pinning a furler forestay for setup- tricks for doing this?

[walt]

FYI, that toggle at the top is also required for the Schaefer snap furl (what I just ordered).

Another picture of a Johnson lever on a 26S at about its minimum distance which I could live with (7 3/8 inch). The clean access to the anchor is one of the reasons Im going to a furler. When I drop my hank on, its a yard sale all over that area making the anchor a hassle to get to.

Sumner, I spent some enjoyable time a few days ago tagging along on your adventure (great job) and one of your pictures illustrates the visibility issue that comes along with a larger Genoa

This picture below is from your web site with the larger Johnson lever extension (I figure you have about 11.5 inches of extension including the extra toggle at the bottom). I think you have a 135 Genoa

Since we have the same exact boat, its interesting to compare the visibility you get with the 100% jib that is as low to the deck as is possible (my picture below). With the larger Genoa, even with it raised, as the boat heels the sail again begins to block the view. The smaller jibs are cut so that you can heel a lot more and see where you are going.

Just another trade off... I am going with a 110 so I dont think I need to raise the jib for visibility - but I wont know until I try it on the boat. I do think I want the higher tension but the reason is pointing ability that I hope is still good with the 110 on a furler. I have not seen it yet but I understand the Schaefer furler also allows you to adjust the tension on the head sail with a halyard (that I already have running back to the cockpit).

 

[Sumner]

Since I'm sitting here in major wind and probably won't move north before Tuesday I dug the tape out and went out and measured. Measuring vertically off the deck the bottom of the drum is 13 inches off the deck and the bottom of the sail is 17 inches.

The view is going to depend on a lot of things, how much sail is out (don't need to put a 130 all the way out), the angle of heeling, where you are sitting, how close hauled you are, running or on a reach, etc. and of course how important it is to you to try and see forward under mostl conditions. In the pictures you posted the 135 still has better forward vision by the pulpit but that comes at the price of the much higher point where the bottom of the sail is attached to the furler. Of no consequence to me but it probably is to you as you are more interested in the speed difference. Just do what fits your style of sailing the best.

Get the furler, sail and a Johnson Lever and you will be happy :dance:. Do you also have the sail ordered at this point? What are your wind conditions strength wise where you are going to sail the most, I'd assume AZ?

Right now I have to really pull in on the mast raising setup before I can pin the Johnson Lever, much more than one could ever do by hand. Then put the lever over and pin it so the tension is such that I have about 320 on the shrouds and forestay if I remember right, but that is just off memory so might not be accurate. I'm where the numbers are suppose to be with the diameter of the rigging according to the loos information (lower on the forestay maybe). I think the Johnson lever will help you get the tension you want vs. pinning and then having to turn a turnbuckle which as you mentioned is not easy with the CDI, not sure about the Schaefer. The other picture is Bob's old Mac I believe and I think the Schaefer is what he had. That is a really nice furler,

Sumner

=============================

2015 to The Bahamas and back -- I hope

Our Endeavour 37

Our MacGregor 26-S Pages

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

 

[walt]

Since I'm sitting here in major wind and probably won't move north before Tuesday

Beats the heck out of where I’m sitting (and have to go to work in the morning)

Get the furler, sail and a Johnson Lever and you will be happy .

I think so...

One problem I have is that I nave no choice but to change the forestay - the one I have now wont work. The boat is about 850 miles away so it might take me two trips there to get things set up right. I will probably order from the same place you did (rigging supply ?) but I’m going to have to guess at the length. I’m just going to assume that there is a good chance of needing to raise the top attachment spot so will just buy that hardware.

FYI, I have been pinning my hank on forestay by using my gin pole mast raising system to "pre tension" the mast and then pinning the forestay by hand - for the whole time I’ve owned the boat. I do get the gin pole fairly tight doing this. This won’t get the forestay as tight as you can with a Johnson lever but I have put many years of abuse on this setup now and do not think there any sort reliability issue. This is why I said earlier that I "think" there is a fairly large tension range between enough to be reliable and what is required for best upwind performance..

 

[walt]

I'd assume AZ?

Hope to spend a bit of time there next winter but this depends on a lot of things working out.

For the sail size, I think its more of what range do you want to work well and I overall like the 100% working jib and main with one reef. That is all I have been using for the last bunch of years. But I know Im going to get passed by other boats in very light wind - especially someone with a nice big Genoa that closes the gap on the deck...

 

[Sumner]

.... This is why I said earlier that I "think" there is a fairly large tension range between enough to be reliable and what is required for best upwind performance..

I agree, I think that is true and Roger probably factored that in. I used the gin pole and such and then turned the turnbuckle for even more tension. Then a guy in Canada showed me how he judged the tension by pulling on the shroud to some degree, hard to explain. I went back to the boat and ours still wasn't near the tension he had shown me on the boat he was on. Checking like he does seems to be close on even say the Endeavour since it has lots longer shrouds. Then I got a loos gauge and saw that I was still light and upped it more. I haven't seen anything negative like the cabin top bowing or anything else.

When I get back if you want I'll send you my loos gauge for you to mess around with. I have a feeling that most trailered boats aren't tension anywhere near what the standards are for the gauge of the rigging they have and never have a problem as they are designed knowing people that putting their mast up and down just aren't going to take the time to do the tensioning.

