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Sunday, January 26, 2014

RG-65; TRYC Points Regatta on January 25, 2014

Sailed RG-65's in extremely light winds yesterday. Lesson learned; I borrowed Eric's DragonForce while finishing up a Blue Splash, and even with good sails, a stock DragonForce is pretty hopeless in light air against high-aspect, swing rigs. Not a surprise really, but a confirmation. Several DragonForce's are showing leakage in the rudder assembly area, whether this a congenital problem, or just a minor one affecting a few boats remains to be seen.

Anyhow, I left after two races, which took nearly two-and-a-half hours in the prevailing conditions. Roo and I should be ready with our swing rig Blue Splashes next time around, and hope to do better!





Note the mast rake here on Eric's new boat...






...and a short video showing the light conditions.



There was a good turn out, and it seems that the RG-65 fleet at TRYC will be drawing 10 or skippers per points regatta, which should lead to a healthy and competitive fleet!

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

IOM; Pictures from the 2013 IOM Blow-Out

For some reason, I don't think these pictures ever were posted from the the 2013 Blow-Out...so in preparation for the 2014 event, here's a look at last year...



Roo with Juno sporting her B-rig, which was raced a lot that regatta.

Nice to see another Tempest, we are rare!


Roo is the man when you weigh in! 


Fred and Andy at work in weigh in...

Dinner time!

Chuck at the grill...




A Cheinz, obviously...



Juno waits on day two with her A-rig




Tony's boat, a perennial Blow-Out top finisher


Eric Rosenbaum's Lintel...

Mr. Cooper, always a smile, and a good competitor!


Tuesday, January 21, 2014

IOM; A new A-rig

After reading up on the latest widgets and thoughts on IOM rigs, I decided to build a new A-rig for my Tempest IOM Juno. My old rig was getting on, but I'll keep it for those borderline A-B rig days.

One thing I wanted in this rig was an adjustable gooseneck axis, as covered in detail by Lester Gilbert. Essentially, changing the aspect of the gooseneck relative to the mast by shimming the bottom (or top) in and out, you can adjust (slightly) the leech of the mainsail to optimize performance. After some research, I purchased a very nice adjustable, ball-raced, variable geometry  gooseneck from the folks at Radio Sailing Shop, along with a standard rig kit. The installed gooseneck looks as follows:

Carbon fiber, ball-raced, variable geometry gooseneck. 

A screw (seen above on the bottom mast band, facing aft) allows adjustment of the gooseneck, seen here in "neutral". The mast, incidentally, is 11.1 mm, with some forward pre-bend.

I also wanted this new rig to employ a jackline, rather than simply attach the sail with tied off rings as I had done previously. Again, Lester Gilbert has a good explanation of the advantages of this system. Essentially, the leech of the sail stays aft of the mast rather than rotating around if simply tied off in rings. After discussing this with several local skippers, I ran a wire from the masthead, through a pocket in the mainsail leech, to a loop at the bottom, and bowsied it off around the gooseneck. This way the jackline tension can be adjusted, and I am told it is important not to run with the tension to tight, it can be deceptively slack to be effective. A few pictures of this attachment:

Jackline attachment with yellow shrink-wrap, at the masthead wire.

Jackline, bent into a loop and bowsied around the gooseneck.


































































The new sails for this rig, come from Power Sails, and had the luff pocket already added. I like these sails very much thus far, and they have four small cut-outs to allow the jackline to be fastened to the mast with a loop of line. Also visible in the picture above is the auto-easing Cunningham, once again based on work by Lester.

I find it easier to adjust the jib line and jib luff tension at the top, so simple bowsie attachments for these adjustments here:







































Following some advice from Radio Sailing Shop's Building Guide, the shrouds attach at a central point on the front of the mast, and otherwise have simple chainplate attachments:







































All in all I am very satisfied with the finished product, though I need to make a final jib sheet attachment, I just tied if off for the test sail. I may lower the jib a bit as well.

A few photos of Juno testing in 10 mph, she went very well, and the gooseneck adjustment definitely helped downwind performance!

Sailing along, sails full and drawing some power.

Tacking onto starboard...

A nice study, the sails full and powered up for light air.

Before an adjustment, leech of the main was bleeding out some pressure.




















































































































































Please post your comments, observations, and thoughts below! I'm particularly interested on any comments on the sail shapes above.

Monday, January 20, 2014

TRYC; some RG-65 practice on January 18, 2013

A couple of us went down to the club and sailed RG-65's Saturday...well Eric's RG-65's really,  his new boat, his Wahoo, his old boat he sold, his DragonForce, and Rich's white DragonForce. It started very windy but eventually dropped to a comfortable A-rig conditions, Eric sailed his blue Wahoo with a B-rig and Rich tried out a DragonForce B as well. I sailed Eric's DragonForce with an A-rig and was massively overpowered, though I am impressed with that boats ability to keep on it's feet in heavy air.

Eric brought his latest creation, a red boat whose name escapes me, but showed some interesting new features. It is clearly optimized for heavy air, a new boat for the Championship in April perhaps? We'll see...

Rich's boat had the servo drum screw head shear off, leaving the damaged screw stuck in the winch. Probably will require a complete replacement. I don't know if the DragonForce rules require identical servo replacements or not, but that's what it will take. Anyone who does know can post a response in the comments. The DragonForce is a very nice boat, especially for under $200, but problems like this are likely from time to time given the cost, and mass manufacture, it's not a custom built racing machine like most IOM's...a terrific fun boat, more akin to a Timex than a Rolex.

Took a few photo's and hustling to get one of Roo and I's boats ready for the points regatta...