Lack Of a Traveller

[Jackdaw]

Whoa. Hang on.

EVERY successful product company has it product group run by.... wait for it...

MARKETING.

Every one of them.

I'm an engineer that has worked in marketing and product planning for decades. In the marine business and out. EVERY great product company knows that a successful track record of product comes from knowing what the market wants (marketing), and using know how (engineering) to build it in a cost effective way (development).

It it always starts in anticipating what the market wants. Always.

For modern sailboats (that mean boats designed this CENTURY), the trick is understanding how the market has changed with the average age of the NEW BOAT BUYER getting older. Say 55. That simply has to be accounted for. The opinions of owners of older boats not in the market for a new boat do not factor at all. Its easy from someone to say that a boat is crap if it does not have a traveler, if you are NOT the person that has to answer if it does not sell.

 

[Meriachee]

Indeed. It doesn't preclude the need for a tailgate, or cheezy led strip lights around the ceiling by the companionway though. Marketing is one thing, but appealing to the unwashed masses via implied need or copying something that company x did, just because isn't necessary.
I've got a significant number of highly paid, well trained technical resources clean across the country who collectively frown upon an unending stream of stupidly designed, and poorly executed boxes from these manufacturers, that we are forever fighting with to get this hours patches so the blasted things can be brought to some semblance of decent operation.
(Gee, are we bringing work to the forum?)

Anyway, enough electronics that won't. Enough snow. Enough ice. Who's got a boat, with a traveler, that we can come and play with?

 

[Roadking Larry]

If you'd been here Sunday we hit 78. Even though we were pretty much wishing for wind it was a good day to be on the lake.




I added a traveler kind of late last year and haven't had much time to play with it yet. Moved from end boom sheeting to about 2/3 with my traveler on the step in front of the companion way. Much easier to deal with when single handing than having the mainsheet in the back of the cockpit.
Another benefit I now have.clearance to add a bimini.

 

[weinie]

This thread went from the traveler being a "redundant" sail control to "pry my traveler from my cold dead hands". heheheheh

I don't think it would be a far-fetched prediction to say that travelers will all but disappear on most cruising boats but will still be available on many one-design boats and boats geared to racing or at least weekend racing. Kinda like the manual transmission in cars.

 

[Jackdaw]

Anyway, enough electronics that won't. Enough snow. Enough ice. Who's got a boat, with a traveler, that we can come and play with?

Last weekend. Snow and ice in Minnesota, but one weekend a month in the winter I head south to race on this little beast. Nice traveler setup!

 

[Stu Jackson]

can we please spell it right?

I don't think it would be a far-fetched prediction to say that travelers will all but disappear on most cruising boats but will still be available on many one-design boats and boats geared to racing or at least weekend racing. Kinda like the manual transmission in cars.

I doubt if Catalina will ever do that. B & J perhaps, H probably not, too, 'cuz of the arch. B's are starting with arches, too.

Marketing? I'm an engineer, too, Jack, but back in the 80's when marketing started in the industry, it was a joke. Eventually, the "marketeeers" ended up being the "secretaries" who could not only type, but could "network" which meant being paid to sit on the phone all day and yack with their girlfriends at other engineering companies! Not sexist, but true. Very rarely, if ever, did they "turn up leads" or do anything remotely close to proactive sourcing of new work, and rarely got to know clients or owners.

In my service industry it wasn't until the mid-90's that it actually became a useful position that achieved results, that were formerly performed by principals.

It could be that "product" industries are quite different, having no personal knowledge of that side of the world.

I just don't have a "warm & fuzzy" about the concept in my industry.

 

[braol]

I seem to recall tall wooden ships going to windward without **gasp** travellers or even triangular sails! Now WHAT is the world coming to?! (In fact, I've even heard rumors of boats being able to sail without electronics...) What we really need to do is start a thread about fools who go sailing without adult beverages!

 

[Meriachee]

I seem to recall tall wooden ships going to windward without **gasp** travellers or even triangular sails! Now WHAT is the world coming to?! (In fact, I've even heard rumors of boats being able to sail without electronics...) What we really need to do is start a thread about fools who go sailing without adult beverages!

Doing even that would be fun right about now, this mornings ice report was unchanged from December.

 

[sea_casper]

I seem to recall tall wooden ships going to windward without **gasp** travellers or even triangular sails!

Single handed, I'm sure

 

[braol]

Single handed, I'm sure

Funny that you said that...I had always wondered about taking, say, my Hunter 27 and converting it to a brig rig...to scale of course. But the scales are all out of whack when translated to our fiberglass boats: My boat would have to displace 12x what it does now to carry a scale sail area from a square boat...my 27' would have to carry (even to scale) over 5500 sq ft of sail to eqate to a frigate like the Constitution! But my main mast would actually be 6 feet shorter than my current single pole...how 'bout that?

It is something to ponder though...I always wondered at the possibility of hoisting a large square mainsail rather than a spinnaker when going down wind. It'd be easy to quickly strike-down the yards athwartships when going to windward (and not too heavy in aluminum). There'd be no spinnaker pole to swap ends with and fewer control lines to tweek, just two braces and a downhaul. Hmmm...maybe we're on to something... (I wonder how a square sail would be rated in PHRF???)

 

[Jackdaw]

It is something to ponder though...I always wondered at the possibility of hoisting a large square mainsail rather than a spinnaker when going down wind. It'd be easy to quickly strike-down the yards athwartships when going to windward (and not too heavy in aluminum). There'd be no spinnaker pole to swap ends with and fewer control lines to tweek, just two braces and a downhaul. Hmmm...maybe we're on to something... (I wonder how a square sail would be rated in PHRF???)

Every if you COULD pull it off, it would be slower.

Spinnakers move the boat by generating lift. The more DDW you go the less it is, but even then, the surfaces are designed to act as foils. On a reach a spinnaker is a lift generating machine. On all points of sail a square sail is much less so.

 

[Chief RA]

I'd hate to sail a boat with no traveller! Kinda like racing a motorcycle with no rear wheel suspension. Chief

 

[sea_casper]

Funny that you said that...I had always wondered about taking, say, my Hunter 27 and converting it to a brig rig...to scale of course. But the scales are all out of whack when translated to our fiberglass boats: My boat would have to displace 12x what it does now to carry a scale sail area from a square boat...my 27' would have to carry (even to scale) over 5500 sq ft of sail to eqate to a frigate like the Constitution! But my main mast would actually be 6 feet shorter than my current single pole...how 'bout that?

It is something to ponder though...I always wondered at the possibility of hoisting a large square mainsail rather than a spinnaker when going down wind. It'd be easy to quickly strike-down the yards athwartships when going to windward (and not too heavy in aluminum). There'd be no spinnaker pole to swap ends with and fewer control lines to tweek, just two braces and a downhaul. Hmmm...maybe we're on to something... (I wonder how a square sail would be rated in PHRF???)

Forget the spinnaker, just use two jibs, as in this Cruising World article http://www.cruisingworld.com/double-your-downwind-fun-two-jibs, both jibs are on a single furler, upwind they lay on top of each other, each has its own sheets.