Posted by Grant Headifen on July 29, 2009 under Crew, Skipper | 
Climbing the mast for repairs
Every now and then you’ve got to do it. Or at least some body does and while I’m still limber enough I was the one elected to go up.
The issue was the during the commissioning process on our Beneteau 373, it looks like the set screws holding the extrusions together were not screwed in with with loctite. Loctite is a liquid that cures and prevents screws from backing out over time – a sailor’s best friend.
So the sailing lesson today is to use loctite on screws on your boat where you don’t want to lose them or when you don’t want to climb the mast.
This issue ended up being fairly serious. The whole problem started with the Texas sun which completely degrades the UV Dacron sewn onto on the leech of the sail to protect the sail itself from sun damage. After 2 years the UV Dacron was just falling off and so the sail needed to be taken in for repairs. It should have been pretty simple.
We have a Profurl roller furling system on our Beneteau 373 which we are very happy with and so dropping the sail is pretty easy. Just unfurl and let down the halyard swivel via the jib halyard. What happened was that a set screw in the extrusion near the top of the furling forestay had backed out and jammed the halyard swivel on its way down. This caused a sudden jolt on the sail as it was descending and broke the bolt rope at the luff of the sail. Admittedly we should have controlled the speed a bit more when lowering the sail.
The Halyard Swivel
Now the Halyard swivel was stuck. Funny enough – the first person we asked for a bosons chair said no but they had a rock climbing harness. Apparently this person was a mountain rescue guide and always caries his harness with him – go figure!!
Figure 8 Rock Climbing Knot
We used a spare halyard as the main hoist and and the spinnaker halyard as the safety back up. I tied the lines on to the rock climbing harness using a figure 8 rock climbing knot. Then we also used a boom topping lift to pull necessary extra tools up and down. When ever going up the mast make sure you have a big pouch of some sort to put tools in so that you won’t drop them.
The next 30 minutes was spent trying to unjam the halyard swivel from the set screw which had backed out of the extrusion. Once this was done we had to loosen the other set screws to pull the extrusions back together. The Whole assembly is made up of 10ft long extruded aluminum pieces which are set screwed together by an extrusion joiner.
It’s a good and simple design to assemble – just make sure that the set screws are put in with Loctite. The manufacturers specs even say to do this.
Once the extrusions where pulled back together and tightened up I was finally able to come back down. The job is still not complete as we are waiting on the sail maker to put a greater sun protection leech to the sail made of UV Sunbrella material and fix the broken bolt rope. And of course the water claimed one of the set screws (fortunately within reach from the deck) so we need to replace that.
But I must say we had a wonderful day out sailing on Lake Travis prior.
Here is a video of the Profurl system.
Posted by Grant Headifen on July 16, 2009 under About NauticEd |
Use Facebook, Aol, Live, Open ID to login and publish comments and new blogs.
Post new sailing tips to others, comment on published articles. Help everyone learn to sail.
Posted by Grant Headifen on under Crew, Sail Trim, Skipper |
NED is an interactive online sailing instructor developed by NauticEd – The World’s Most Advanced Online Sailing School.
The educational sailing training tool uses interactive flash technology to show novice sailors how to set the sail trim according to the wind direction which maximizes the efficiency of the sails. The tool teaches in about 5 minutes that which sometimes takes hours on a sailboat. Sailing Instructors worldwide are adopting this tool as the standard for teaching basic sail trim.
To play with NED below – READ THIS FIRST.
There are 4 main controls:
Mainsail: Sheet-in and sheet-out (pull the main sail in or let it out)
Headsail: Sheet-in and sheet-out
Helm: Turn to port or starboard
Wind Speed: Click the red triangle to change the speed of the wind
IMPORTANT: The center dial represents a true wind meter on a sailboat. All windmeters have the boat pointing straight up because you are standing behind the wind meter when on a boat. On NED however, there is one slight difference to simulate the boat turning when you depress the helm button. The boat will turn but will flick back up to its proper position when the helm button is released. You will notice then that the wind direction and the HDG (compass heading) has appropriately changed according to how much you turned the sailboat.
As you turn you’ll notice that the speed of the boat changes as with the efficiency slider bar across the bottom. the trick is to maximize the speed and efficiency for the wind direction.
