It's a Nacra 5.5, I weight 180 lbs. I tried with a righting bag that I made myself, quite big: diam 22", height 30" (maybe a bit more, I don't remeber exactly). I guess it had at least 130 lbs on it. I have a mast float and just the tip of the mast was under water, when it came up (with help) it didn't seem to have water inside. Wind was maybe 15 knots and it seemed to be in the right direction, the mast pointing maybe 15° or so to the wind and the wind blowing from below the sail. That's all I could rotate the cat anyway, stepping at the stern. Main and jib were released and the upper part of the main was vertical, not looking like full of water. I raised the bag and with the same rope I hooked from the harness and stepped out myself, from the mid of the beam. The bag was hanging down from near my belly. Nothing. I also tried to move the bag out with my back but it felt less effective.
Disappointing. Now I'm afraid of the dark..
I tried the righting pole in the past with a N5.0 and it didn't work either. So it looks like I need a shroud extender. What is your experience with this device? And what do you think I could do better without it?
Thanks

Strange the righting pole didn't work, as a lever it has to work it's just the length of the pole, on my Stingray that was the same size as your boat my righting pole stuck out about 2 ft behind the rear beam. Did you let your downhaul off? The sail keeps it's shape if the downhaul is on and sucks itself back to the water. Do you throw a righting rope over the hull or is it just under the tramp? On my 5.8 it has to go over the hulls to get the leveredge

Thanks Jeff. The righting pole is an old story, it was a bit short maybe, beam to beam of a N5.0. It ended up broken in half and then I switched to the righting bag (and changed cat too). I didn't like the pole a lot, it kept bothering somehow, either when you stepped over it or bouncing agaist the beam while sailing. I'd like to try the shroud extender, unless I hear warnings about it. I attach the upper blocks of the mainsheet to the main wiht a hook (I kept it from the N5.0), so it's pretty easy to unhook it and set up a temporary spare shroud with a trap wire, to retension the loose shroud.

We get a debate every few months about whether a righting line must come over the top of the hull. Mine does and I have no problem but I'm a lot heavier than you.

Take off the float thing. That's making it much harder to right.

The position of the righting line does not effect leverage. The only thing that matters is the position of your CG. If your body is straight out with your rear end just above the water, you're applying the max leverage. How you achieve that position is irrelevant. The position of the righting line will effect how hard it is hold the line, but it won't effect how much righting moment is applied.

sm

I'm not going to argue if you don't believe that pulling something over from 2 ft/ 30 percent higher doesn't make any difference to leveredge, keep believing it. Heres a link to a guy solo righting a 20ft Hobie with shroud adjuster
http://youtu.be/XqY_zMlETo0

Good video, thanks.
About the lever arm discussion, there is a difference only if you pull from outside the boat, but if you are standing on the boat, there is no difference if your body is in the same position.
See it this way:
If you are outside (pulling from a motorboat), it's (almost) the same tension with different lever arms, so it does make a significant difference.
If you are on the boat, as you lower the attachment point, the tension gets higher because of force decomposition (to hold your weight). The tension increase compensates the lever arm reduction. (tends to infinity when lever arm tends to 0)

On the F16 Stealth I have a righting pole that extends past the rear beam about 6", I'm 160 lbs, and I have to climb out onto it, staying entirely out of the water, putting all my weight on it, to right it. And it's a 230 lb boat with a light carbon mast, so at 180 lbs and a heavier boat, even with the bag, I'm not hugely suprized that it was tough to bring up.
On the HT I have one of Hobiegary's Solo Rights, but to make it work for me, I slide an additional 24" of aluminum windsurf mast over the outboard end of it, to get sufficient leverage to right the Bimare solo. Maybe you could develop a telescoping righting pole to get the additional length you need, or secure an additional piece of tubing to underside of the tramp somehow, maybe a pocket sewn to it.
I have hyfield levers and 30" shroud extenders on the ARC22, and it recently worked perfectly, with 350 lbs of crew weight popping her back up in less than 5 minutes. The lever releases enough tension to allow the fastpin(secured with a lanyard) to be pulled from the upper end of the lever, releasing the shroud; and the shroud extender(a length of wire rope, the lower endof which is permanently secured to the chainplate, and the upper end is nicro pressed around the shroud above its lower termination) slides down the shroud, catching on the end, and effectively lengthens the shroud by that 30", allowing the hull to fall past vertical before pulling up on the mast, so now the upper hull's weight is assisting in the righting.
I'm pretty sure that the 4 or 5 inches of release that the lever alone provides, would not be enough additional shroud length to be of use. AND for this system to work, the mast base HAS to be pinned to the mast step, or bad things happen. When the boat's back on her feet, one shroud is 30" too long, and the mast can flail about scarily. One needs to quickly get the boat onto the appropiate tack so that the mast is supported by the forestay and non lengthened shroud, and then scramble over to the leeward shroud, reattach it to the hyfield lever, close the lever, and scramble back to the tiller. This seems to me to be the toughest part of the job to do solo, being away from the tiller, on the leeward side, needing the boat to neither power up nor tack back while you're fussing with the shroud. All in conditions strong enough to flip you in the first place.
But we'd all love to hear from you if you want to give it try. It might be possible to bring the tiller extension with you to the leeward shroud, and control the boat's heading. Good luck!
I do wonder about Karl's suggestion about losing the masthead float. With a sealed mast, I can always get the mast tip free of the water, but I often seem to just barely have enough leverage to get the mast past horizontal. It seems the extra 5 lbs at the masthead would make it that much harder. Far from sure though.....

