Hi all! I need to upgrade the vang on my Mariner 19, and I'm a little torn on which way to go. The Mariner 19 essentially shares a rig with the Lightning, as well as it's sister ship, the Rhodes 19. The Mariner, however, because of the added sleeping quarters, has a 1' shorter mainsail, and subsequently a poorly angled vang. Right now I have the factory 3:1 vang with a v jam cleat (that doesn't hold) that's about 30* between the boom and mast. Most Mariner owners seem to stick with the shallow angle vang and just increase the advantage so something like 16:1+/-. Some add a mast baseplate or pad eye just aft of the mast to improve the vang angle, which does help a fair amount, but still isn't a 45* angle.
I'm torn between adding a pad eye as far aft of the mast as I can get away with and using a rope vang, or making a Gnav. I'm having a hard time find examples of Gnav on boats around the size of the mariner, but given the shallow angle of the vang, I'm wondering if that doesn't make more sense in this situation. That said, improving the current vang set up would be quite a bit easier. I do race fairly often, just for context, but my boat is already not class legal, so that's not a consideration.
So my questions are:
Is there any practical difference to sail shaping between the vang and the gnav?
Does a gnav cause any more stress on the boom than a normal vang? (The boat is currently set up for mid boom sheeting, but I will be converting it to a Crosby rig or something similar, if that has an effect)
How much of an effect on sails shape is there by having the gnav interfere with the tack of the sail on port tack?
Is there a reason gnav seem to only be used on dinghies? Or is it because boats the size of the Mariner or bigger generally have enough room for a vang?
The vang is a pretty crucial piece of equipment on the Mariner. (Maybe a lot of boats, I'm new to sailing.) Without it, the boom can easily raise and catch the backstay in a gybe. This happened to me this past weekend because of the current faulty vang. Luckily it didn't cause any major problems this time, but I need to make sure it doesn't happen again!
I'm torn between adding a pad eye as far aft of the mast as I can get away with and using a rope vang, or making a Gnav. I'm having a hard time find examples of Gnav on boats around the size of the mariner, but given the shallow angle of the vang, I'm wondering if that doesn't make more sense in this situation. That said, improving the current vang set up would be quite a bit easier. I do race fairly often, just for context, but my boat is already not class legal, so that's not a consideration.
So my questions are:
Is there any practical difference to sail shaping between the vang and the gnav?
Does a gnav cause any more stress on the boom than a normal vang? (The boat is currently set up for mid boom sheeting, but I will be converting it to a Crosby rig or something similar, if that has an effect)
How much of an effect on sails shape is there by having the gnav interfere with the tack of the sail on port tack?
Is there a reason gnav seem to only be used on dinghies? Or is it because boats the size of the Mariner or bigger generally have enough room for a vang?
The vang is a pretty crucial piece of equipment on the Mariner. (Maybe a lot of boats, I'm new to sailing.) Without it, the boom can easily raise and catch the backstay in a gybe. This happened to me this past weekend because of the current faulty vang. Luckily it didn't cause any major problems this time, but I need to make sure it doesn't happen again!
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