

YouTube - Sailing : Outhaul Adjustment and Function

[eyschulman]

Two different things no matter what you call them one to pull clew of sail out the other to control position of pole ( in this case camber spar). The only clew adjustment on my sail was a hardware setting not easily changed while sailing or otherwise. the rope or line (preventor-outhall) can have in my experience two good perposes to wing on wing and to allow for hove to positiion of sail

[Captain Bill]

Ok all you camberspar fan, time to revive the old thread. I just broke my camberspar. I just got a new sail and was wing on wing with the camberspar poled out to starboard and the wind 15 gusting 20 (true) 30-40 degrees off my starboard quarter. I was moving along quite nicely averaging 8 knots surfing the 2-4 footers (also coming from 30-40 degrees off the starboard quarter) in 10 knot bursts. Wind was picking up a bit and got hit by an unusually large wave, maybe 7 feet + when we had been seeing nothing over 4. It was also unusually steep so suddenly I was looking down at the camberspar and the boat tried to turn to windward. The boat suddenly turned hard to starboard I looked up I saw that the camberspar was bending. I think the folding of the camberspar dumped the wind and of course as the main came around square to the wind without the jib forces to counterbalance it we turned about 50 degrees even though I had thrown the rudder hard to port. This of course was a brand new sail that only had 2 days of use on it. It took me 30 seconds or so to get the boat turned so we could corral the sail and take it down. In the meantime the sail was completely out of control and the camberspar eventually snapped in two and one end ripped right through the pocket on the sail. I'm still trying to figure out what happened as I've had the sail up in much stronger winds and never had an issue. Of course that was with the old sail, not the new one. I would have thought the turn to starboard would have dropped the load on the sail, not increased it. I guess the other option is that the spar started to fail before I noticed it and made the turn worse than It would have been otherwise. My boat is a bit of a pig in a quartering sea and regularly has trouble holding course within about 20 degrees and the initial turn did not particularly alarm me. I guess I'm a bit concerned that the new sail, which is made of a high end dacron rather than the cheap dacron the original was made from, was too much for the camberspar. I kind of find that hard to fathom, but I'm really at a bit of loss to explain it. The sail was made by the company that does the OEM sails for endeavour and manta so they should know what they are doing. I've had the old jib up in 30 knots, granted the main was reefed, but I fail to see how an unreefed main at 15-20 could have overloaded the jib. Last year Going to the Bahamas I had the wind off the same quarter blowing 25 true in 8 foot seas and cruising steady at 10 knots, wing on wing with no issues.

The premium cloth is slightly heavier than the original, but I was planning on spending time in the tropics so I figured the extra UV resisitance would be worth it. Is it likely that 9.2 oz versus 8.6 oz cloth would overload the spar. The premium material is supposed to be a less transparent to the wind so it might be an issue downwind, but the performance of the boat didn't seem to be appreciably different than with the old sail, at least in the two days I had used it.

If anyone has any ideas what might have caused this I would like to hear from you.

By the way all you camberspar lovers, my Endeavourcat 44 won the class b multihulls division at the cruisers regatta in Georgetown this year. The camberspar was probably the reason. A couple of my competitors asked me where they could get one after the race.