Dave

There is no debate. From a physics standpoint, it makes no difference whether the line goes over the hull or attaches to the inside of the beams. Over the hull may make the line a little easier to hold yourself on to with your hands - but it doesn't give you any additional leverage to right the boat. None, zip, zero. You weigh what you weigh, the boat weighs what it weighs. As long as neither one of you is moving in relation to the other (i.e., you are dangling off the end of the righting line), the position or angle of that line makes absolutely no difference on righting the boat because you are connected to the boat at all points (your feet and your hands) effectively making a closed system. Any angle change that you make with the line affects the amount of pressure your feet exert on the hulls and they cancel each other out. It's only about getting your weight out further from the CG of the boat to cause the CG of you+boat to move out beyond the pivot point so it will start to rotate up.

Jake,
As one I-20 skipper to another....would you recommend or not whether to stand on the boards in order to right the I-20. I want to sail solo, but have that concern. I'm 6'2" and 265

The boards will take the load just fine, but you can't really lay out like you can when you're standing on the hull.

This system is on the supercats and works well.. they have a captive ball on the mast so loose shrouds is not an issue.

i think that may be an issue on other boats without a captive ball system (not sure what yours has) and some cleats and/or lines may be needed to secure the mastbase to the ball if you use extenders...

not 100% sure but just a consideration that stopped me (and others) from adding them to my TheMightyHobie18 (when i owned it)

Karl,
So if I do use them, stay closer to the trunks?
thanks

Forrest
I-20

Maybe the hobiegary system is a good idea after all. I think the reason why it can be shorter than the pole at the center of the beam is that you can stand at the tip and lean further back, as in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCbihZsXESg&list=HL1352215532&feature=mh_lolz

I'm not ordering one to Chile so I'll figure out how to do it myself. Instead of inserting something between the daggerboard and the trunk (I'm not sure there's enough room for that and I don't want it failing and damaging the tramp) I'm thinking to end the tube with a T with a loop of rope through the T. Then put the T above the daggerboard with the loop around it and slide it towards the hull. Then after righting I pull the daggerboard up to release the system. What scares me is that if I slide I may end up with the tube right in my a**... Probably a T on both sides is not a bad idea...
About length, the one on the video looks pretty short, a longer one may still be stored on the rear beam. Maybe I'll start with a longer one, stored along the tramp, towards one hull so that it doesnt' bother.

You can probably stand at the tip. I have, but I'm ~160lbs. You don't gain anything though. Like Jake said, its all about making the lever as long as possible.

Speak for yourself. There's more to the problem than physics, like balance, but I'm not even sure your analysis is valid.

In any case, I returned the under tramp system to the supplier and have used a simple rope over the hull ever since.

Ummm, no. It actually is ALL about physics.

Jake's explanation entirely valid and correct. The position of the rope has absolutely no bearing on whether or not you are able to right the boat, it only affects the forces felt by your body and the reactionary forces on the hull. All that matters is the location of your body's CG in relation to the CG of the boat, the pivot point of the system (lower hull), and any external forces acting on the system (wind & wave forces).

sm

Have you ever tried it? An under tramp righting system versus an over the hull system? I have and chose the more stable and efficient system as proven by my own experience on the water.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone use an under tramp system? I have never seen one deployed on the water, except my own, and no of no one who uses such a system.

It IS definitely easier to hold onto if it's thrown over the hull. The rope is loaded less with the less severe angle. It just doesn't help add righting moment to the system consisting of you and the boat.