Mahe 36: Rig and Sails

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by Rufduck

Hi all,
Has anyone managed to install a self tacking jib on a MAHE?
Was chatting with a friend with a Leopard and broached the subject and his reply was, cruising how often do you tack? Sailing in NW North America, a lot. I’m all about making things easier and easier (read getting lazier) and a thread on another forum piqued my curiosity.

BTW, my relocation of the D1-30 oil filters worked beautifully. Easy access, no mess and <2 minute filter change for about $5 with a filter that has 3 times the filter area and adds about a half liter more oil.

Cheers, Rufduck

self tacking lacks performance and if you have to tack a lot you will loose a lot additional wind angle with it, cat is already bad at this. Means forget tacking and put on the iron sail aka engine...
If lazier get a powercat


can please you show and explain how you relocated oil filter. Should work with other D1 and D2 natural aspirated too as setup is the same.

[Rufduck]

Having November weather and just battened down here for this storm. Leaving for Hawaii with kids and granddaughter Wednesday and then for Texas with daughter, SIL and her 4th grade science class. Back January and will take some pics after.
Working out a couple of bugs after pounding it pretty hard but glad I did it.

Cheers, Rufduck

[seantcoyote]

Hi all - we're adding a bow sprit (a removable one, not the FP stock bowsprit), and need to install padeyes for it, on each hull, just above the waterline. Has anyone done this or do you know if there's an area of solid glass, forward on the inner sides of the hulls? It'll be more labor-intensive if we have to replace a section of cored glass with solid.

[Kazamaran]

Hello Sean. Nice hearing from you and good luck with your plans to head south. I just back in late May after a six month run south and back. Awesome trip. Ran into great folks along the way and of course you could never beat the environment.

To your question, I’ve contemplated this on occasion but keep going back to the ease on tacking a spinnaker from right off the forebeam and using a tracker strap tied around the headsail. Works great but some think the bow sprit is the way to go. They look official and probably some gained performance and more options on how you fly it.

I would’ve done the bowsprit down rigs in one of two ways:

1. Go inside the fore peaks and lay up roughly a quarter inch of glass reinforcement at a center hold dimension. Roughly 12-16 inches long x 5 inches height. This will do a good job of spreading the load without stressing or rupturing the hull and the eventual anchor points. You would likely NOT get any gel coat stress cracks ever. The pad should compensate for the lack of rigging angle. Once done, thru bolt the pad eyes. Placement: if you look closely at the hull exterior in that area outside, you’ll see reference indents in the gel coat for such and adventure. Those marks look to be just above the fore peak deck. Not certain, because I never went in that direction, but worth investing because that will ensure absolute dimension and load between the two sides.

2. If you’re confident of your cosmetic gel coat skills. You can copy the likely dimensions from factory installed units, lay out and build the exterior hull with a glass pad and anchor the down rigging that way. You can spread out the glass lay up to creat only small humps. If you’re not confident in matching the gelcoat color RAL9016- Traffic White, you could finish the edges of either round or square something or other and gelcoat or paint with FP’s sexy blue and it would look cool.

I wouldn’t engineer any design that would necessitate penetration of the water tight bulkhead.

My druther would’ve been option one. Simply because the rigging is higher out of the water and less likely to interfere with any mooring ball or anchoring interferences. I’ve seen bowsprits and rigging issues all the time when the mooring ball gets in a fight with the boat during tidal shifts and wind. Also, less problems and worry with anchor exercises and/or bridal issues.

My reality with the asym: food for thought. I originally bought and set up an asym. Flew great but what our boat needs is a downwind solution. The asym sort of works for that - 150- 210. Anything forward of that, the current sail plan works great. Also, constant adjustments. Also once the apparent wind builds forward of the beam the load goes way up it doesn’t take much to overstress things. What I really needed was a true downwind solution from 150-210. So I sold the asym and bought a symmetrical sail. 46’ luffs and about 23’ foot. Of course there’s more lines involved, 2 sheets, 2 guys. It rigs from both forepeaks of course, but stand up blocks are reasonable and easy to install. I added a harken ratchet snubber winch to the port over the rear port suite. It’s a low boy and out of the way. Added a cam cleat and done. Also added small turning blocks to the stanchions on both port and starboard. I use the helm winch for the stb side sheet. When this thing flies, it’s poetry. 10 kts of true wind, 6 knots thru the water dead down wind and all angles between 150-210. Best part is the lack of mind numbing adjustment of trying to get a leading edge curl on an asym. It simply floats, and within the 60 degrees take up most everything without adjustment. No question, there’s more to it than an asym, but comparison with downwind performance on our cats…..well, there isn’t any.

Just my thoughts. I know folks that swear by the asym and for all kinds of good reason. But if you’re goal is downwind performance past 150-210, then you might consider the symmetrical approach.

Good luck either way. Hope these comments help you in your quest. Ken

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

self tacking lacks performance and if you have to tack a lot you will loose a lot additional wind angle with it, cat is already bad at this. Means forget tacking and put on the iron sail aka engine...

The does not need to be any performance hit with a self tacking jib on a cat or monohull. It all depends on the length of the track and how much control you have over the amount of travel the car takes when you tack.

You can have a long curved track and limit the amount of travel with a tweaker line.

