Whose traveller would you want?

[FAST FRED]

For a cruising boat that is not tweaking the sail trim constantly while underway , the tried and true use of flat bronze jib deck track with slides works just fine.

The cost is low and the track strong enough to survive jibes if the self steering wanders a bit.

The easy maint or repair is usually simple rebedding.

KISS for cruising , so you can enjoy the trip!

[a64pilot]

A flat track won’t keep the same length relationship to the boom, the boom as one end is fixed swings in an arc, so if you wanted to keep that relationship, then the traveller would have to be bent in that same arc.

I don’t understand why you would think it important to keep that distance though cause for it to be the same your angle of the sheet would have to be perfectly the same too, and that’s unlikely.

An issue of a flat track on my boat is support, you want or need the entire length firmly bolted down, to do that would require a lot of glass work to make a flat section. Just much simpler for it to have a curve of a few inches.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by FAST FRED

For a cruising boat that is not tweaking the sail trim constantly while underway , the tried and true use of flat bronze jib deck track with slides works just fine.

The cost is low and the track strong enough to survive jibes if the self steering wanders a bit.

The easy maint or repair is usually simple rebedding.

KISS for cruising , so you can enjoy the trip!

What your describing is I believe what I had, except the Ronstan track wasn’t bronze. I had a car and two stops. Preposition one stop, head up so the sail is luffing, slide the car over and the second stop together, if the boom began to swing back let go of the car and it would click into the next pin stop.
It worked, but if the seas were heavy the rolling could or would have the boom swinging, and I always was leery of getting hurt, getting my hand caught between the car and a stopper of something.

[hpeer]

But then do you really need a traveller? Could you not simply rig a couple of smaller purchases/handy billies to the toe failed and do the same thing?

I’m asking because I have no traveler in the big boat. Although I have a few sailing miles I still consider myself a newbie. I’ve two boats and they are the only boats I’ve sailed, completely self taught. With bad habits I’m sure.

Anyway why could I not just rig a couple of control lines and play around to get a sense of it? I think I e even seen some new boats rigged this way.

[a64pilot]

I want a traveller if for no other reason than to keep that sheet line short, I learned the hard way that if you have a lot of sheet out, an accidental Gybe can be a whole lot more exciting as you give the boom a real running start with all that line, and I don’t have a toe rail and even then I’ve seen many that I wouldn’t trust to have enough strength to handle that accidental Gybe.
You need I believe to design for that, because if that boom gets completely loose with no control over it, it could get bad, even bring down the rig and or kill, even on a smaller boat I would think.
I now have a boom brake, but still.

With my boom furling I give up a lot of ability to control sail shape.

[bmz]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I want a traveller if for no other reason than to keep that sheet line short, I learned the hard way that if you have a lot of sheet out, an accidental Gybe can be a whole lot more exciting as you give the boom a real running start with all that line, and I don’t have a toe rail and even then I’ve seen many that I wouldn’t trust to have enough strength to handle that accidental Gybe.
You need I believe to design for that, because if that boom gets completely loose with no control over it, it could get bad, even bring down the rig and or kill, even on a smaller boat I would think.
I now have a boom brake, but still.

With my boom furling I give up a lot of ability to control sail shape.

Good point.

[hpeer]

I’ve already got a big Dutchman book break. I bring it back to a winch. Only problem is I can’t get to it from the helm. I consider it a necessary safety item for shorthanded sailing. My Wife sails with me but let’s just say I’m a solo sailor with a passenger. She can do some things but it’s pretty limited.

[bmz]

Originally Posted by billknny

Not having a traveler costs a LOT in upwind performance. With only a centerline attachment for the mainsheet, you can never REALLY get the boom centered, and if you try you'll have to crank ALL the twist of of the sail, which is not a good thing for windward progress.

A boom vang is NOT at all a substitute for a traveler.

Even a very short traveler really helps on a close hauled course, and a nice long one is a delight, allowing control of mainsail angle of attach AND twist even pretty far off the wind.

