What makes a boat weatherly?
 

It's also interesting to have students after they've been on a
dink and then take the more "advanced" class on a bigger
boat. In some respects, they have to learn where the wind
is all over again. At least that's been my experience with
a significant number of students.

Also, since the bigger boats don't react as quickly to the
wind, they have to learn patience to find the grove and
keep it there.

"N1EE" wrote in message
om...
DSK wrote

Frank Maier wrote:

Ole Thom pretty much answered for me. I've raced and cruised on both
masthead and fractional rigs. I guess I answered "masthead", assuming
as my default a full crew of experienced sailors who'd manually deal
with changing conditions on a constant basis. Then you don't need the
fractional rig to "automatically depower" for you.

Conventional wisdom has it that mast head rigs will point higher, and I
think
that's true in ideal pointing conditions. But I think the frac rig is
more
versatile.

Masthead rigs can also carry a bigger spinnaker
and go faster downwind.


heh heh the old Fredom 40 cat-ketch is one of my dream boats. They don't
point
so high either, but it's a marvelous cruising rig. Sturdy and very easy
to
handle.

I want to try one of those. They look like fun.


It's also a very good point that knowing how to get the optimum out of
the rig
you have is more important than pining away for some theoretical ideal.
There
are too many sailors who study teensy detailed ways of scrooching some
small
improvement out of their boat, when their basic sailing methods are
notably
below optimal. I remember acting as 'guest skipper' on a very nice
European
designed and built racer-cruiser, a boat that should have had good
performance
but usually did very poorly in casual races. The usual skipper stood at
my
elbow and appeared to be very interested in how I drove the boat and had
the
sails trimmed. He usally cranked everything in hard and made the boat
heel
'way over, when I skippered we did much better. The next day, I was
sailing on
another boat and he went back to doing the same old thing.... and was
complaining about it the rest of the season.

Lots of sailors jump into big boats and think
they know to sail them. The fact is they will
never get good, if the boat is forgiving.

Small boats make the sailor. If you learn on
a dinghy, and screw up, you end up in the water.
When you are wet, and cold, is it very obvious
which way the wind is coming from. I am still
amazed at the number of people, who can't tell
where the wind is coming from! I tell me
students if they screw that up, I'm dumping a
bucket of water on their heads to help them
learn. Threats seem to help.


Thom's keel mod is a good idea IMHO because he does not sail in the
conditions
the boat was designed for, so it benefitted from increased keel area.
For most
sailors, I don't think such a modification would be a good idea.

I'm not familiar with what Thom did, so I'll take
your word for it.


Bart Senior

What makes a boat weatherly?
 

N1EE wrote:

Doug you are talking about a mast
being straight side to side, and
of course you are correct that many
people don't get this right. For one
thing is a pain and take a lot of time
tweaking the shrouds.

If you know the method, it doesn't really take that much time. I think most
people don't approach it methodically and either make it worse or else fiddle
around forever. The important thing is to loosen all the lowers first and get the
masthead centered, few people seem willing to start by un-doing all previous mast
tuning.

It used to be that tuning manuals would talk about getting a uniform athwartships
bend to either open or close the slot, depending on whether the boat needed more
pointing or more power. But it has turned out that keeping the mast "in column"
meaning straight when viewed athwartship is faster. It may be that modern sails
(different cut & materials) respond enough differently that back then, the
side-to-side bend did help.... if you got it right...

We've had this demonstrated dramatically twice... once in the Lightning and once
in the Johnson 18. Somehow one lower shroud got tightened and I did not
scrupulously check the mast before setting out for the starting line. We could
point sort of OK on one tack, but terrible on the other, and despite all we could
do were sailing alongside the tail-enders. After spotting & fixing the problem
(which made me vow for the 100th time, always review the basics) we had front row
seats.




MC is talking about mast bend as used
for sail shaping--another subject entirely.

Yes, as usual he missed the point.

I think that it would be good to discuss mast bend & rake, too. Then MC will get
to toss in his 2 cents (but he'll probably still be wrong).

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

What makes a boat weatherly?
 

Matt Colie wrote:
Strangly,
That is not at quite what the towing tank data work here says.
For a conventional vessle sailing in moderate conditions with a slight
weather helm (Ra 3).
Yes, the rudder has a lift component to weather and it is most typically
below the center of bouyancy.

MC wrote:
So now we agree.

Funny... do you realize what he's saying, MC? In any case, it does not "agree"
with your earlier statements.

Matt is exactly right, that lift comes at the cost of drag, and weather helm can
easily cost more in speed than it gains in reducing leeway. The usual figure
given as max desirable weather helm is 2 degrees, which ain't much.


I think you've evaded the point. Of course the keel provides most of the
lift but the rudder dfoes add some -right? Remember even a small gain
wins races to windward!

