Topping Lift
We have been having the same problem with our H340; you describe it perfectly; a high-pitched humm! And about 10 knotsof wind is more than enough to set it off. In our case we have traced it to the topping lift, and the "guitar string" analogy is perfect because the topping lift with the sails down is supporting the boom and is under a LOT of tension. The topping lift feeds the resonant vibration into the boom, and then it gets all of the sheaves in the boom going, and you have just a marvelous chorus of humms and buzzes! We can stop it by grabbing the topping lift, or by moving the position of the shackle that connects the topping lift to the boom we can reduce it, but we haven't found a way to stop it completely. The only way we have thought of so far to permanently stop it would be to take the load off the topping lift by staying under sail FOREVER!.........Hey; maybe that's not a bad idea! Seriously, check your topping lift to see if you have the same situation that we do; perhaps yours is different; wind can set up resonant vibrations in LOTS of places (remember the bridge they called "Galloping Gertie"?). We don't want to steal this post from the original poster, but we also would be very interested in additional comments, and especially with regard to topping lift vibration and what we might do about it. We know that the ultimate solution is probably a rigid vang, but that's maybe for next year (next year's list is already too long); anyone know anything that we can do now? Thanks in advance for any input, and apologies to the original poster for nosing in to share the topic. Carl and Jule s/v 'Syzygy'
