Re: Surgical Tubing instead of Bungee for self steering

From: hlg@pacbell.net
Date: Mon Apr 10 2000 - 13:21:31 PDT


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It was a long time ago when I tested the system on my P14, but I don't
recall it being sensitive to weight shift. I moved all over the boat, even
went forward and stood by the mast, and the boat held course relative to
the wind. The difference may be that I was using a 3-1/2 to 1 mainsheet
purchase at the time, which probably changed the sensitivity of the
self-steering system.

The increased purchase was obtained by putting a block on the strap at the
end of the boom where the mainsheet normally terminates, then continuing
the sheet through the block to terminate at a becket on the block at the
traveler. For the reduced sheet load the tradeoffs are the increased travel
of the sheet when adjusting and the increased length of the sheet.

I need to find some surgical tubing and try it again.

"Calm" is no breeze at all, I think.

Harry
P14 #234
Mountain View, CA

>Sunday afternoon in breezes from calm (is "calm" a breeze?) to maybe six or
>eight knots I ran the "many ways of Pottering" self steering system, this
>time using surgical tubing instead of bungee (which had not worked well in
>light conditions before). The surgical tubing will not work in my plastic
>clam cleats (on the underside of the tiller) so I simply used a foot or so
>of tubing spliced to a couple of feet of 1/4" nylon line. . .which works
>fine in the cleats and gave enough of the stretch apparently. On courses
>from wind abeam to close hauled the system held course relative to the wind
>very well as long as I kept the boat on the same angle of heel (ergo, i
>could read a book or whatever and sit still and we stayed on course for 20
>minutes at a time) but. . .if I shifted to the opposite side of the boat and
>changed heel angle she would either point up or fall off (depending on
>whether I increased or decreased angle of heel) pretty radically. With the
>wind aft of the beam a bit (broad reaching) she could still be made steer
>fairly well, but only by sheeting in the main too much, though it didn't
>seem to hurt her speed (the genoa was working very well).
>
>Ken Preston
>P-15 #1063, Bainbridge Is, WA



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