hey F16,
i am soon going too fit my taipan out to f16 so i have a few questions,any help would be great

are carbon fibre spinnaker poles f16 legal ,is there much differense betwen a aluminium pole if you got the cash 4 it

has any 1 got a clean strong fitting for the foward pole braces to fixed too the pole
how high should i set the pole of the briddle and how much prebend should i put in

how many snuffer patches should i use, and is there much of a advantage of haveing the kite made out of siliconised material

any help would be good

regards
kurt
taipan 4.9
aus 029

Kurt

Caron poles are legal for F16, and should weigh about 2/3 that of a similr strength aluminium one.

Usually we just attach an eyestrap to each side of the pole for both the forward and mid pole bridle wires, for carbon you will need to bolt these on. Tape every fitting on the mast, diamonds, pole shrouds etc. that the spinnaker could possibly snag on, also make sure your battens are as short as you can get away with otherwise the halyard will get cought round the back of them.It also helps to route the halyard thru the spreaders to stop it flapping about so much.

You will need three patches and use the slippyest material you can get, and even then spray silican on the sail and the shute every time you go sailing.

Keep the pole as low as you can so that you can get the maximium luff length, unless you've already got the sail then you will need to measure from the mast down to where the pole needs to end up, distance from where the head of the sail reaches the mast to the end of the pole needs to be about 96% of the spinnaker luff length. Use about 4 inches of prebend in the pole.

thanx for the help john

cheers..kurt

I personally don't consider carbon spi poles much of an advantage in relation to alu ones. Weight savings are in the order of 500 grams at max and the cost is considerable higher. I personally use a simple not anodized pole of about 20 AUS$ and that works great. Anodizing makes it look better but isn;t necessary. Carbon looks cool and saves a few grams.

Both carbon and alu are allowed under F16 rules, as John already answered.

My pole wires are made of dyneema (spectra ?) lines and work well. I have not problems with it. Cheap simple and effective. As often seen on tornado's ou can drill little holes in your bows, fill them with resin and filler to make the holes strong, robust and watertight. Run the line through the hole and tie a figure 8 knot in the end. When the holes are not to wide these should hold and they held on my boat (P18) for three years already.

On the pole. I would fit one eyestrap on top near the end and fit a small pully with spring to it. This will be your tack yaryard pully. The pole support wires will just be run through this eyestrap and back down the other side of the pole and be tied of to itself maken a loop running the eyestrap. This puts no extra forces on the eyestrap and gives the lines a good curve radius retaining strenght and preventing wear.

I personally use a loop in the lines and push the entire loop through the eyestrap round the pole and than run the other end of the line through the loop itself. The loose that I'm left with I then run through the hole in the bows and tie a figure 8 knot in it. But then again I can leave the pole rigged during the whole summer as I have beach site boat parking.

I will use a different system for my new boat, something I learned from my kiting days. A quick release and fixing system. Really simple but complex to explain in words.

If you fit support line to the middle of the pole than you can get away with a light alu pole.

Prebend, just a little. enough to make sure that the pole will not buckle downwards when loaded. Lift the boat by the pole and see how the pole behaves that should be a pretty good test.

Wouter

1 more question for you taipan f-16 sailors
how high sould i set my pole of the standard taipan sloop briddle for the goodall 17.5sqm kite

regards..kurt
taipan aus 029 (soon to be taipan f-16 this week)

I usually have mine somewhere in the vicinity of 20cm below the centre of the bridle but it really doesn't have to be that exact.

The end of my pole is set up with wire strops with some 2mm spectra on the end to attach to the bows. On the beach I attach the mid pole rope to the bridle then loosely tie on the pole ends. I hoist the kite and then adjust the 2mm spectra ends to the bows so that the kite luff is at the right looseness (now I'm being really technical ) for the prevailing conditions. To be perfectly honest its pretty much the same most of the time anyway.

The height of the end of the pole will depend on the luff length of your kite and the hoist height on the mast.

Then if there is too much bend in the pole (or not enough) I adjust the bridle strop to suit.

