On #461 (1988) they actually used straight sail track, mounted on the
outside of the toerail, and Racelite cars that are designed to be used with
sailtrack.
Its not the greatest arrangement, and just because the factory did it this
way, doesn't necessarily mean you should.
Some of the good points of this arrangement:
* Cars and track are out of the way
* inexpensive
* allows adjustment of leads. This can really make the headsail more
powerful if you watch your telltales closely.
* Wide sheeting angle is favorable downwind.
Bad points:
* You don't get a very fair lead from the blocks to the winches or cleat.
* racelite stuff really sucks, but nobody else makes sail track cars like
this.
* The cars can get pretty smashed since they sometime stick out past the
rubrail.
* You can't sheet real super tight angles
On that last point, i'm not 100% convinced that the ability to sheet the
headsail in so far is of major benefit on a potter. Remember that proper
headsail trim is generally when you sheet in just enough so the headsail
isn't luffing. I certainly don't use as tight an angle as I could even with
my arrangement, yet I go upwind just fine. I could point higher, but I'd be
pinching and stalling the keel in that situation, so i wouldn't actually get
anywhere any quicker. I've done a lot of research on racing and whatnot, and
its so important to have boat speed that you should often trade it off for
pointing anyways (e.g. better to be going 3 knots at 50 degrees relative to
true wind than 2.5 knots at 45). I'd REALLY like to race Jerry or Judy
sometime to test some of these theories of mine.
>If someone has the measurements or photos of
> the factory tracks it would help.
you can see my arrangement barely on
http://www.tx3.com/~ej/flathead/vicsl2.jpg
on other pics on
http://www.tx3.com/~ej/flathead/flathead.html
My front tracks (the main ones I use with the lapper) run from the winch to
the chainplates, the rears run from the winch to the transom.
For my lapper the ideal all around sweet-spot lead location seems to be just
about under the aft corner of the aft-most cabin window, which is a foot or
so forward of the fixed block that is (well, used to be until i removed it)
on the deck.
I haven't really tuned my genoa yet to determine its ideal location for most
wind conditions.