This would work even better on a cat which has apparent wind ahead of the beam most often,

[Rufduck]

OK…sailing downwind, main and jib. Main at first reef and jib at 70%. True wind 30-35 (actually about 4 knots higher because we are running with the current), apparent wind mid-high 20s. Relatively smooth water, wind with current. I did not have a preventer rigged!
What technique do you use to gybe the boat? Single handing as Linda is reading below. 1-2 mile wide fjord like channel, necessitated frequent gybes. Main is travelled down and boomed out.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Rufduck

OK…sailing downwind, main and jib. Main at first reef and jib at 70%. True wind 30-35 (actually about 4 knots higher because we are running with the current), apparent wind mid-high 20s. Relatively smooth water, wind with current. I did not have a preventer rigged!
What technique do you use to gybe the boat? Single handing as Linda is reading below. 1-2 mile wide fjord like channel, necessitated frequent gybes. Main is travelled down and boomed out.

First place, with apparent wind in mid to high 20's, I'd ask for some help.

Traveller to the middle.
Grind in the main as far as you are comfortable.
Put crew on main sheet with instructions to let it out fast as soon as it gybes.
Turn the boat downwind.
When main gybes over crew lets it out quickly.
Then take care of the jib.
Ease traveller
Consider rigging preventer and sailing deeper to reduce number of gybes.

(Advice from a monohull sailor. How did I do?)

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by wingssail

First place, with apparent wind in mid to high 20's, I'd ask for some help.



Traveller to the middle.

Grind in the main as far as you are comfortable.

Put crew on main sheet with instructions to let it out fast as soon as it gybes.

Turn the boat downwind.

When main gybes over crew lets it out quickly.

Then take care of the jib.

Ease traveller

Consider rigging preventer and sailing deeper to reduce number of gybes.



(Advice from a monohull sailor. How did I do?)

Not bad, but a cat doesn’t get squirrelly when the main gybes so no need for the centring nor the quick ease. He can do it single handed as long as the headsail doesn’t need much attention and he’s got an autopilot.

To set up for the gybe bring in the mainsail sheet so that the leech is tight and the boom won’t move far when the sail gybes over. Make sure that the leeward control line of the traveller is tight and cleated so that the traveller doesn’t move.

Turn the boat to downwind, then just past until the main gybes. Hold your course there for a bit. Your headsail will be lazily flapping back and forth - ignore it.

Ease the main sheet a bit, then ease the traveller all the way down the track. Then ease the mainsheet to its setting. While you’re there pull the new leeward traveller line through until it’s tight then cleat it.

Turn the boat to its new angle, then release the old headsail sheet and bring in the new one.

Done.

You’re likely sailing around 150* true wind angle to keep the headsail full. You can turn down to 170*-175* true wind angle and sheet the headsail to the windward side and go wing and wing. This would reduce the number of gybes you need to do.

[Rufduck]

Yes, that is pretty much what I was doing. The Mahe is not particularly adept at close quarters maneuvering. Traveler is too spread out for one person. Also, the traveler sheet loads are pretty high or at least the Lewmar traveler has way more friction than I am used to (Corsair 31R) for a main of about the same area.

In revisiting the scenario I believe the TWS was substantially higher (peaking at an indicated AWS 35+ with a 4 kn favorable current and 9-10kn boat speed = mid to high 40s).
Johnstone St is a 1-2 mile wide fjord at the north end of Vancouver Is. I did everything I could to minimize the number of gybes and sailing wing and wing was anything if not vexing (I have no whisker pole and barber hauling the jib was a bit cumbersome…my problems, not the boat’s). The wind was relatively steady but was subject to all the topographic effects. Course corrections to the wind were constant. Autopilot to apparent wind could not keep up and I reverted to autopilot to course which it did fairly well. Agree that it would have been easier with crew but less fun.

The gybes were nonetheless clumsy and violent. As I was setting up for the final gybe into Discovery Channel, I did an accident gybe in the conditions above. I ripped the reef out of the main (with a 6” chunk of the sail) and melted a 1” long spot in the 8mm spectra (Amsteel) reefing line. The Mahe is one tough little boat.
Cheers

[MKB53]

It is clumsy on the Mahe, mainly because of the traveller location (non Evos anyway) but the technique is right. I think you should always be ready to let the sheet run a bit to ease the shock when the sail comes over. Too hard on the boat otherwise. Even sheeted hard with the traveller being low down. Take most the turns off the winch to let it go easier.

My original Mahe main did not have much reinforcing at the reef points and I ripped one out too. Got them all beefed up.

With that wind strength I would leave the main in the bag and just use the jib deep downwind. Or just use the main, the jib won't do much and makes one less sail to manage.

[Gpryce]

Hi All, does anyone have the forestay dimensions for the Mahe Evo handy? Length and especially diameter, I want to see if the new Harken furler I salvaged from my FP Maldives that was totaled by hurricane Ian will fit over the forestay. I tried Atlantic Yachts who contacted FP but nothing and it's been weeks.

[cuffy]

Hi Gp. Just had our rigging replaced in Marmaris, Turkey and they billed me for 10mm, so hopefully it is!. It is about 13m long cant give you exact length

[Gpryce]

Cuffy, thank you for the reply, unfortunately the max wire size specified for the salvaged fuller unit I have is 5/16" or roughly 8mm.

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by Gpryce

Cuffy, thank you for the reply, unfortunately the max wire size specified for the salvaged fuller unit I have is 5/16" or roughly 8mm.

Yes 10mm is correct. Rigg is Zspar so all questions concerning rigg contact them directly

[MKB53]

This has luff lengths, heights etc rather than rigging detail but may help. Theoretically you could calculate it. There is another diagram that has item numbers with one on the forestay but no page with the details of each number.