No excuses, I had a really dismal performance, but JEEZ! WHAT A BOAT! Great time. Nice, nice people! More later. Did I mention? WHAT A BOAT! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Wait till you find the groove. You will really feel it.

Pete,

Where did you think your weakness was? What would you do different next time? How did the blade handle the chop?

Where to start?

I'm not good mechanically. I had rigged the boat as butt-backward as possible. If Ian (from Vectorworks) hadn't pitched in I might not have made it onto the water at all.

1. Lack of preparation!- fault number one! Huge, Huge error. This is a very subtle and sophisticated boat. Preparation is too important to overstate.

2. Lack of familiarity- tiller is more sensitive than any other boat I've sailled. The sail is flatter higher up, so it's very easy to go into irons. The mast is more bendy. The mast rotation is more important.

That's just a beginning! This will be quite a learning process. But, that's a good thing! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Other than the obvious preparation and familiarity problems. I'm sure I have too much mast rake. So raking the mast forward, is the first and most obvious adjustment. As it is now, there is quite a lot of weather helm.

Also, I'm having problems with the mast rotation. For most guys, that's a quick fix. For me, it will take a while. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

The boat handles chop just fine. It's the skipper that has the difficulty.

Pete:

If your squaretop is sending you into irons try this. Foot a little right before you tack and AS soon as you go head to wind let out about 2-3 feet on sheet and cleat it. This should help you from going into irons. But you will have to experiment as I don't know your boat.

Not to steal thread. But Pete I had my best two weekends of sailing with the reacher/squaretop setup on the 17. Two weeks ago was 22-25 and it flew. Just kissed the water going to weather and rocket downwind. You will love new boat when you get the hand of it. It just take time on the water.

How far are you from Fort Walton? If we go to get the 4.3 on the 17th at Great Bay Race can you meet us?

Doug and Ashleigh

Pete,

are you sure you had crew weight in the right position for the conditions? Too far aft, and you can get lee-helm (and go slow) even if mast rake is set up correctly.

Doug: Thanks for the advice. I'll give it a try. Best guess, I'm @ 400 miles from Ft. Walton.

Rolf: I'm not certain of any thing at this point. There was no problem with lee helm, rather a lot of tiller pressure on starboard tack when goind to weather. I'm sure some of that was mast rotation.

I tried shifting my weight and a position slightly forward seemed best.

The next time out, I think I'll start with the same rake and work on getting the bugs out of the mast rotation.

Thanks guy.

You had lee helm on one tack, but not the other?

I dont think mast rotation is the culprit there, rather something with your foils or rudder setup.
What is the problem with your mast rotation btw?

If you have a large head on your mainsail then you pretty much have to let out some mainsheet when you pass through the wind (sooner then that may be allright as well). This has the added benefit that you speed up quicker on the new tack as well. The difference can be quite significant and it becomes more pronounced with a larger head.

Wouter

Humm,

I usually don't link errors with mastrotation with weather helm. Sounds almost like your port rudderblade wasn't push down far enough. (not fully vertical). Although then you should also have some weather helm on the port tack.

Mast rotation bugs usually leave you feeling underpowered or leave the boat feel flighty. (= easily lifting the hull in a gust). With the superwing mast you should not look at how the mast is lined up with the back of the sail (smooth curve) but trim it completely to feel and performance. More often then not your mast LOOKS underrotate with respect to the sail curvature when you have it set right. This looks funny but does really work best. Mast rotation on the Superwing mast (Taipan and Blade) is often very little. Typically you have it between pointing to the daggerboard and rudderboard. This is noticeably less then on most other design especially older designs with teardrop shaped masts. I have yet to set it pointing to the side stays, I just never seem to go there, that is too much rotation while this was a good setting on older boats and even some new F18's. When you are singlehanding you reduced mast rotation to depower the rig.

Okay sometimes when the foot of you mainsail is too loose you end up with too much weather helm on the sloop rigged boat. Typcially have the foot fairly tight. Max deviation of foot of sail from boom at max point is about 4 inches. And that is in my experience a absolute maximum. Typically I used halve that; about 2 inches. That looks rather flat but works for me. When singlehanding with only the mainsail you can sail with more foot round. When you have weatherhelm again, try pulling the foot of the mainsail tighter and see if the weatherhelm goes away.

Good luck.

Wouter

Pete,
does the rudder just "feel" heavy, or when you let the rudder go does the boat spin to windward in a hurry?

If it just feels hard to steer, perhaps the rudder rake could be adjusted to relieve a bit of that.

Also, like they said above, if it's just weather helm on one tack, there may be an issue with the rudder alignment or toe-in setting...

Was there any current or swell you saw at JPOR that may have caused the difference in helm feel? I believe there is usually a south-north current there, which can play tricks on your mind if they set the course for the prevailing southeasterly breeze...

Jay

I'm just not sure of anything right now, sensory overload! I'll get back out in a few days and start tinkering.

Could be a loose nut on the tiller.


(jus kiddin)

Absolutely! No kiddin'! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />