Replace Rudder w/ Wheel?

[TrentePieds]

Hey, Boatie :-) ALL us shellbacks do that. But propriety DOES require you to face aft when you do it :-0)!

TP

[ROCKYIV]

Genoa foresails ….. Is there a reason some are mitre cut and others are not?

[TrentePieds]

Yes, there is. The mitre seam is but one way to TRY to control the sail's cross-sectional shape at the bunt, i.e. its "airfoil". That in turn determines the sail's Lift/Drag ratio and therefore, in a sailor's terms, its "power"

I'm emphasizing "try" advisedly, for we can but try. We cannot succeed in controlling the sails airfoil because the sail is made from cloth. We do better with dacron than with cotton because dacron is SO much harder and therefore more like the skin on an aircraft's wing.

This "designed-in" shape is intended to be the shape at lowest loading, i.e. at lowest velocity of air flowing over the sail. As that velocity increases, the designed-in shape will no longer be optimum [if indeed it ever was :-)!], and it is therefore changed by manipulating the tensions bearing on the three edges of the sail: the luff, the leach and the foot. In addition to those adjustments, you have to be able to vary the angle of incidence. That angle is the angle the "cord line" at the bunt forms with the centreline of the boat. The "cord line" is the straight line on the underside (the concave side) of the sail from luff to leach. You can, theoretically, hold both your heading and the sail's angle of incidence steady, but the "eye of the wind" is ever moving and therefore the sail's "angle of attack" varies ceaselessly. And it's the angle of attack that, ultimately, in a rigid wing, determines the L/D.

The means of adjusting ("trimming") these various things must be the subject of a separate treatise.

So, as you see, there is really nothing to it :-)!

If you REALLY want to get this stuff under your belt, go to bed with C.A.Marchaj. Specifically with his Aero-Hydrodynamics of Sailing

TP

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by ROCKYIV

I wasn’t offended at all by what was said. Actually, I appreciated the candor. I try not to sound like “the guy” that only wants to hear what I WANT to hear and not what I NEED to hear. Thank you anyway. [emoji569]️

Cheers, and welcome to CF.

Do you have an autopilot? Probably cheaper than converting to wheel steering would be installing a hydraulic ram type pilot. Then you have the best of both worlds. Tillers are great.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by 5BTM

I said that because I have wheel steering on my 27 footer.
It seems to be a factory installed option.

I could list all cons and the pros (there are none) but "stupid" is a useful shorthand.

[emoji23]

I hear you! Dykstra designs boats for the great Dutch builder KM Yachts up to 54 feet with tillers. They are great! If I were building a custom boat, even a big one, that's the way I would do it

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Why do you want to convert to wheel?

The normal reason to install a wheel is the need for greater mechanical advantage on large boats or on boats with weather helm problems. Fixing the weather helm is preferred as it will improve boat speed.

Also the charter industry installs them because they are much more usable by folks that charter a boat that have limited boating experience but lots of driving experience.
For use by the regular crew, they will all be used to a tiller within about a month even if they come to boating completely green with no background.

Wheels are expensive to install, and they need a more maintenance than a tiller. And when they break they are a lot harder to jury rig until you can get home to make repairs.

Wheels require extra arrangements to install windvane self-steering.
Installing an autopilot the wheels and tillers have different strengths and weaknesses and are about even.
If you are going to go offshore or into the less developed world you want the windvane even if you also have the autopilot. If you are staying coast in the US, Canada or Europe autopilot alone is probably fine.

Underway a wheel occupies less space in the cockpit.
At anchor a tiller occupies less space in the cockpit, it can be tilted up out of the way.
More time will be spent at anchor or berthed than underway. Yes you can get a folding wheel, but that is a significant cost over jest getting a regular wheel system installed. Or you could remove the wheel from the binacle when anchored, but that slows your response when dealing with sudden problems such as neighbors that drag into you in the middle of the night or worse, you start dragging.

Personally I think using a tiller helps your subconscious keep track of the fact that you are steering the back of the boat like pushing a shopping cart backwards, not steering the front like a car. In tight situations this subconscious cue will help you react better and faster and you will be less likely to hit other things, like expensive boats in marinas.

Tiller actually occupies less space than wheel with binnacle etc. - IF you have a hydraulic pilot and unhook the tiller when not in use. One of many advantages of tillers.

I agree with you about weather helm - avoiding that with wheel steering is just covering up the problem. You should want to FEEL the rudder when you're hand steering. Nothing beats a tiller for that.

