The sail control table!

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

It’s not the winch so much but the lateral off the clutch’s
Also if self tailing there is a specific angle relative to the winch for the self tailer to work correctly

Agree the clutches need to be aligned to the rope.
Deck organizers can help with that.

Winches usually don't have an issue if the rope comes in within a +/- 25 degree angle from the optimum angle.

The self tailing works fine for any incoming angle as you go several times around the drum anyway.
You just need to position the self tailer once correctly towards the person operating the winch.

[Matt Johnson]

Sorry if this has been said, but have you thought of a vertical winch on the aft face of the table? The halyards, reef lines (all mast lines) could be brought to this by going down through the deck, aft and then back up the aft table face to the winch - Catana often did this on their rear beam with lines ran under the bridgedeck. This would free up a lot of space on the horizontal table top or allow you to reduce its width.

I'm guessing you are installing a normal set of winches in the aft quarters for the Spinnaker or screacher sheets? Couldn't you use those for the daggerboards?

[Matt Johnson]

One other thing. If you have two winches - one of them electric - put the electric on the port side. This allows you to cross sheet off the manual winch to the electric with a good lead to the clutches for the manual.

It's's one of those "ahhh" things I figured out in the shower. But I'm sure your rigger would know this already.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Matt Johnson

One other thing. If you have two winches - one of them electric - put the electric on the port side. This allows you to cross sheet off the manual winch to the electric with a good lead to the clutches for the manual.

It's's one of those "ahhh" things I figured out in the shower. But I'm sure your rigger would know this already.

I don’t know. I don’t really have any help with this. I’m not sure what the riggers are doing and what I am doing. There’s no communication.

I wish they would really take charge of this rigging project and get it done. I was trying to just outsource this entire part of the project. The rigging. Kind of struggling here with that. I don’t really know what to do because I don’t know how the lines are coming in yet. There’s no drawing or map or anything. I have nothing to go on.

Like I feel like they should have gone through all eventualities of how this will go together and produced documents we can all follow. I don’t know. I don’t know if they did or not. They are most concerned with just getting the mast vertical. And then looking at everything.

But I’ve already been here for four weeks. Waiting on their metal fabrication for parts needed just to get the mast vertical.

Trying to work with whatever their method is. But it leaves me in a weird spot for this stuff. I truly don’t understand how they approach the project. But I’m trying not to piss anyone off and trying to work with them and be patient.

Like for one example, and they might be reading this and will get tipped off by it, I am waiting to see if they remember to get the foil for the furler straightened out before the mast goes up. It gets longer because I put the extension on. I have mentioned that several times. Are they going to put the mast up and then do the foil so it take longer? you know? Stuff like that. Also the VHF and wind instruments and stuff. I have all of that on the boat but they have the mast. They don’t really seem to want to do that stuff until the mast is up. Which is kind of surprising to me. But I guess they have their methods.

And a month after arriving, they found that my gooseneck is cracked and now that is going to the fabricator as well. They said we are now at the end of the line waiting for that.

I’ve paid $6500 so far. $5000 deposit to them and $1500 to move the mast to them.

I’m getting a little bit antsy here. Nervous.

I could be nervous for nothing. But I just feel like they are going to run into tons of problems because they didn’t look at this from start to finish. Getting a good idea of the whole project at one time. And picking up all the details at once.

I could be totally wrong. But that’s the sense I’m getting going into this. Everything seems to be dealt with as it comes up rather than in advance.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Matt Johnson

Sorry if this has been said, but have you thought of a vertical winch on the aft face of the table? The halyards, reef lines (all mast lines) could be brought to this by going down through the deck, aft and then back up the aft table face to the winch - Catana often did this on their rear beam with lines ran under the bridgedeck. This would free up a lot of space on the horizontal table top or allow you to reduce its width.

I'm guessing you are installing a normal set of winches in the aft quarters for the Spinnaker or screacher sheets? Couldn't you use those for the daggerboards?

This is a pretty good concept. It may make sense to do them all like this. To run every line through the deck and then in. That would take care of any of my problems with water coming in the openings. Because the area below where the lines would enter is nothing. It’s just an empty compartment that I can put a drain in the bottom of.

Could I use those frictionless rings mounted into the deck to route the lines down?

