[quote=erice]
"Nice to know the boat sails well as a uni. Figured I'd do that when solo 'til I got wired on the boat. Do you have any idea what the wind speed was when you were out on that lake?"
not too sure, about 10mph?, wouldn't have usually gone without the jib in 10mph but 1 of the jib blocks cam-cleats was slipping and soloing without jib cleats isn't really possible
"Do you have any trouble tacking, or tips on how to get the bows through without a jib to backwind?"
in light to medium winds a 5.2 will generally coast through a tack well without a jib if you have enough speed when starting the tack
so when taking out friends or kids i usually leave the jib off and remove the tramp mounted jib blocks and sheet. still have to prepared to back the boat onto the new tack occasionally
(uncleat the traveller and push the boom and rudders in the direction you want to sail and hold them there while the wind, working on the BACK of the sail, pushes the boat back and around so you are facing the way you want to go. once the hulls are around onto the new tack, let go of the boom, center the rudders and SLOWLY pull in the traveller so the wind switches sides of the sail and the boat starts moving forward again and the rudders start to bite)
however, once the wind picks up it will punish any sloppy tacks by weather vanning the nacra's large and high hulls dead into wind
so when it's blowing strong enough that the waves are white capping i will remove the jib to make the boat more controllable AND try to hit all tacks with more speed and RELEASE the traveller and ot the main sheet when going into tacks
with the traveller released going into the tack all the boat speed can go into getting the hulls across the wind while the mast/sail just pivots on it's step. once the hulls are well across the wind SLOWLY pull the traveller back to center while building up forward speed again
this method does seem to kill boat speed coming out of the tack but when it's white capping i'm more concerned about keeping the boat upright and undamaged than ultimate boat speed
the lake is surrounded by volcanoes in almost the geographic center of japan, the high sides make the winds very fluky and gusty so it's quite challenge when the winds are blowing. most of the time however the winds are very light so the tall mast big sail area is perfect for pushing around just 1 person
the graphics on the boat were painted on with ordinary household enamel over our long winters
the "cool cat" name is the "chiller" font found in ms office. each letter was printed at A4 size, then enlarged to A3 size on a big copier, then cut in half and enlarged again to A3. giving about 50cm tall by 25cm wide letters that were cut out, taped to the hull and drawn on with pencil, then hand painted
similar for the nacra 5.2 on the hulls and mast with the lettering shape coming from a photo of the old cracking decal before it was pulled off
ideally the sail image would have been projected on to the sail with an lcd projector from an image on a computer while it hung over a garage rafter? the projected image traced around and then painted on
BUT, with no projector it was done old school, breaking the tiger's head into 1cm squares and transferring them onto a 10x12cm grid on the sail
painstaking work but a fun way to channel michaelangelo doing the sistine chapel:o)
<!-- editby --><em>edited by: erice, Jul 07, 2009 - 08:42 PM</em><!-- end editby --> [/quote]
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