[ROCKYIV]

New question for you that involves boom vang systems. I’m looking for guidance on the purchase of a suitable and affordable vang system for my MORGAN 28. Suggestions?

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by ROCKYIV

New question for you that involves boom vang systems. I’m looking for guidance on the purchase of a suitable and affordable vang system for my MORGAN 28. Suggestions?

You could make one with some line and a couple blocks or just go without.

I have gone without one for 12 years on my boat since I'm not racing anymore.

[TrentePieds]

Well no.

A Morgan 28 doesn't ever need a vang. The boat doesn't - I wouldn't think - have a boom that you can flex with a vang. and if it does, it shouldn't :-)!

What you DO need is a "kicking strap" - a means of preventing a "Newfie gybe" *. A Newfie gybe is an uncontrolled, accidental gybe, that lifts the boom high and then, promptly, drops it on your sinful head!

So in a Morgan 28 all you need is a pad eye on the underside of the boom. Or if the foot of your main has slides running on a track so you can get between the boom and the bolt rope in the foot of the main, a bit of light line, mebbe 1/4" three strand, laid around the boom with a clove hitch locked with a coupla half hitches.

You do that about halfway along the boom. Then you take the line through a pad eye at the foot of the mast and thence back to the cockpit where you belay on an el cheapo horn cleat. You don't even need a block at the foot of the mast - just a pad eye.

A vang is a device used in hot racing boats to control the shape of the main, specifically by bending the boom by pulling the middle of it downwards. Doing that "flattens" the sail by pulling stuff out of the bunt of it. We are back to aerodynamics and Marchaj.

A morgan 28 is not a racing boat and never will be, so save yourself the trouble and expense of a vang. A vang cannot do anything for you that a kicking strap cannot do just as well.

* We Canadians are permitted by the terms under which Newfoundland joined the Canadian Confederation 1949 to tell Newfie jokes.

Two Newfies were in their dorry, jiggin' fer cod, just a moile or two orfa Cape Spear. The catch was incredibe. "Jaeses, Mary'n'Joseph" sez the one, "how'll we ever foind this spot agin?". T'other grabs his shiv and carefully cuts a mark in the railing o' the dorry. "There!", he sez, "Now we'll allus be able to foind it again!"

TP

[Jim Cate]

A vang is a device used in hot racing boats to control the shape of the main, specifically by bending the boom by pulling the middle of it downwards. Doing that "flattens" the sail by pulling stuff out of the bunt of it. We are back to aerodynamics and Marchaj.

Not really! A vang operates by limiting the amount that the boom can rise when the sheet angle is not pulling down ... as in when the boom is eased well outboard when running downwind. Most definitely not by bending the boom!

And if it did work by bending the boom, it would not flatten the main but rather the opposite, much like easing the outhaul would do.

****
Edit: The above is only true with a loose footed main. With an attached foot main bending would indeed flatten the shape... but it has been a long time since attached mains were used on racing boats!
***

Finally, a vang is quite useful on a cruising boat. Keeping the boom from rising when eased helps reduce chafe between sail and shrouds and spreaders as well as improving sail shape when reaching.

It matters not that the Morgan is not a "hot racing boat"... a vang will improve performance and that often improves the satisfaction gained from sailing well.

FWIW, I have had a vang on every boat that I have owned, save a 9 foot sailing dink... and used them often.

Jim

[wholybee]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

A vang is a device used in hot racing boats to control the shape of the main, specifically by bending the boom by pulling the middle of it downwards. Doing that "flattens" the sail by pulling stuff out of the bunt of it. We are back to aerodynamics and Marchaj.

A morgan 28 is not a racing boat and never will be, so save yourself the trouble and expense of a vang. A vang cannot do anything for you that a kicking strap cannot do just as well.

TP

IMHO, *ALL* cruising boats need a vang. They are not for racing, nor do they work by bending the boom.

When sailing upwind, the mainsheet pulls down on the boom, while the sail pulls up on the boom. This results in a boom that is well supported and good sail shape. When sailing downwind with the boom far from the centerline of the boat, the mainsheet pulls aft on the boom, but not down. The sail pulls up, resulting a boom that is not well supported, and a boom that floats up and down and a main sail that sometimes flaps more like a flag than a sail.

A vang fixes this, by holding the boom down while sailing downwind. Since cruising is often mostly downwind, the traveler become more important than a day sailor where much sailing is upwind.

If you are trying to keep controls simple, the vang can also be used to hold the boom sailing upwind, allowing the omission of the traveler. Since many beginners don't understand the traveler, this helps them.