The lift vectors across the surface of the sail are always normal (perpendicular) to the surface of the sail at all points. If your boom is centered, the lift vectors near the leech of the sail become negative (start to point towards the rear of the boat)--in other words, they actually slow you down; the more twist in the sail, the more negative the lift vectors, the slower you go. This is pure physics. I would be happy to discuss this further, but we probably need to start our own thread so as not to hijack this one.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by hpeer

I’ve already got a big Dutchman book break. I bring it back to a winch. Only problem is I can’t get to it from the helm. I consider it a necessary safety item for shorthanded sailing. My Wife sails with me but let’s just say I’m a solo sailor with a passenger. She can do some things but it’s pretty limited.

Most of us are that way, and I suppose that is why an autopilot remote would be a useful thing, but I just head up and engage the pilot and then move my traveller, then go back and change to the new heading, the boat has always fallen off and not gotten hung in Irons,maybe because my headsail is so big?

Now that’s awkward to say the least, so hopefully my new traveller will make it easier.
This is what I intend to install as I have dual 43 winches to make it work well.

[Jim Cate]

Now that’s awkward to say the least, so hopefully my new traveller will make it easier.
This is what I intend to install as I have dual 43 winches to make it work well.

This is the layout that we have, Jody, and with our ~500 sq ft main we mostly don't need the winches... but at times they do ease the job of getting the traveler up to windward. I suspect you will be surprised how easy it is to use with low friction cars!

Jim

[a64pilot]

My main is less than 400 sq ft, my boat is headsail driven.
One reason for the two to one is with say a six to one I’d have a whole lot of line to stow, with a two to one not so much. I don’t expect to use the winch’s much, I assume mostly for tuning if you will, but they are there if I need them.

[Frankly]

Don't know how far you have got into the replacement business, but typically there is a good slab of 5200 between the aluminum track and the hatch cover. Getting that off with the gell coat in tact will not be a trivial operation.


On a couple of similar operations I have used braided leader wire as a saw to cut through the 5200 that IP is so in love with.


Frankly

[a64pilot]

I got it off, and yes it was held down well, and yes IP does seem to have an affection to the stuff.
All but one of the I believe 14 screws came out, one we drilled the head off. I believe if we had a better impact it would have too, but drilling one is no big deal.

Started out of course trying to find the parts to finish my Ronstan traveller out, the car and track were in great shape, but Rig rite gave me a six month lead time on parts, and I was told by the rigger here even then it was questionable.
So I decided on replacement, then one Daughter’s car needed a $1,500 repair that I still question, and the other cracked a tooth and couldn’t afford the root canal and cap. Did you know they now make caps out of Cubic Zirconium? You know the fake diamonds, and further more they scan the model and C&C cut the cap? My God things have come a long ways since I was last in a Dental Lab, I used to do porcelain fused to gold, and just gold on Molars like she has, cause who ever sees your Molar?
Every thing was of course done by hand and quality was greatly determined by how good the tech was, and frankly how well the procedures were too.

[hpeer]

Off topic but since you brought it up my dentist is a Croatian lady, cute (or was 20 years ago) and I’m one of her oldest patients.

Anyway she is a dental nut case, totally over the top into dental work. Teaches, gives lectures, etc. She has had one of these machines in her practice for 5-6 years. Fascinating how they stick a 3D camera in your mouth and map it out and then spit out a file to the machine. They stick a cube of material in and turn it on. It’s like 2 dremels that attack the base cube from either side and carve you a new tooth.

The last cap I had she diagnosed when I came in for a cleaning and I walked out with a finished product 3 hours later. Done, no second visit.

Back to regular programming.

[a64pilot]

My Father was that way, everyone uses a Commercial lab, he had his own, and lost money doing so, but his quality was far better that way, where others used stone for models, we silver plated the impressions cause it was more accurate.
What you mount the models on to make the teeth with as they have to fit together and be of a correct size and shade etc, but the thing you mount the models on is called an articulator, the worlds best are made in Hanau Germany.
Well it seems people of African descent have a different jaw structure and their bite is slightly different etc than a person of European descent does, and guess who lives in Germany and therefore who the articulators replicated.
Anyway he had Hanau articulators specially made to replicate the African bite as he had a few patients that were, to use the European articulator just wasn’t quite right.