best jib sheet cleat position?

update,

hating the current jib block and cleat position
just can't trim the jib correctly for upwind performance

on my 13' sailing dingy when sailing upwind i pull the jib right in, point until the tell tales are about to stall, and then bring in the main to suit

but with the current jib cleat position on my 5.2 i can't get anywhere near 45degrees upwind before the jib stalls. main is no problem

experimenting in light winds has shown it will fill quite nicely if the leech can be brought in to the old position halfway along the stack strap

fortunately a friend with a box of blocks is going to let me experiment with some old ronstan mainsheet fiddle blocks with built in cleat so i can get the jib cleating back in at the old position mid-tramp

2 years ago on this forum in this thread

http://www.catsailor.com/forums/showflat...;o=&fpart=2

pitchpole dave said about the 5.2 jib wires running across the tramp

The jib track wire can easily be taken off. If you are racing then you can sew loops in the tramp to attach the jib blocks. This is a very well known and well documented fix for the jib wire problem

anyone know where i can find this

documented fix

?

eric e

Eric, you can do that and it would be nice. But if you just sail the boat for a while you forget about the cables.

I took some pipe insulating foam and put it around the cable with some red duck tape. Looks good matchs colors on the boat and only cost 7 bucks total. I just left a little gap where the jib block are 95% of the time, the other 5% I am sailing the boat uni.

You don´t need high tech for testing, just a rope tied from side to side, with little loops on it to attach the blocks. I did that for testing and just kept using it, I don´t need to adjust the block position, one attachment point is enough for me (I´m just a recreational sailor though). The rope doesn´t bother at all, but you need to pay attention to the mast spreader, you might end up tensioning the jib against it.

It seems like last spring someone posted some pics of their project including shots of their modified jib cleating locations on the tramp. If I remember right they put grommets through the tramp at an angle to the hulls, then laced some line through the grommets to make loops so they could hook their jib blocks and adjust the cleating angle. Can't remember who it was off hand... Airborne maybe?

I just got done putting the jib wire back on my prindle. I had taken it off for my crew's comfort but was having trouble pointing and with power. It was suggested to me that I replace the cable with line that would be softer and would lay on the tramp. I ended up putting the cable back on, but added a clevis to the end of it effectively adding about 1 1/2 inches in length to the cable. This allows the cable to lay loosely on the tramp so if kneeled on it doesn't hurt quite so bad.

I've been out a couple times since making this change and have been happy with it so far.

got up early this morning and went down to the water to start fiddling with fiddle blocks

the jib attachment wire cables on this boat have been covered by 2 lengths of thick black rubber per side and have been acting as stack straps. also running up from the rear beam to halfway is a bit of nylon rope with a loop in it, presumably where the original harken jib fiddle blocks were mounted

i put the 2 clamps i had there, rerouted the jib sheet and took her out

unfortunately the wind had picked up and it was all i could do to keep the boat in some sort of control, my gps was showing speeds up to 29kph
soon discovered that i needed to tighten up the cleat arm bolts on the port block as i couldn't pull the line out of the cleat being as it was kind of loosely floating
tacked round to head back to the beach a little slower and found that on the starboard block i had the clamp the wrong way round, so i couldn't pull in the jib but the wind could pull it out....

oh well the learning curve continues, went back and sorted out the jib blocks but then decided to the wind was too strong now for me to use the jib
took it off and went back out and failed a couple of tacks but as i had been reading up on failed tacks i wasn't surprised when the rudder action reversed and i was able to back her round to the side i wanted

anyway have decided to keep both jib cleating systems
fixed to the boat; the original nacra system that allows better pointing into wind at the expense of tramp space, for when i'm sailing solo.(95% of the time) and the previous owners hull mounted blocks which are good for reaches and open up the tramp space, for family days

thanks for the advice

eric e

Sounds like a wild day, but I would be careful with those claim of speed from a GPS, they are known for giving some insanely high instantaneous readings.

that's 29km per hour, not knots:)

i'm too much of a sailing newbie to think in knots yet

but if i change the unit settings it actually says top speed yesterday was 30.4kmph, which is 16.4knots. not a huge cat speed but fast enough for a beginner without a trap, soloing on 17foot cat he isn't confident he can get back up by himself;o)

i've been using small consumer gps for around 7 years and they are great little toys. current machine is a garmin HCx vista. waterproof to a meter. i loop it to my tramp crossbar, reset the memories, turn off all the screens except the trip computer and select big numbers. have attached a screen grab pic

while sailing and making sail shape changes i try to keep and eye on the speed meter to see what gives the best speed, slowly you gain a pretty accurate idea of best sail shape or reaching angle

then after the sail i download the tracks to my laptop and discard any erroneous plots with crazy speeds, (usually only the 1st few points after starting up some distance from last shutdown) you can even view your tracks with google earth, which is pretty cool

using it on the lake i know that
- my kayaking average speed is 6kmph
- rowboat average is 5kmph
- 13foot sailing dingy self bailer starts sucking at 9kmph, by which time i've started stacking out to keep the boat upright

so 30kmph is huge step up in the speeds i'm used to on the lake

eric e

how do some people attach pics directly to the post so they are viewable along with the text?

Nice. Always wanted to do that. I had a GPS on my boat once, but not a lot of wind that day, just got an 8 knots reading.
Hard to justify buying a gps just for that though...

Any suggestions for the self conviction exercise? (or more honestly.. wife conviction excercise..)

well, for just using as a speed meter just about any portable gps ever made will do that and that means early models that can't connect to your computer to up/download tracks, waypoints, maps etc. like this floating magellan gps300 on ebay, $50 buy it now...probably end up selling for $40

http://cgi.ebay.com/Magellan-GPS-300_W0QQitemZ160160299049QQihZ006QQcategoryZ34290QQcmdZViewItem

however if you are computer literate enough to be on an internet forum you'd probably want at least a 2nd hand 1st gen garmin etrex in yellow, new for $80 buy it now and cheaper if you wait for a an auction to end on a 2nd hand one

http://electronics.search.ebay.com/etrex...gZ1QQsofocusZbs

spend a little more and you get maps, then color and finally expandable memory and more sensitive chipsets for around $250

eric e

Sorry, I don't do the whole KPH, I live in the states and that is just to much math.

Eric,
Keep the jib wires. They come in handy for moving around the boat and coming in and out of the trap. I have a blue tramp so I covered mine with a blue garden hose. It matches the boat and keeps the wire from meathooking your legs. I run a line from the rear beam, through the hose, to the jib block so that I can adjust the block forward and aft. I don't have any outhaul set up for it because I use a barberhauler. Set it up to sail fast and you will get used to it.

-Rob

for interests sake i've attached a screen capture of the gps laptop software's display of my 1st

fall over

kind of like a simplified aircraft black box

can see that;

- sailing started at 1.10pm and finished at 2.32pm
- that i did ten reaches across the windiest part of the lake and a southerly was blowing
- speed immediately prior to capsize was 10knots but had done 14-15 knots several times before that, so boat speed wasn't to blame
- capsize happened at 1.58'22

and finished at 2.07'56

when i was helped to right the cat. (upper body was pretty tired by then from around 5 minutes of being unable to right the boat)
- distance of drift was a 5th of a nautical mile and that without help i was maybe just going to miss drifting onto a rocky headland and continue through to the village

not sure what it all means yet but it's something to ponder while i sail those slack wind days

eric e