I cut above the forestay, and it wouldn't see much load except the halyard forces. The non tapering section makes it too strong than it needs to be up at the top (mast).
I did'nt like the way the sail was hardly even visible from sitting on deck under the sunroof. Also It was more difficult to reach clews, tacks, halyards, downhauls, outhaul ropes and cleats. The height of sail area may not make much difference but it looks better or feels more comfortable when the sail statr sat least around eye level when sitting down rather than swinging up over your head above the sunroof.
The tenderness of heeling over that I have felt is really more to day sail/race not long cruise.
The balance is so easy now (no rounding up), the boat will sail into the wind, luff lose speed and still turn away down wind somehow by steering . Before if you went too high and lost too much speed that would be a good chance of going "aback" and whatever going backwards (it is confusing) to get the wind back on the ww side again.
All I really changed was the rig - so I guess that is an argument against the schooner - sorry.
I wonder about reefing to the last sail, would that be the 2nd reef in the main and no jib.
Should there be a jib to match the 2nd reefed main. This would be another reef sewn innnn to the jib (currently has one reef).
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Hading off tommorrow try ing to make Swan river by luchtime and drop the mast out at Garden Island first then to sail up under Fremanlte river bridges with the jib raised up o nthe lifting pole. Then I could sail up without stopping to do the lowering in the middle of Freo harbour. It is just less stressful to anchor somewhere quiet to drop and tidy up. It will be midday Friday and many people head out early towards Rottnest Island. The lowering I find means taking off lazy jacks and forestay to clear the lifting pole from any obstacles, tying up the sails on the boom, putting the pole in the hole in the deck, attacjing the shackle to the mast lifting lug point and hoisting up. It has been coming up easily enough. Still awkward handling with the boom stuck on one end, but seems to have always come down OK.
I wonder how big you could go with the method of stepping a mast? As an additional pice of equipment on a cruise it could be sensible to take some lighter weight joined together sections for using as a lifting pole on say a Rapscallion. Harry could get hairy. Nothing but extra carbon and pulleys to do it though.
The two sections i have of steel and a bit od windsurfer beefed up fit togther and stow on the trampoline. I suppose a better mast would also be lighter and tapered. The lower down the lifting point on the mast the lower the lifting pole has to be. The boom and sails makes it quite low down and much safer to swing into position.
Has Rob actually done this before? It has worked out Fine. Saving the previous attepts at mast removal. I think I had to just try and pull it up by hand and let it fall over the sideonce up out of the hull tube. THen I got a high jetty to walk the mast up vertical with a lkittle hinge keeping the mast base slotted in.
That was before i had to beef up the stumps and couldn't get the masts out again for the tight fit. Rob and I pulled sidecar up on its side on the leeward hull to pull the masts out I think.
THat was a good test of the beams to see the ww hull elevated up at right angles - I hope the new beam extension will not overload the elementarry design strengths.
I look forward to sailing again with the wide stable beam as it was back on mark 1 sidecar back 3 and a half years ago at about 4.2m wide overall. I think I can blame much of poor handling to sail area and rudder position rather than the overall width. It be a factor along with other things like sail shape (efficiency)
The easy rig also puts some sail out to windward of the mastrather than as with a schooner rig where every part of the sails are to leewrd.
Iam interested to see how the solitarry goes. I never got much of a go on elementarry so imagine it will be sweet once your speed is up and you wouldn't miss the jib. A cruiser may prefer having a better balance. When it the easy rig is tested in a good breeze with and without a jib you'd get a definite answer on how the una and ballestron compare. WOuld a sagging forestay and jib be any worse than having no jib at all?
The other day it was light wind and so i unreefed the jib so that it was balnced forward and had to run a sheet from the jib boom. I guess this would happen if the ideas on big poled out genoas were tried out. You would not control the boom from the back but from the front.
The spinnakker could work too since it is what I will do tommorro with the jib rigged up on the lifting pole from garden island into the swan. I did this yesterday with no worries, going to a broad reach and shifting the sheets around to keep the sail angled against the wind.
The multihull gives a lot of cleating options on a running sail sheet cleating. I guess a higher performance harry would need a tighter sail. I was sailing on the "wrong side" with lw hull to winward to get the sail pulled in inborad. This wouldn't be a safe option and again not high performance maybe, so back to the self taking easy jib infornt of the mast I guess.
DOug
Any surf?
None here
--- On Thu, 18/2/10, robert <cateran1949@
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