imagineero wrote:

I've got a caper cat that is in desperate need of updating. Im hoping
to sail it up the coast of australia, and have ben sailing it 3 times
weekly and updating what needs to be changed bit by bit, cleats,
rigging, shrouds etc etc, the halyards are a pain to me. The main
halyard clips in with a shackle on a bowline to a dinky little d ring
on the mast, then is tensioned with a downhaul rope through a pulley
then back up to a clam cleat. It takes me about 5 minutes to rig the
main on shore, and i'd have no chance of getting it down in a pinch if
i had to out in a big blow.

Yes, I've seen a few cat setups with similar problems and frankly as
coastal dinghy cruiser they scare me s**tless. OK on a big lake or
sailing off a beach with safety cover but you dont want to be 5 miles
out on passage crossing a big bay or estuary and get caught out in a
squall. D. Parker's comment about being able to read the weather
building to the south and getting 20 minutes warning is not confidence
inspiring. Say five minutes of innattention, and 5 minutes of Hmm, is
it headed this way? then 10 minutes of struggling to get the main down
and you are out of time and quite probably swimming. Personally, I'd
like time to check all gear is secure, pop a quick plot on the chart and
get some foul weather gear on. Say 7-8 minutes total. Cut back the
'Hmm, thinking time' a bit and you still need to be able to drop and
stow the main in about three minutes.

The jib is a bit easier to rig, just goes straight to a horn cleat, but
i cant get nearly enough tension on it, even taking a half turn and
pulling for all im worth. would also be slow to take down.

I've commented on Garland's halyard tensioning idea which looks good
elsewhere in this thread. As to being slow to get down, What are you
going to do when its down? All the small cats I've ever seen have no
way of getting to the tack of the jib afloat and if you cant release the
tack, you will have the choice of dropping the jib in the water or of
having it trying to flog itself and you to death. In survival
conditions dropping it in the water and useing it as a drogue may
actually be a good thing, but if you can keep it up and broad reach off
before the squall under jib alone you'd probably be safer. What is it,
20% of your sail area? I'd also look at fitting roller furling. (N.B. I
dont mean roller reefing with a luff extrusion round the foresail. I
just mean a furling drum at the bottom and a swivel at the top on your
existing jib hoisted on a normal halyard with seperate forestay the way
it is now, so you can furl it completely round its own luff wire. full
sail or nothing, you cant reef that way.)


I've been looking around at other cats on the beach, but havent yet
seen anything i'd like. What i want is something thats fast to put up,
but super fast (and single handed, single action) to take down even
under load. I was thinking possibly a snapshackle on the main, but can
these be pulled under heavy loads?

Is the shakle and D ring at the mast head? Ive seen cats with a hook in
halyard lock and they are always a right pain in the a**e. Not a lot
you can do in that case as its designed to let the halyard running down
the mast be slack so as to avoid compression loading the mast. You
*could* try fixing one end of the halyard to the mast head and taking it
through a block that clips onto the head of the sail, through the
masthead sheave and down to the cleat which would reduce the compression
by 50% but you'd have 2x mast length of tail to coil. and you'd still
be compression loading the mast which it may not be designed to take.

On the other hand, from your question about snap shackles I supect the D
ring and shackle are somewhere near the bottom, in which case I'd forget
about using either and fit a highfield lever with the hook upwards on
the mast.
http://www.holtperformance.com/rigging/detail.asp?line=highf
Lifting the handle should give you enough slack to pop the bowline on
the halyard over the hook or pull it off to let the halyard run *without
* letting off the tensioner which I presume goes to the tack of the
mainb sail. If OTOH the tensioner is on the halyard, one of the rachet
type Highfield levers on that page should do the job *IF* you use a very
low stretch halyard, Either wire or a modern synthetic like Marlow V12
vectran.

I doubt you'd get a fully loaded pin type snap shackle to release even
with a lanyard on the pin. The ring clip would bend and pull out of the
pin first. A Witchard trigger release shackle is designed for that sort
of application but you wouldn't want it on the halyard as you have to
stick a spike in to trip it.


The alternative i came up with (and bear with me hear, im from a rock
climbing background) is halyard, coming down the mast, alpine butterfly
tied into it with a D-shackle about 6" before it enters a small pulley
bolted to the mast then back up, thorough the D shackle on the alpine
butterfly, then back down to a clam cleat. This might sound a bit
confusing, and im hopeless at ascii art, so ill just hope you can
picture it and if not then i'll draw a picture. This would give me a
2:1 purchase and be quick to release,plus give me a bit of extra gear
for jury rigging but is there an easier way?

Thats basically Garland's suggested setup but with a shackle instead of
the block. I'd reckon it would be a pain to use on the main and slow to
drop as you need to either undo the shackel or unreeve a whole mast
lenght of tail from the shackle before you drop it as if you let the
shackle head up the mast with the tail through it you should expect to
get a kink or knot in the end jamming the sail halfway down. You also
probably loose 50% of the extra advantage you get going through the
shackle and back to friction and it wont be at all easy to swig up tight.

Thanks,
Shaun Van Poecke
14' caper cat
Sydney, Australia

Lucky B*****D, I'm in the middle of discussing our winter program and
you are about to start your summer season's sailing. For some strange
reason, there is a lack of enthusiasm here for the planned race on New
Year's Day. Don't know why, the tidal Thames hasn't frozen by then in
living memory. May get a little thin ice by Febuary floating down from
above the half tide wear but that take a really cold winter.

--
Ian Malcolm. London, ENGLAND. (NEWSGROUP REPLY PREFERRED)
ianm[at]the[dash]malcolms[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk
[at]=@, [dash]=- & [dot]=. *Warning* HTML & 32K emails -- NUL:
'Stingo' Albacore #1554 - 15' Early 60's, Uffa Fox designed,
All varnished hot moulded wooden racing dinghy.