Hope this helps!

I pretty much fit the spi gate in the mast which is limited by the F16 rules to 7,50 mtr above the top of the main beam and by the advice giving by Goodall yachts (is the same)

Than on a day with a mild wind. I fit the pole with its end about 0,5 mtr. beve the bows and hoist the spi and see how it sits. Adjust your pole to the cut and luff curve of your spi. Often this means moving the end of your pole up or down a few centimeters (max 15 cm or so)

I'm unfamiliar with the Goodall 17,5 sq mtr. spi so I can't help you there. Of course Goodall Yacht sails themselfs might give you a good starting point / height

Wouter

thanx for the the help verry use full,
do any of you taipan f-16`s use the jib barber haul(tweaker) for the spinnaker.
and any one no of any snuffer systems that are made in aus besides the nacra 1.
and i have talk too goodall yach sails about hoist hight etc; and they are developing a snuffer soon

regards kurt

>>do any of you taipan f-16`s use the jib barber haul
(tweaker) for the spinnaker.


No, just leave it off when you plan to sail with a spi. The jib as well the main itself are sheeted significantely tighter with a spi than without one. This pretty much cancels the need for barber haulers. And besides the lines only get in the way.

If you are using a tramp bag then I advice you to pull the forward trap line towards the sidestay by running the bungee through a ring which is tied to the chainplate with a short piece of string. It will open up the area throught which you will hoist and retrieve your spinnaker.



>>and any one no of any snuffer systems that are made in aus besides the nacra 1.

Like you said Goodall is designing one. You sould also order the midpole fibre ring (other one than the Guck piece) and make up the bag and sorts yourself quite easiliy. The big diameter ring is becoming very popular over here. The Nacra tube was first used on the Tiger but I saw Gerard Loos sail with the ring and bag and leave the tube on the beach at the Dutch nationals.

>and i have talk too goodall yach sails about hoist hight etc; and they are developing a snuffer soon

If you want to measure in a F16 your maximum hoist height (block or gate) is set at 7,50 mtr above the main beam. As the Taipan class is not likely to adopt a spi I advice your limit yourself to that measurement. From memory I believe that Goodalls height was 2 or 3 cm below the F16 hoist height limit.

Wouter

Wouter
were can i get this mid pole fibre ring ,how much??

thanx for the help

kurt

Kurt,

Of course you could always make your own! Michael Cook and I made our own out of some vacuum tube, tie wire and fibreglass tape. Then got a sailmaker to make a sock that would fit with some tie up straps and there you go. All up cost about $75. Its not quite as smooth as the aluminium ring ones but it does the job anyway.

andrew
got any tips on making one like how wide the opening should be how should i attach it too the pole,and photoes
thanx

regards..kurt

Kurt

We do 2 types of mid pole snuffer, large diameter ring and one similar to the guck type, e-mail me for specs and prices

regards

john

hey john
my email is taipan029@aol.com
if u could seen me some stuff on them it would be great

regards.kurt

Hi Kurt,

The way I made it was a bit of a trial and error process. The one I have on the boat is actually the fourth ring that I've had on the boat, but it needn't be that way.

We made the rings on the spare peice of aluminium tube from the end of the spinnaker pole. From memory it was easier to get 4m sections from the aluminium manufacturer and we had to cut them down to 3.4m or whatever the measurement is so we had about a 600mm offcut. I know I'm mixing unit measurements but I'm sure you'll understand.. The spinnaker poles were 38mm diameter.

We created the rings in two different manners. Michael put the pole offcut in the vice and then stuck some packing tape on it so that the fibreglass wouldn't stick and then set about attaching the ring.

I decided to cut some sections off the offcut about 8-10cm in length and then bent them out so that they slid over the pole offcut and would slide over the pole as well. The idea being that we could move the ring up and down the pole to find a good place for it before drilling holes and riveting it into place. As it turns out, both systems seemed to work fine. Michael just rivited through the fibreglass into the pole.

Anyway, we got some vacuum tube (which is just ribbed plastic pipe about 40mm diameter available from hardware stores) and made a ring which we thought would do the job and then used some fencing wire to tie it to the pole cutoff. In my case I tied it around the stretched out offcut peices around the offcut.

Then its just a matter of going crazy with the fibreglass .

The first one I made was just simply too small - I have no idea what I was thinking but the hole in the middle was only about 18cm wide. Sure, laugh all you want but I honestly had no idea what I was doing, even if the idea was going to work and be strong enough.

The second one I made (which is probably the most robust to be honest) was much bigger (about 30-32cm hole size) and was made with a twist in it to open the bag up a bit which worked reasonably well but was just the tiniest bit too small. The twist worked well but with a new spinnaker it just didn't really want to all bunch up and suck into the hole all that well.

So I had to make another one. By this time I was wondering if I shouldn't have just spent a whole chunk of money and bought one of the aluminium ring thingys but fibreglass, vacuum tube and tie wire aren't all that expensive so I made number three.

I thought that the Guck snuffer system looked quite good so I made the thrid one bigger (about 35-38cm) and for some reason I made it flat like the Guck one instead of having a twist in it.

Unfortunately this ring had the same problem as the second one. The kite would go through the hole fine bit it also had to open up the bag and turn the corner into the bag as it went so it didn't really work any better than the second one. This would be why the Guck systems have the fibreglass turn in the bottom of them.
Because the vacuum tube is plastic and smooth, the fibreglass actually doesn't stick to it, it just acts as a backbone. So what I did was to cut the fibreglass with a hacksaw in two places about 45 degrees around the ring and then put a twist in it and glassed it all back up again.

This isn't even making sense to me as I'm writing it but I'll take some photos this weekend and post them up next week and you'll have a better idea of what I mean.

Hope this helps.

Check out this description of how to build a vacuum-bagged fiberglass snuffer ring from Jake- Jake's snuffer ring

Kirt

I hope that 18cm is not laughable. I have just received my snuffer kit for my Spitfire. It is slightly rectangular, but the hole in the middle is about 21 * 19. Thats not a lot more than 18. I have not fitted it yet, but I assume that the spinnaker will fit into it. Does anyone in Europe know who makes the lubricant for spraying on the ring and the sail ?

hey
thanx for all the help (it`s all good)those pics would be great.

i tryed my spinnaker out on friday after noon with my brother(only 12 and doesnt now a thing, and im only 14 but i have been sailing my whole life)
well, the wind was about 12-15 knots (and just about dark)
we poped the kite and we just about got thrown of the boat.

we were double trapezing doing 20knots+ boat speed the boat was under control, i hade the helm and spinnaker and my brother the traveler.

the only problem`s i found was the bag on the tramp a bit messy (a snuufer would of been handy)
and the halyard getting knotes but i still managed to get the kite down safly,
then on saterday i went single handed with the kite,the whole system worked well until the wind picked up(15knotes+), then i started to get in a mess,the halyard had knotes and the sheets were over board ,a bit of a spageti factory.

and to top that of i almost pitch polted (i only had the main up) while chasing some other cats down i was coming on to them like a train.

i had my foot in the feet loops and trapezing but they didn`t help.
i ended up face first in the mast ouch.. but i didnt capsize lucky me

finaly today (sunday) every thing went well the wind was 25+
i was with my grandad he was on the helm and i was out trapezing with the spinnaker sheats in my hand ,and i thought i was fast on friday i think i did some were near the 25+ knotes of boat speed and loving it
i think ill invest in a gps speedo.

and the spinnaker work went perfectfor 1s , i was a bit worred about the mast but it held up quit well

wat a mouth full,hope u like my story (sorry about the spelling)

im gona get some pics next week or so and post them for u

regards kurt
taipan 4.9
aus 029

Kurt

Throw the halyard over the back of the boat after you've hoisted the kite, then you won't get the knots.

john

Or tie the end to the mast step, then while you may get loops , you will not get knots.