Travelor length, position, etc.

[slowpoke]

ok guys, any suggestions on travellor length and position? I thought about running it suspended across the cockpit and seats, or should I just put it on the cockpit floor like Josh has it on Shazza?

[Shazza 273]

I've found we have enough traveller on Shazza and we've never wanted more, but that West Systems boat does look very nice.

[jray]

I have to agree with Josh. We haven't had any problems with the traveler mounted just above the cockpit deck. Though it would look trick to suspend it, probably not necessary for function. For me having it elevated would probably make it harder to get around the cockpit and invite boat bites about shin level.

[cstay]

Not to jack the thread but what do you guys think of split tails like on the viper? Pros and cons? Suggestions?

[admin]

If by split tails you mean a traveller-less system that runs the main sheet to a stern mounted bridal, that's exactly what I'm going to do (see M20 drawing attached). This is flat-out K.I.S.S. stuff that should clean up the cockpit a lot, makes it easier for the crew to get hiked out faster and dialed-in sooner. At least, that's what I yam hoping.

one-design_melges20-jib-lg.jpg

[Chad]

I've found we have enough traveller on Shazza and we've never wanted more, but that West Systems boat does look very nice.

Josh,
I saw that you lead your traveler line forward so you can sit in front of the trav upwind. I'm doing the same. Are you tacking straight across and handing off the extension around the tacking mainsheet? Or following the tiller around the back of the sheet? Air-tacking the boat in my garage makes it feel like going straight across should work, without too much fumbling of the extension...

I'm a traveler kind of person myself, couldn't give that up for the bridle.

[Chad]

And Rocky, where's that camera?!?

[Kevin]

That's called a bridle versus a traveler. There are trade offs to using a bridle. The biggest being you need to use vang to keep the main depowered because you are playing the mainsheet to control the angle instead of the traveler. If you don't run out of traveler, then you are just using vang for sail shape mostly.

The setup I'm using keeps getting simplified. The split tails will tear a block apart so that won't work. I'm using a repelling ring from REI at 4 bucks (thank you) and 3mm tails running down to your bridle points. I'm going with a 3:1 main sheet purchase and lots of vang purchase. 16:1 minimum, I may go as high as 24:1.

I'll do up a picture since it takes a million words sometimes.

Kevin.

[Kevin]

Oh, and I had the mainsheet at the end of the boom and then lead it forward to a swivel at 169 originally. That really sucked as it made a very tight space to tack through. I just hated it every time. Last sail before I broke the rudder was with an aft bridle and sheeting off the boom and no swivel. This was a good setup for me and made for much more comfortable tacks. (I found the swivel cleat was too low to cleat properly and didn't get the block raised enough to fix that, it was fixed at center line aft of 169)

I did up a little ghetto drawing of mainsheet rigging that I'm putting together right now that shows what I was trying to explain above. New bridle points will be about 1 foot forward of the aft end of the boom or maybe at frame 169, I haven't decided. The good thing with moving it forward is that it would eliminate a block which is good.

Kevin.

bridleSplitMainsheet.jpg

[Tim Ford]

I've found we have enough traveller on Shazza and we've never wanted more, but that West Systems boat does look very nice.

I'm a traveler kind of person myself, couldn't give that up for the bridle.

I agree with ya 100% on big boats but not on small ones. Be interesting to see how this works out on the racing circuits.

[Kevin]

I never had enough vang purchase previously which is why I'm changing my setup for the 2012 season. vipers and vx ones and shaw 650s all run with bridles and vang sheeting. So it's a workable setup as long as you do it right. Took a ride on Tim Carter's new viper 640 and he advised that 16:1 vang purchase would be the go.

Here's an overview of the main sail controls that I'm going to. More of the crayon level of drawing compared to that pretty M20 drawing, but some things just aren't worth taking the time to draw in the cad program.

mainSailControls.jpg

and here is the gnav purchase detail. The tertiary purchase is going to be a 3:1 for a total of 24:1 as on the overview.

gnavPurchaseC.jpg

Cheers, Kevin.

[Chad]

Oh, and I had the mainsheet at the end of the boom and then lead it forward to a swivel at 169 originally. That really sucked as it made a very tight space to tack through. I just hated it every time. Last sail before I broke the rudder was with an aft bridle and sheeting off the boom and no swivel. This was a good setup for me and made for much more comfortable tacks. (I found the swivel cleat was too low to cleat properly and didn't get the block raised enough to fix that, it was fixed at center line aft of 169)

I did up a little ghetto drawing of mainsheet rigging that I'm putting together right now that shows what I was trying to explain above. New bridle points will be about 1 foot forward of the aft end of the boom or maybe at frame 169, I haven't decided. The good thing with moving it forward is that it would eliminate a block which is good.

