Boom vangs
- Thread starter Phil Herring
- Start date
Our boat has the original traditional flexible vang with the working end secured to the mast base, then through a turning block into a sheet organizer, then a coaming sheet stopper and into the cockpit for convenient trimming and easing. Used mostly for down wind and broad reach points of sail. Plan to use it for hoisting MOB aboard. Considered using it as a preventer, but instead rigged a simpler separate line.
Now I have vang envy! The vang pictured in the original post is mine, after I repaired it in Edgartown two years ago. It's an Offshore Spars vang. They don't make them anymore, which might be a good thing.
Vang Masters come with a pump, I guess the previous owner didn't leave it on your boat?
I want to replace mine, and I decided on a Vang Master. It seems that for this size boat they are all around $2,500, except Garhauer, who's less than half that. I wrote to the Vang Master folks and got a quote. My requirements don't exactly match any of their standard offerings, so they offered to make exactly what I need. That's what I call customer service! Good price, too.
12:1 soft vang back with boomkicker. Simple 6:1 with a 2x dyneema doubler. Double ended (back to Harken 150 cleats with high-aspect angle cages) to both sides of the companionway so can be easily adjusted/played from either side of the cockpit.
We have a spring loaded rigid vang. It's sheet comes back all the way to the helm. I drape the sheet over the spinnaker winch drum along the the traveler sheet. When on a beam reach I ease the vang to add bag to the main. When beating, I'll release the topping lift, set the traveler to dead center, sheet in the main, then just the traveler to where the boom is slightly to windward, then pull the vang in. This puts the boom down and to leeward and flattens out the main..
I didn’t get a pump with the boat. Originally used a mountain bike high pressure shock pump. It worked but took a lot.of pumping to get 120lb psi. The inflator pumps it up in a little over a minute. Definitely a more Gucci solution for little money. Crew is happy.
What's your mains'l size? 164sq.ft on my C&C needs the winch w/4:1 so I'm planning on a 12:1 based off of what you got there.
BlueJ is 230 sqr/ft, and the 12:1 is plenty. And we work the vang HARD.
I tell my crew, if you need to, place your feet against the bulkhead and pull with your legs. Really.
So, then I should be able to pull with one hand while seated single-handing!
Is that a knife taped to your boomkicker? You got pirates up there?
Is that a knife taped to your boomkicker? You got pirates up there?
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Safety.
We require all crew to carry one when racing, but there are two attached to the boat at all times. One there, and an identical one lashed to the tiller.
Starwind 27 mainsail is 181 sf. The 2 boats are very similar in dimensions. Starwind 27 has a little bigger mainsail, little smaller headsail comparatively to C&C 27. I thought 6:1 was good. If you start with 6:1, it would be easy to cascade to 12:1 if desired. That was my thinking before we sold the boat.
You might install a boom brake, Gyb’Easy, from Wichard, to do that. No more “hard gybes” with proper adjustment.
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While the racing sailor will actively adjust the vang off the wind, for a cruising sailor its function is just to keep the boom from rising when running. I'm a conscientious sail trimmer but I'll cruise a summer season with touching the vang, as the mainsheet alone is an adequate trimming tool.
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With a broad brush statement such as this, can we also say the racers don't know how to or never use an anchor?
Absolutely not. In many years of competitive PHRF and one design racing we have numerous occasions to deploy the anchor in situations where current speed exceeded wind pressure. Anyone racing in a tidal area needs to be anchor capable.
My statement is that as a racer when cruising with white sails, there is little performance benefit when reaching from solely adjusting the vang for mainsail twist. If you are FIRST adjusting jib twist by moving the block forward and out, then adjusting main twist AFTER having corrected jib twist, well good on ya that's being conscientious, we're just relaxing.
I see no logic to trimming the vang when closehauled.
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This is only true if your boat has a good traveler. One of my previous boats had an end boom sheet and a traveler that was about 6" long and almost impossible to move under load. On that boat I used vang sheeting to control angle of attack and twist. In this case, the vang set the amount of twist and the sheet was used to set the angle of attack. On my current boat which is mid-boom sheeted with a 5:1 traveler that runs very smoothly, I set twist with the main sheet and angle of attack with the traveler.