RE: Sail Balance, P-15 deeply Reefed

From: Judith Franklin Blumhorst, DC (DrJudyB@pacbell.net)
Date: Tue Mar 28 2000 - 11:22:52 PST


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        West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
                dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
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HI Jan,

AS you know, I sail a P19, and not a P15,but I have a comment that might be
helpful. P15 skippers may have other suggestions that you should consider
carefully as well. Since I'm not as familiar with the P15 rig, I could be
way off with my suggestion.

Have you considered lengthening the forestay and tightening the shrouds on
the side so the mast is raked aft a little? Or maabe your forestay is just
too short. My used P19 came with a forestay that was about 1" too short --
and that's a huge amount to be too short by!!! It sailed like a dog when I
bought it, for that and a couple of other reasons.

If your rig is tuned right, you should have about 2-3 degrees of weatherhelm
at 10-15 degrees of heel on a close reach with enough wind and sails to be
going about 4.5 knots. 2-3 degrees of weatherhelm means that you have to
hold the rudder 2-3 degrees offset (rudder to leeward, tiller to windward)
to stay on a straight course. If your boat is set up that way, you should
be able to point with any reasonable combination of small jib and main,
reefed or not.

Dont go by just the angle of the tiller handle. Check the rudder out first.
Check your rudder, if it's warped, everything is thrown out of wack. My P19
came with a warped rudder. Depending on the heel, the attack angle of the
rudder changed according to the warpage. It took me a month to realize that
was one of the problems with my boat. I had to stop using that beautiful
chunk of mahogany and replace it.

Best of luck,
Judy B1985 WWP-19 #266 Redwing
SF Bay, CA

> -----Original Message-----
> From: JanLinWes@aol.com [mailto:JanLinWes@aol.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2000 10:08 AM
> To: wwpotter@tscnet.com
> Subject: Sail Balance, P-15 deeply Reefed
>
>
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> West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
> dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
> List hosted by www.tscnet.com
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> Hello All,
> Have been following with interest the talk of balancing reefed sails on
> P-19s. On our P-15, I've been unable to go to windward at all when the
> second reef is in the main. Jib is usually hauled down already in these
> circumstances, but even experimenting with it up (it's the
> working jib, and
> it's either all up, or down) I can't get closer than a beam
> reach. As for
> weight distribution, we have an electric outboard which weighs
> very little,
> however the shaft & prop are usually in the water in these
> circumstances; and
> for weight forward in the cabin we have about 70 lbs of batteries
> etc. & I
> sit as far forward as possible. There's no means of changing mast angle
> while underway.
>
> Would welcome opinion as to likely benefit from the following: 1
> -- still
> more weight forward, 2 -- slightly backwind the doubly-reefed main (we
> have midboom sheeting to a bridgedeck traveler and could do this) 3 --
> install jib tracks so jib can be flattened and/or brought further
> amidships
> 4 -- adjust centerboard 5 -- Any other?
> Has anyone else dealt with this problem?
>
> Thanks for any help,
>
> Jan Lindstrom, with Bob Wester
> P-15 1804 "Dauntless" Marquette MI on Lake Superior
>



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