Kevin.

bridleSplitMainsheet.jpg

So Tim thinks the extra (yellow in your drawing) bridle element pulls the boom closer to centerline than simply adjusting the (primary, green in the pic) bridle so it two-blocks at full trim? I don't see that in the geometry, but if it works, cool. I thought I read that he (or was it the guy in SF, schoonerman/Drew?) had re-worked his mainsheet to make it easier to sail while still conforming to whatever their OD rules say about bridles. I guess I'm wondering if this is a rule-based solution, or a performance-based solution?

[Kevin]

The green bridle is for the lower mainsheet block. It does not effect the centering of the boom as much as when the mainsheet purchase becomes 2 blocked. That limits how much leach tension you can create with the mainsheet. In general, the vang is what is controlling that leach tension in my setup during medium to heavy conditions so you lower the green bridle and don't think about. In light conditions, however, you would raise up the green bridle to limit the amount of leach tension created by the mainsheet when the boom hits center line.

The yellow lines are the split tails of the mainsheet. When the boom hits center line the leeward leg of the mainsheet will become tight. Using the ring allows the tails to be longer because you don't need it to go down to 1 line before the first block which was the PITA part of this type of setup before. The 2 tails would side load the block and split it in 2. That's why the ring is being used because it won't be effected by the side loads.

The double bridle has been a long standing setup on the viper and the VX One has the same lower block bridle setup so I don't think its just because of a rules choice but rather is a design choice.

The point of this setup is to be more skiff like and less big boat like. The boat is small and dynamic. I want the feed back you get from sheeting from the boom versus a being cleated at the swivel on the floor and playing a traveler.

Kevin.

[Kevin]

Oh, and the improved "centering" of the boom comes from shortening the distance between the turning point of the sheave and the boom. A traveler will allow you to pull it to weather if you wanted and a bridle just won't do that. That's part of the trade off of the two setups.

Kevin.

[Shazza 273]

I've found we have enough traveller on Shazza and we've never wanted more, but that West Systems boat does look very nice.

Josh,
I saw that you lead your traveler line forward so you can sit in front of the trav upwind. I'm doing the same. Are you tacking straight across and handing off the extension around the tacking mainsheet? Or following the tiller around the back of the sheet? Air-tacking the boat in my garage makes it feel like going straight across should work, without too much fumbling of the extension...

I'm a traveler kind of person myself, couldn't give that up for the bridle.

Hi Chad,
I generally go straight across handing off the extension around the mainsheet, it's not far enough back to have any real drama with the mainsheet to get the extension around and we have the mainsheet pulleys facing forward so the mainsheet wont get any accidental twists by going behind.
I agree with the traveller as apposed to bridle-- the bridle is simple and neat but will never give the amount of control you get from the traveller system, we spend most of our efforts trimming via the traveller and vang (when racing) once the mainsheet is trimmed rather than trimming fundamentally with the mainsheet alone.
Oh, and we always set the traveller above centre (some times a good 6-9 inches above centre) in the super light to light stuff (1-5 knots) which seems to work a treat.

[Chad]

Thanks Josh. Nice to have some backup against this onslaught of bridled crusaders!

[ryderp]

For what it's worth, I'm going with a traveler/mainsheet arrangement for its simplicity (less line clutter), and because that's what I'm used to. I'm thinking that I'll have the cam cleats on the cockpit side-walls and that I'll use a continuous line for the traveler sheet so that if I forget to un-cleat the leeward sheet I can just yank on the line from the high side.

[Kevin]

Bridled crusader? Last time I checked it's the traveler boats that are far out numbering the bridles by a long shot.

Less clutter? the traveler adds a line to your cockpit that a bridle does not and I'm using a vang which you will also have to rig. I'll have to call you on that one. If a bridle was harder, the skiff guys wouldn't use them. It is just a different way to sail the boat. Rig it up with what you like and let's go for a sail.

Ron had rigged up a double cleat on his traveler so he could trim the traveler to windward from the leeward side with one line. Might have a more detailed picture somewhere if you are interested. I think his blog is turned off now. But here he is going to weather on the low side.

DSC_6169.JPG

Kevin.

[jray]

I followed Ron's idea for the traveler.

Critical Twist 1.jpg

[jray]

Another shot with some of the rigging done, the traveler control was not looped yet.

2zrn96p.jpg

The set up works well for me. Alwase plus and minus in everything. I will say that I have found that as Josh said, having the traveler past center while beating in low wind is a plus. Maybe not so much with a little pressure. My advise is to go with what you are comfortable with. Get her built and go sailing.

