Tell-tale placement...

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Mar 3, 2008
188
Hunter 356 Lake Stockton
(Ijust noticed I inadvertantly put this post in as a response to another subject, hence its duplicate appearance.)

Don:
After receiving and reading your users guide and chart, I want the new season to start tomorrow. Unfortunately, Mother Nature plans to stick with April. Meanwhile, I would be interested in more information with regard to the proper placement of tell-tales, especially on the jib. We have an H356 with roller-furled jib and main.

Also, I am wondering if the roller-furled sails limits our ability to use the halyards to shape the sails. I am hesitant to ease either one of them for fear of messing up the furling process. We have found in the past that re-trimming the halyards in anything more than dead calm conditions is next to impossible.
 
May 17, 2004
2,099
Other Catalina 30 Tucson, AZ
Doug/Karen: Jib telltale placement is 3 sets (one on each side) of telltales placed about 6" or so in from the front of the sail. The front of the sail is like a blade cutting through the wind and you want the blade to split the wind so there is an equal wind split on both sides of the sail causing the telltales on both sides to stream backwards. I know that is not a very scientific explanations but that is what you want to happen.

Place the middle telltales first and then half the section of the top and bottom portion and place the remaining 2 sets there. The most impotant jib telltale is the middle ones. On the main the most important one is the top one.

I don't like messing with the jib halyard and here's why. My jib halyard was not led back to the cockpit - probably because I don't like messing with it!! If I wanted to mess with it I would have to go to the mast and I'd end up with line all over the deck and I'd have to crane my neck to see what is happening and with the weight of the sail I never did get the adjustment I wanted.

Instead, I used a "jib cunningham", which was the smallest soft vang Garhauer made. I'd go to full hoist and then back off a bit which gave me all the slack I needed and you don't need a lot. You have to be careful that the top part of the furling stays on the tube or you'll end up with a bigger mess.

Lastly, it is important to know what the jib halyard is adjusting. If you refer to your QUICK REFERENCE, which came with your SAILTRIM CHART, you'll see the halyard is adjusting 2 elements and they are draft position and draft depth. If it was only adjusting draft position I probably would not have bothered with the jib cunningham but I needed it because of draft depth.

The jib cunningham and mainsail cunningham make halyard adjustment a snap due to the mechanical advantage and the MA allows you to make a more precise adjustment.

As you know, because you have THE SAIL TRIM USERS GUIDE, I devote about 6 or 7 pages to reading telltales. So may sailors don't have telltales and i don't know how they adjust their sails with out them. I can't and i know what i'm looking for. When you know how to read telltales and adjust according to what they are telling you you're able to get 100% performance from your sails.
 
Dec 1, 1999
2,391
Hunter 28.5 Chesapeake Bay
I agree with Don that headsail telltales should go about 6" aft of the luff. But it is helpful to also place one set of telltales an inch or so higher (or lower) than the one on the opposite side of the sail so that you can "read" the leward telltales through the sail.
 
May 17, 2004
2,099
Other Catalina 30 Tucson, AZ
Warren placement location is excellent and everyone should print the link Paul provided and study it until it is commited to memory because you'll know more about reading telltales than 75% of the sailors worldwide.
 
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