Then a set of sheaves below the deck to turn them all 90 degrees so they all go aft, through the bulkhead and into the boat?

I may have to draw this.

[Matt Johnson]

I'm not by my computer, but I have a few drawings of the sheave boxes for this.... All pretty easy to DIY.

Yes, the concept becomes a sort or dorade box and allows water to drain without coming through the forward cabintop. It does add one more set of friction in the block arrangement for the last 90 turn, but in the end, may be worth the added trouble. I'm not sure I'd want the friction or odd angle in the mainsheet, traveler or jib sheets, but halyards or reef lines may be okay with this.

[Chotu]

I actually tried to give the entire project to them. Including the sail control table. They had a guy come by it was supposedly a fiberglass guy. He didn’t seem that knowledgeable. But, he looked at it and said I’ll think about it. And then he didn’t really want to do it and never got back to me. And the reference from this form I have in the area didn’t want to do it either. So I don’t have anybody to outsource this to.

Truly, I wasn’t supposed to be doing all of this. I was just supposed to go somewhere and have a shop do it.

What I want to do is bring the boat somewhere and be like here. I need this rigging done and have someone put it up and do the running rigging . That’s all I’m trying to do here. But more and more of it seems to be just getting put back on me.

I saved and saved and saved so I would be able to outsource this part and now it’s all back on me. To be honest, I’m definitely having psychological problems. I was already at my breaking point with this boat and doing all this work and now I have an entire winter of it ahead of me again? God dammit.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Matt Johnson

I'm not by my computer, but I have a few drawings of the sheave boxes for this.... All pretty easy to DIY.

Yes, the concept becomes a sort or dorade box and allows water to drain without coming through the forward cabintop. It does add one more set of friction in the block arrangement for the last 90 turn, but in the end, may be worth the added trouble. I'm not sure I'd want the friction or odd angle in the mainsheet, traveler or jib sheets, but halyards or reef lines may be okay with this.

Yeah I think this is a fantastic design. If there is any chance you could send any of this, that would be really helpful. I’m going to sketch it up really quick and post it. Just with a pencil and paper. But I think I understand what you are talking about it makes so much sense.

[Chotu]

Wow. This forum has really been eating posts lately. Especially when you are trying to attach images.

Trying again.

I drew up what Matt and I are discussing. Just a quick rough pencil sketch. Not even done well. But it should give the idea.

The idea at least my part of it, is having frictionless rings embedded in the deck to allow you to bring any line down below the deck level. From whatever angle it’s coming from.

Once they are below deck, sheaves on an axle(s) can turn them 90°.

From there, they can just come straight through the main structural bulkhead and onto a table at the correct height.

This isn’t an extra bit of friction really, other than the sheaves, because I already had to have these lines going around the corner with the design I was doing just to come in from the deck. Because the table itself was too high. I was going to do it on an angle. This is a much more elegant way to do it I think.

PS: Matt, no winches aft. Turning blocks back there. I really want to make sure I am able to control everything from the helm. The home is indoors where we are talking about in this thread.

[rslifkin]

Some of the design aspects of the control table are going to come down to your personal preferences as much as anything. Stand in front of the mockup for a bit and picture yourself sailing. Think about what controls you're using most and least, etc. And then think about how easily you're able to reach some of them, what you're able to use quickly, what you're left thinking "that's annoying to use", and you'll likely come up with some ideas for where you want things.

If needed, you can just use labeled pieces of cardboard or something to represent many of the parts. Once you've got a feel for what will provide a usable layout, mark it out on the table mockup, then confirm it's practical for you to build it that way.

Physically building the table shouldn't be too bad. You know how to do that part. Given enough plywood, I'd plan to use that for the whole front face and the top and sacrifice a few pounds of weight. Then you can mount hardware anywhere on the table you want, so you don't have to get the hardware layout perfect before you start building. And you'll leave yourself room to add more things later, if desired (such as being able to do both top and front winches if you wanted).

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

Some of the design aspects of the control table are going to come down to your personal preferences as much as anything. Stand in front of the mockup for a bit and picture yourself sailing. Think about what controls you're using most and least, etc. And then think about how easily you're able to reach some of them, what you're able to use quickly, what you're left thinking "that's annoying to use", and you'll likely come up with some ideas for where you want things.