[Tim Ford]

So Kevin, it looks like you are going with a Gnav? Did I miss a post where you have talked about this? Specifically, I vaguely (and I do mean vaguely) remember there having been some discussion with C-Tech about using either a vang or a gnav...did they not recommend beefing up the lower section of the mast (and boom?) in specific areas to accommodate different loads with the gnav?

If so, did you do this and how and where and stuff?

thanks, --tf

[Chad]

I had C-Tech build my mast for a gnav from the get go, and here's what they did:

gnavReinf.jpg

Obviously the track stops a ways further up the mast than on a mast designed for a conventional vang, and I haven't riveted the upper gooseneck on yet. If you look carefully (easily seen on the mast, only sorta visible in the pic) you can see the ridges caused by the three extra layers of 6-odd ounce PW cloth they wrapped around the tube where the gnav stays go (in addition to the patches of carbon they use to hold the end of the track in place, which are also visible in the pic). There's nothing extra where the strut lands, though.

A boom that can handle the inefficient low-angle (thus bigger) vang loads should be fine to handle the higher efficiency, higher angle smaller loads of a gnav.

I'll let Kevin spill the beans on what he's up to, although I think there may have been an earlier -partial- bean spill on FB...

[Kevin]

Let's see... How far exactly off topic did you want me to go here?

Yes, I'm going to change to a gnav. And this is because I'm using a bridle. Not because I'm going to a 295" P or anything like that.

My old vang setup was not up to the task in my opinion. Jeff has a similar setup but does have a slightly better angle because he doesn't have a hinged mast step like I do. I don't know what kind of conditions he has been out in, but when I was out in more that 10 knots I wasn't comfortable much. The vang didn't have enough power to adjust under load was my primary issue. So I had to haul in the mainsheet and then set vang and then release main to stop being overpowered in that puff that just hit. Not a good setup. I wanted something that would be much easier to adjust under load and keep the main depowered when I ease the main in a puff since my bridle setup doesn't do that like a traveler does (aah back on topic).

I'm not concerned about the mast. It has extra wraps of carbon on the bottom meter already. This makes it very stiff compared to the upper section so a traditional vang doesn't create much lower bend. A gnav moves the load up the mast to the upper swivel which means it can and will bend the mast. That lower bend is good in that it will depower the main. It's bad in that it can effect other parts of the rig. In particular the lower spreaders can move forward which lowers the shroud tension and that then loosens the forestay. You are trading depowered main for powered up jib in that case. So to keep all of that in check I'm moving the lower diagonal shrouds down to the gnav location. Just above it actually since the gooseneck fitting just fits the current mast dimension and I want to add a patch of carbon for the t-ball plates that will be added there. With the d1's lowered down to limit the primary creator of lower mast bend, the top of the mast should be ok. We'll take a look while we are out sailing before we hoist that spin in 20 knots just to make sure everything is looking as we expect. All concerns from c-tech were before they upped the mast size. Alex did have concerns with the first setup that they spec'd out. But the larger tube took care of that concern as well as the lack of upper spreaders which is why I haven't gone there. Chad's forestay and hounds are at the same location, my hounds are above the forestay to lock in prebend at the top of the mast.

As for the boom. I have zero concern about it's strength to handle the gnav loads. The setup I'm building will disburse the loads better than a metal track and car setup would. And also better then the line wrapped around the boom that I used for the vang setup. This is the same boom they use on shaw650's. I will have to move my outhaul cleat because it will be in the way in it's current location.

I trimmed all the gnav parts yesterday and they look pretty awesome. But I didn't get pictures because my phone got down to 1% and needed a little charge. So you'll just have to wait.

Kevin.

[Chad]

Jon,
What'd you use for the track spacers?

I was thinking either little plastic spacers (from McMaster, cheap and easy and don't need paint) or glued down discs of G10 which need to be more laboriously finished into the boat (filleted, sanded, etc.). I suppose uber gucci would be cut pieces of G10 tubing, but I didn't plan to elevate mine that high- I figured 3/8" was enough to let water and sand get washed through.

I'm not working on the cockpit now, but thought I'd ask while this thread is near the top, and I'm thinking about it.

[non sequitor warning] I crawled into the upside down boat today to retrieve some rigging. The bow is surprisingly spacious this way!

[jray]

Nothing hi-tech here. I used 3/4" hardwood dowel cut about 3/4" in length. After drilling centers each was epoxied in place, filleted, sanded and glassed in. Each had to be adjusted for height before fixing so the track would lay flat. Then centers filled with epoxy and re-drilled before setting the track down. as they are under compression between the track and the backing I thought hardwood would work great and it has so far, no problems and there is enough space under the track help get water out of the cockpit quickly.