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West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
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SF,
You could be right about that. My first thought when I took the helm on
Chris' boat was that the mast had been raked forward when Chris retuned the
rig.
I know it sailed okay on it's maiden voyage in 15-20 knots with first reef
and lapper. It was just a touch underpowered, but the helm was fine, with
just enough weather helm, but not too much. I'd have to see how the boat
handled with full lapper and full main at about 16-18 knots of wind before I
could tell if the mast needed to be raked aft.
My boat handles nicely at 20 knots with full main and lapper if it's not too
gusty, but my boat has a lot of extra gear for fine trimming my sails. I'd
have to see what I could do with Chris' boat with just factory standard trim
controlls. If I recall correctly, she'd be overpowered with gusts to 25
like that. Now that I think about it, there have been more than a few times
that we put the first reef in the main with the full lapper, like last year
at Lake Tahoe, where it was blowing about 20 knots with gusts to 30 (or
higher).
And, SF, under those sea-conditions, I wasn't about to take my pliers up on
the foredeck, pull the cotterpin and "fondle the turnbuckle under the CDI's
skirt til the forestay was a few inches longer." I usually do that sort of
stuff when the boat's not underway.... ;^)
Fair winds,
Judy B
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SolarFry@aol.com [mailto:SolarFry@aol.com]
> Sent: Monday, March 27, 2000 11:48 AM
> To: wwpotter@tscnet.com
> Subject: Re: Balancing the helm when reefing - Mast attitude
>
>
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> West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
> dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
> List hosted by www.tscnet.com
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> {:^)
>
> Why not KISS it? Afraid of that forestay?
>
> Rather than shooting CDI and having to clean all that CDI blood,
> why don't
> you try simple task of moving top of mast aft a bit... That will
> cure problem
> and might even allow you to sail with a full lapper. A one inch
> move of mast
> tip causes quite a change in handling. Reach under that CDI skirt
> and fondle
> it's forestay turnbuckle to add a few inches...
>
> I had the opposite problem with my new P19. I corrected by moving
> mast tip
> fwd. At 18 MPG it would head up into the wind fiercely out of
> helm control.
> Now it sails with a little heel under one reefed main and full lapper.
> However, if wind reaches 25 MPG it still heads into wind before
> suffering a
> knockdown, depowering sails, which is a lot safer than falling off.
>
> Comments encouraged...
>
> {:^)
>
> Best
> SF
>
> In a message dated 3/27/00 11:24:01 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> DrJudyB@pacbell.net writes:
>
> << Hi Geoff,
>
> That's a good thought, Geoff, but I don't think aa higher CE is
> the *main*
> reason for the slight increase in heel that I noticed. I don't
> think the CE
> is much higher on the reefed lapper than the strom jib. Perhaps
> a little,
> but not much higher. We use both the lapper and the storm jib
> on our CDI.
> The clew is the same height on both sails and when the lapper is
> reefed, the
> geometric CE is pretty close on the reefed lapper as it is on
> the full storm
> jib. I'll have to check that next time I have the two sails on my living
> room floor, but I think my memory visual memory and drawings are correct.
>
> I really think it's because you get a baggy shape if you reef
> the lapper by
> 50%. The deepest draft is right at about the luff when you reef 50%.
> Redwing's custom-made storm sail is about 40 sf, which is about what we
> reefed Chris' lapper down to. But the 40 sf of our storm jib is ALOT
> flatter than the shape we had on Chris' reefed lapper. It was
> easy to see
> it. There was a really deep curve in the sail right at the front. There
> was no way to trim the angle of attack as flat as I can on the the storm
> jib or depower the jib really well.
>
> The heel wasn't overly excessive on Chris' boat with the lapper reefed to
> about 50% of it's original size, but I thought it was a little more
> noticable than what I'm used to when Rdwing's rigged with the
> storm jib in
> similar conditions. It's hard to compare the two boats across a
> period of
> several weeks, so I can't be really sure of that. It was just an
> impression,
> not something I could actually measure.
>
> In addition to discussing "weird ways to reef that don't work
> well and how
> to fix it", I was trying to inject some data into that old
> debate about how
> much you "loose" when you get a CDI, compared to hanking on a
> smaller sail.
> There definitely was a measurable loss of 5-10 degrees of
> pointing ability
> and about a 3/4 knot loss of boat speed (down to a still respectiable 4.7
> knots) with Chris' boat rigged that way, compared to my Redwing with a
> stormsail and first reef. Even with the loss of some performance, it was
> nice to know that if you get caught out there with the wrong headsail in
> highwinds on the CDI, it's still possible to have fun sailing
> the boat, and
> get home in comfort and safety.
>
> In my opinion, reefing a lapper down to the size of a storm sail isn't a
> substitute for owning a stormsail and choosing the right headsail before
> your leave the dock . But it's nice to know that you can reef the lapper
> down to half the size and still enjoy the sail.
>
> And, as for 198 knots of wind, we all know SF Bay is infamous for REALLY
> high winds <BG> (Obviously it's a typo. I meant to write 18 knots, like
> the previous sentence mentioned)
>
> Judy B
> 1985 WWP #266 Redwing
> SF Bay, CA
> >>
>
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