Attaching a Vang

[ozarkray]

I’m looking for a bit of input on hardware attachments. The boat is a twenty-footer. The PO ran all the lines back to the cockpit. I can guess the attachments for most of the hardware except for the vang.

In the attached picture, you can see an eye strap on the right and a clamcleat on the left that seems to be for the Cunningham. There is a cleat on the left and a cleat on the right that would appear to be the original equipment attachments for the main halyard and jib halyard. There is a ring on the front of the mast that seems to be either a fairlead for the halyards going down to the blocks fastened to the top of the cabin, or an attachment for a wiskerpole, or both. There is a cleat added to the track on the back of the mast that might be for a vang, but I’m not sure how one would be attached. There is an eye strap on the bottom of the boom that is in the right spot for attaching a vang and there was an extra three-to-one block and tackle in the parts box that came with the boat.

Anyone have any ideas about attaching a vang to the bottom of the mast?

Thanks,
Ray

 

[justsomeguy]

Through-bolt a bail, and attach your vang to that?

 

[agprice22]

Attach a bail near the base of the mast. Or, if your mast base-plate has halyard organizing holes in it, attach your vang block to that.

Thanks,

Andrew

 

[Brian S]

I have seen smaller boats use an eyestrap mounted to a slug slide down at the base of the mast. I dunno it would work well enough for your 20. Mine has a bail through bolted at the base of the mast, and another bail on the boom. My vang has trigger shackles, which makes it easy to remove (and subsequently get tangled up ) I used captive pin shackles on the 15 footer, and it's a PITA to remove compared to the trigger shackles on the big boat

In your pictures, it looks as if that side mounted eye strap and clam cleat are used for a Cunningham. Just a 1/4" line terminated at the eye strap, run up through the Cunningham cringle, and down to the clam cleat - I have the same setup on my 15 footer, and it does double duty as the tack reef point.

That ring is definitely there for a spinnaker pole or whisker pole.

 

[shemandr]

My guess is that other 3:1 block and tackle is the vang. It probably did attach to the eye strap on the boom. I don't know where it attached on the deck or mast. I would probably put a bail on the lower mast. Ideally, it should be thru bolted with a compression post but I think on a 20' boat some rivets or machine screws would do.
Vang were first used to prevent the boom from rising too much off the wind. They take twist out of the main. It wasn't until the advent of Vang Sheeting in dingy racing that vangs and their attachment points needed fortification. Nowdays there are vangs that could probably part the forestay. They definitely can be used to bend the rig. You don't need that. Just snug it up and be done with it.

 

[Gunni]

The cleats on the side would be halyards, the clamcleat for a pole top guy. The cleat in the track would be a good place for the cunningham. The boom bale would be the vang top attachment, somewhere on the mast step will be a bottom vang attachment.

 

[Joe]

The eye strap and the vee cleat oppose each other. They are for the Cunningham. That's the light blue line in the picture... It threads up through a cringle above the tack and back down to the vee cleat.

If there is a connection for the vang, it will be at the very base of the mast. On a boat your size you can get away with the eyestrap on the boom a the top connection...

The horn cleat in the groove is most likely used to secure a sliding boom gooseneck... which is common on trailerable boats. When rigging the boat, the boom's forward connection is a slider. It fits into the widened area above it called the mast gate. It's the same slot you feed the sail into. You must secure the boom in position by tying it off to the horn cleat. In the past, many boats made this slider mechanism adjustable... it was called a boom downhaul. The greater effectiveness of the Cunningham setup has made the boom downhaul less popular and somewhat redundant... so most folks just tie them off or slip in a "sail stop" to restrict the boom's vertical movement.

The mast ring padeye is for a whisker or spinnaker pole... do no use it as a fairlead for the halyards.