Some Morgans were sold without either a vang or a traveler-but only to save money. They sail terrible like that, and most I would hope have had both a traveler and vang fit to them by now.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Not really! A vang operates by limiting the amount that the boom can rise when the sheet angle is not pulling down ... as in when the boom is eased well outboard when running downwind. Most definitely not by bending the boom!

And if it did work by bending the boom, it would not flatten the main but rather the opposite, much like easing the outhaul would do.

Finally, a vang is quite useful on a cruising boat. Keeping the boom from rising when eased helps reduce chafe between sail and shrouds and spreaders as well as improving sail shape when reaching.

It matters not that the Morgan is not a "hot racing boat"... a vang will improve performance and that often improves the satisfaction gained from sailing well.

FWIW, I have had a vang on every boat that I have owned, save a 9 foot sailing dink... and used them often.

Jim

Indeed! How can anyone sail without a vang? It's as important as the mainsheet. I've been sailing all my life and have never even been on a boat without a vang.



To sail you have to shape the sail. To shape the sail, you have to be able to tension the leech of the sail. The mainsheet can do that, but only when the boom is over the traveler. After that, only the vang can do that. If you can't tension the leech to set the shape of the sail in that dimension you can't, in my opinion, sail. Might as well start the engine.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Well no.

A Morgan 28 doesn't ever need a vang. The boat doesn't - I wouldn't think - have a boom that you can flex with a vang. and if it does, it shouldn't :-)!

What you DO need is a "kicking strap" - a means of preventing a "Newfie gybe" *. A Newfie gybe is an uncontrolled, accidental gybe, that lifts the boom high and then, promptly, drops it on your sinful head!

So in a Morgan 28 all you need is a pad eye on the underside of the boom. Or if the foot of your main has slides running on a track so you can get between the boom and the bolt rope in the foot of the main, a bit of light line, mebbe 1/4" three strand, laid around the boom with a clove hitch locked with a coupla half hitches.

You do that about halfway along the boom. Then you take the line through a pad eye at the foot of the mast and thence back to the cockpit where you belay on an el cheapo horn cleat. You don't even need a block at the foot of the mast - just a pad eye.

A vang is a device used in hot racing boats to control the shape of the main, specifically by bending the boom by pulling the middle of it downwards. Doing that "flattens" the sail by pulling stuff out of the bunt of it. We are back to aerodynamics and Marchaj.

A morgan 28 is not a racing boat and never will be, so save yourself the trouble and expense of a vang. A vang cannot do anything for you that a kicking strap cannot do just as well.

* We Canadians are permitted by the terms under which Newfoundland joined the Canadian Confederation 1949 to tell Newfie jokes.

Two Newfies were in their dorry, jiggin' fer cod, just a moile or two orfa Cape Spear. The catch was incredibe. "Jaeses, Mary'n'Joseph" sez the one, "how'll we ever foind this spot agin?". T'other grabs his shiv and carefully cuts a mark in the railing o' the dorry. "There!", he sez, "Now we'll allus be able to foind it again!"

TP

Sorry, this is not correct. Vangs don't "bend" the boom. They pull the boom down to tension the leech of the mainsail, when the boom is far enough out beyond the traveler that the mainsheet can't do that. You can't really sail without a vang. Tension of the leech determines the shape of the sail in the vertical dimension, just like the outhaul controls it in the horizontal. Without a shape which is controlled by you, the mainsail is just a rag flapping in the wind.

[Student_Driver]

There are boats with very long, and in some cases curved travelers that don’t require vangs and allow leech tension adjustment. On the photos of some ocean racing boats there are travellers along the stern from one end to the other. For mid-boom sheeting, a shorter traveller will sufice.

To Dockead’s point, most performance boats combine travelers and vangs with 3/4 to end boom sheeting. They work well but there’s a price. If you are sailing downwind in sporty conditions and broaching is a risk, you need three crew. One on helm, one on main sheet/trav and a third on vang. You can’t ease main without easing trav and sometimesboth jobs need to be done very quickly. One more job to do in a potentially dangerous situation.

If you want to shape your sail, in most situations and boats, a vang is a key control.

[Don C L]

I'm in there with those who appreciate a good vang. In my case my vang attaches at the base of the mast and then to a sturdy fixed boom bale about a quarter of the way aft of the gooseneck. The block and tackle of it is 4 to 1 like the mainsheet. One thing to consider is that, when the boom is out for running, the vang transfers all the load directly to the gooseneck which, along with its connection to the mast, may or may not be up to that kind of compression force coming from that angle. Something to check as you set it up.