I like the Johnson lever since you can tension the forestay and shrouds to whatever you want with the furler's foil off (if the forestay goes up the middle like on the CDI) by how you pin the components of the Johnson Lever (couple different holes you can use on it) and with the turnbuckle. Then without changing the turnbuckle release the Johnson lever and mark the turnbuckle. Then install all the furler gear and put the turnbuckle back to your marks and you should then be tensioned the same for some time by just using the Johnson Lever each time.

With the guage you can see the tension on the upper and lower shroud and adjust them to what you want also and they all work together so change one and you probably are going to see a change in another,

Sumner

P.S. You overseas right now?
=============================

2015 to The Bahamas and back -- I hope

Our Endeavour 37

Our MacGregor 26-S Pages

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

 

[caguy]

Re: pinning a furler forestay for setup- tricks for doing th

I found it helpful to replace the adjustable verneers with turnbuckles on the side shops crowds. It made it a hundred times easier getting the correct tension all the way around. The loos guage is really useful and you will be surprised just how tight the tension should be.

 

[Joe]

Re: pinning a furler forestay for setup- tricks for doing th

With the larger, low cut sail... it is common practice to install a window to improve leeward visibility. On my #1 Genoa.. about 140%... there is such a window... and is quite an advantage for singe handing. With a crew, it is less critical because the headsail trimmer is sitting on leeward side most of the time... and can warn the driver of obstacles.

When I single hand with the larger sail.. which is not very often.. I will steer from leeward side quite a bit... especially in the crab pot areas.

Another thing to consider with the low cut, deck sweeper design is the likelihood that green water can be funneled back towards the cockpit.

The sail's cut will have a lot to do with lead block placement. In the first drawing you'll see the two suggested sails have completely different lead placements..... requiring a huge adjustment system, or at the least, two separate lead blocks. The design of this boat's topsides would restrict the adjustment track options...

In the second drawing the genoa has a much lower clew... helping it line up more closely to the working jib's lead... The suggestion here is that designing your sail plan with your boat's deck configuration in mind should be considered.

 

[walt]

Just an update on the pinning stick idea..

This is rev 4 and I think will work nicely. All this hardware weighs about 0.8 pounds and it will give a useful travel of around 6 inches which I think should make the setup fairly easy.

Those two aluminum bars are still 1/4 by 3/4 but now there are two of them so you can really put some leverage on these. I just tested this, other stuff will bust first. The adapter is 1/8 by 1 inch wide SS (drill slow with a cobalt bit - use lots of cutting oil)

This will raise the furler drum 2.5 inches. Easy to use, hopefully the pictures show how. You just hold the open end of the two sticks with your hand for pinning and I think this will be all that is needed. The stick will get stashed on the boat. I may only need it for raising the mast, the tight Gin pole pre-tensioning the mast may be all that is needed to un-pin and drop the mast.

Note.. the shackle in the pictures at the top of the adapter wont be there when I use this - it just shows how the furler will attach.

 

[walt]

A correction.. you can see the travel in the pictures - its the distance from when you can first attach the adapter to the stick (the adapter is already connected to the bottom of the furler) to where the adapter is pinned. I measured this and its about 4.5 inches which should be nice. The larger Johnson lever max "travel" is about 2.2 inches so the stick does over twice the distance. This stick has just a little more leverage than the larger Johnson lever but not much (3.75 vs 3.53 ratio). Note.. the measurements from the Johnson lever are from looking at pictures / caliper / scaling so might be off a little.

 

[walt]

Rev 5 and I think final.. I wont get to fully test this until I get to the boat but based on all the testing I have done, I think it should work well. I will be able to attach the pinning stick to the adapter (always attached to the bottom of the fuler) and begin using the stick to pull the furler down for the last 5.5 inches before it gets pinned to the deck. I added one more registration open end bolt close to the handle end.

 

[walt]

Ok. rev 6 now. I had not considered something important that was in the Schaefer furler set up manual.

Its fairly obvoius that you need a toggle at the top of the furler forestay to prevent cable damage. The Schaefer manual also says you need a toggle at the bottom end. You can imagine the need for this toggle if you had a fairly loose forestay that allowed the jib sail to "bow out" under wind load. This results in the furler at the bottom of the forestay not being exactly normal to the deck and therefore the need for a toggle. When the forestay tension is very tight, this angle is small.. but you still need to worry about it.

Also, when you add a rigid structure in the "line", there needs to be a toggle at each joint. For example, if you add a Johnson lever at the bottom of the furler, the toggle at the bottom of the turnbuckle (inside the furler drum) handles the joint between the furler and the Johnson lever but you still need to add an additonal toggle at the bottom of the Johnson lever.

Since this "pinning stick" adds a rigid adapter, it needs either an additonal toggle at the bottom end or it needs to have some sort of toggle function.

So.. rev six has the "toggle function" built in (assuming this idea actually works.. it has not been tried yet).

Rev 6 raises the furler above the deck by 2.0 inches now and still has over 5 inches of travel. This is compared to the larger Johnson lever that raises the furler above the deck by a mininium of 10 3/4 inch (lever plus toggle) and has about 2.5 inches of travel. Im referencing the larger Johnson lever since this also uses the 5/16 pins (which Im going to use).

I put this junk on a web site - so I dont keep using up bandwidth here..

http://analogengineering.com/sail/mac/pinning_stick.html

This idea still has not been tried on the boat (since its 875 miles from here at the moment).

 

[walt]

update.. 110 jib install using the pinning stick is pretty much done.. some pictures in the link. It seems to work - makes pinning the furler with a lot of forestay tension relitively simple.

http://analogengineering.com/sail/mac/pinning_stick.html