If needed, you can just use labeled pieces of cardboard or something to represent many of the parts. Once you've got a feel for what will provide a usable layout, mark it out on the table mockup, then confirm it's practical for you to build it that way.

Physically building the table shouldn't be too bad. You know how to do that part. Given enough plywood, I'd plan to use that for the whole front face and the top and sacrifice a few pounds of weight. Then you can mount hardware anywhere on the table you want, so you don't have to get the hardware layout perfect before you start building. And you'll leave yourself room to add more things later, if desired (such as being able to do both top and front winches if you wanted).

Yeah. You are definitely right about that. At first I was not really thinking you were right about that. I was thinking no. I can plan out where everything should be and then save some weight by using foam.

But I think any surface where things would get mounted has to be plywood here. Or at the very minimum balsa.

What sucks is I don’t have the raw materials to do that with. I have foam.

[Chotu]

And honestly, I don’t really know if I need those sheaves inside of the area below deck in what Matt and I are discussing. There’s no reason that I can’t just use frictionless rings in the main structural beam also.

The lines would just go in a diagonal pattern

Like this.

Just simplified this like crazy.

[rslifkin]

Technically you could mount stuff into a foam section if the fiberglass skins are thick enough, it'll just be more work as you'll have to dig out some core and backfill with thickened resin for every hole you drill. So plywood or other more compression resistant material will be easier.

I'm thinking the whole top and front of this thing is less than 1 sheet of plywood though, so the materials problem might be easily fixed with a trip to Home Depot or similar if you can arrange such a trip. I'd expect any exterior grade plywood would be sufficient for this purpose, considering it's going to be inside the boat and encapsulated in fiberglass (and presumably at least soaked in resin through the mounting holes, if not overdrilled and filled).

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

Technically you could mount stuff into a foam section if the fiberglass skins are thick enough, it'll just be more work as you'll have to dig out some core and backfill with thickened resin for every hole you drill. So plywood or other more compression resistant material will be easier.

I'm thinking the whole top and front of this thing is less than 1 sheet of plywood though, so the materials problem might be easily fixed with a trip to Home Depot or similar if you can arrange such a trip. I'd expect any exterior grade plywood would be sufficient for this purpose, considering it's going to be inside the boat and encapsulated in fiberglass (and presumably at least soaked in resin through the mounting holes, if not overdrilled and filled).

You know, you get so used to building things for exterior boat standards that you forget. Ha ha. You’re right. When will this thing see any water? Just some water coming off of the lines if they are damp. But if you look at the frictionless rings, they will actually serve to squeegee some water right out of the lines as you pull them in. Which is really nice. So the lines will just be damp rather than pouring water off of them.

I wonder what lightweight wood they have at Home Depot. Although, I am here without a vehicle so no idea how I’d move a sheet. I am on the boat at anchor now. I’ll try to figure something out. I suppose I could also destroy some of the nice Okoume wood that I have set aside for the floors are ready. I was thinking about that. Not looking forward to it because they are already pre-cut to the right size for the floors. But I could use one of them for the mounting surfaces. That might be the best thing. Then later I’ll buy another sheet of Okoume when I am somewhere.

Have to source those frictionless rings too.

[Flobble]

Originally Posted by Chotu

And honestly, I don’t really know if I need those sheaves inside of the area below deck

Absolutely you do; 50ft cat, big loads, 90 degree turns -> high friction, high wear, high maintenance.

There’s no reason that I can’t just use frictionless rings in the main structural beam also.

Apart from the fact that they're not frictionless. Low(ish) friction, but very definitely not frictionless.

Another note: before placing an order for my upcoming boat, I visited all the yards on the shortlist to get a sense of how they really design and think about how their boats are used in practice.

One had build a full-scale mock-up of the cockpit in timber to test out all the manoeuvring scenarios with real people and real ropes. A couple of things stood out - firstly they asked "how would you tack/hoist/gybe/reef?" and watched what we did. Secondly, there was clear evidence of many iterations of the layout - winches & clutches having been moved, swapped. Heights and distances had been adjusted.

You don't have that luxury, but one idea might be to design your table such that you can easily make changes in the future. Reality will likely be different from what you expect.