Really? You can state this from personal knowledge? How many races have you won,
MC? IIRC the last race you mentioned, you dropped out and ruined your dinghy
motor. Does dragging a dinghy upside down improve pointing?

DSK

What makes a boat weatherly?
 

It took me and a couple of friends about three hours to get it right on
my Cal 20. That included putting up the mast itself.

"DSK" wrote in message
...
N1EE wrote:

Doug you are talking about a mast
being straight side to side, and
of course you are correct that many
people don't get this right. For one
thing is a pain and take a lot of time
tweaking the shrouds.

If you know the method, it doesn't really take that much time. I think
most
people don't approach it methodically and either make it worse or else
fiddle
around forever. The important thing is to loosen all the lowers first and
get the
masthead centered, few people seem willing to start by un-doing all
previous mast
tuning.

It used to be that tuning manuals would talk about getting a uniform
athwartships
bend to either open or close the slot, depending on whether the boat
needed more
pointing or more power. But it has turned out that keeping the mast "in
column"
meaning straight when viewed athwartship is faster. It may be that modern
sails
(different cut & materials) respond enough differently that back then, the
side-to-side bend did help.... if you got it right...

We've had this demonstrated dramatically twice... once in the Lightning
and once
in the Johnson 18. Somehow one lower shroud got tightened and I did not
scrupulously check the mast before setting out for the starting line. We
could
point sort of OK on one tack, but terrible on the other, and despite all
we could
do were sailing alongside the tail-enders. After spotting & fixing the
problem
(which made me vow for the 100th time, always review the basics) we had
front row
seats.




MC is talking about mast bend as used
for sail shaping--another subject entirely.

Yes, as usual he missed the point.

I think that it would be good to discuss mast bend & rake, too. Then MC
will get
to toss in his 2 cents (but he'll probably still be wrong).

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

What makes a boat weatherly?
 

DSK wrote:

Matt Colie wrote:

Strangly,
That is not at quite what the towing tank data work here says.
For a conventional vessle sailing in moderate conditions with a slight
weather helm (Ra 3).
Yes, the rudder has a lift component to weather and it is most typically
below the center of bouyancy.

MC wrote:
So now we agree.


Funny... do you realize what he's saying, MC? In any case, it does not "agree"
with your earlier statements.


Yes he does, he now agrees that the rudder gives lift with weather helm.
Read it again carefully.


Matt is exactly right, that lift comes at the cost of drag, and weather helm can
easily cost more in speed than it gains in reducing leeway. The usual figure
given as max desirable weather helm is 2 degrees, which ain't much.


Of course, we all know lift always comes at the expense of drag! The
real issue is why might lift from the keel be more efficient than that
of the rudder?

Since the question was weatherliness and not speed, the increased drag
may be acceptable.

You probably don't know this but tests with a full size boat showed that
having two rudders and no fin keel per se. produced some real benefits
in windward work but it was at the expense of complexity and diffuclty
in control.




I think you've evaded the point. Of course the keel provides most of the
lift but the rudder dfoes add some -right? Remember even a small gain
wins races to windward!


Really? You can state this from personal knowledge? How many races have you won,
MC? IIRC the last race you mentioned, you dropped out and ruined your dinghy
motor. Does dragging a dinghy upside down improve pointing?


We weren't racing -when racing we don't tow a dinghy do you? Where do
you get your strange ideas?


Cheers

What makes a boat weatherly?
 

Ganz wrote...

It took me and a couple of friends about three hours to get a strap-on right
on
my pal, Joey. That included swallowing


Ewwwwwwwwwww!!!!

RB

What makes a boat weatherly?
 

"Bobsprit" wrote in message
...
Ganz wrote...

It took me and a couple of friends about three hours to get a strap-on
right
on
my pal, Joey. That included swallowing


Ewwwwwwwwwww!!!!

RB

What makes a boat weatherly?
 

Ganz wrote: "Bobsprit" wrote in message
...
Ganz wrote...

It took me and a couple of friends about three hours to get a strap-on
right
on
my pal, Joey. That included swallowing


Ewwwwwwwwwww!!!!

RB

What makes a boat weatherly?
 

"Bobsprit" wrote in message
...
Ganz wrote: "Bobsprit" wrote in message
...
Ganz wrote...

It took me and a couple of friends about three hours to get a strap-on
right
on
my pal, Joey. That included swallowing


Ewwwwwwwwwww!!!!

RB

What makes a boat weatherly?
 

MC wrote:

Yes he does, he now agrees that the rudder gives lift with weather helm.
Read it again carefully.

*You* read it again carefully, stupid.

What Matt said was the the drag caused by the rudder angle was more of a penalty on
forward velocity than the lift was a gain in VMG. In his second statement, he said
that the geometry was such that the rudder's lift produced torque. Do you know what
*that* means?

DSK