Go ahead and try it out. Here are some exercises – each time set the sails to maximize the sailboat speed.
- Turn the boat to 120 degrees off the wind on Starboard (wind from the right hand side of the boat). Notice the screen will announce the point of sail “Broad Reach”
- Turn the boat to 90 degrees off the wind on starboard (”Beam reach”)
- Now change the wind speed to 20 knots and notice the change in boat speed.
- Tack the boat through the wind to 30 degrees on port (”Close Haul”)
- Turn the boat to 80 degrees onport
- Now go to 180 degrees (wind directly behind)
- You’ll see the sails gybe over when you go to about 170 degrees.
Play with NED as much as you like until you really feel you have the hang of the sail set. You’ll discover that this is almost exactly what you’ll need to be doing when out sailing. See below for a few tips about sailing with a windmeter. Once you’ve mastered NED – you can play with the Advanced sailing Instructor version on the NauticEd Online Sailing School website.
Windmeters are great because you don’t have to keep looking at the top of the mast (and around the bimini) to find the exact direction of the wind. Therefore learning to sail with a windmeter is a necessary skill. When sailing with a windmeter here is a sailing tip which we cover in the NauticEd Skipper Course.
One issue that appears most often with new sailors is focusing too much attention on the electronic wind meter or the wind direction indicator (the pointy arrow thing at the top of the mast). Imagine driving down the highway looking at your speedometer for more than 10 seconds. You would surely have an accident. Now relate this to looking at your wind instruments. As with a speedometer in a car, you only need to look at them for long enough to gain the information it is telling you (IE check wind instruments for about 1 second every 10 seconds). The rest of the time your eyes should be up out of the boat and looking at your surroundings and the horizon taking note of which tree, house, cloud, island etc that you are sailing towards to hold a straight course. You make your course corrections when looking out of the boat then you check the wind instruments to see if you’re back on the desired wind angle. If not then lift your head out of the boat again and make a new course correction. In this manner you can judge exactly how much your boat is turning.
If you make course corrections while looking at the wind instruments you will tend to over shoot every time. So the Sailing Technique is to keep your head out of the boat and check the windmeter in short glaces. Think about trying to drive down a highway using a compass only and stay in a straight line or make a 90 degree turn using a compass. Not really possible or practical yet the tendency to do this when sailing is high. Rid your self of any such habit from day 1.
People ask “well what if you’re on the open ocean and there are no objects to point at”. Don’t worry – by the time you get to the open ocean you’ll have the “FEEL”.
This discussion is equally similar when you give the helm over to a novice. The best thing to do to a novice is to start them out by having them aim at something so that they can get used to sailing in a straight line using small 1/4 turn max corrections on the wheel. Trying to explain to someone who has never taken the wheel about the wind indicators is pretty pointless.
As you’re becoming more confident in your sailing abilities you can test your self out on a clear steady wind day by looking at the wake you’re leaving and ensuring it is in a straight line. This will tell you if you’re tending to slightly over steer and keeping focused on the job at hand.
The previous discussion was taken from the NauticEd Skipper Course.
Posted by Grant Headifen on July 9, 2009 under Bareboat Charter, Crew, Sail Trim, Skipper |
Remember in the movie back to the Future when Michael J. Fox hated being called “Chicken”. But eventually he smartened up – didn’t take the dare and changed his future for the good. Well … sometimes in sailing it’s equally as smart to not take the dare.
The safe maneuver is called the chicken jibe.
The chicken gybe replaces the gybe in high winds
It’s mostly done when the skipper is uncomfortable about the conditions for the gybe and most likely if the winds are high. High winds in a gybing maneuver can cause damage to the vessel rigging by the boom SLAMMING across too fast. In a normal gybe maneuver the boom slam effect can be reduced by pulling in the main sheet and letting it out as the boom comes over to the other side. However, in high winds – 15 knts plus, if the boom is not let out fast enough, the wind on the main sail will round the boat up in to the wind and heel the boat way way over. This is a very uncomfortable situation.
So many choose the chicken gybe. The end result is the same. You are meerly tacking the boat from a broad reach on one side over to a broad reach on the other side. Simple, easy, effective and safe. The only thing to watch out for is that the jib sheets will whip back and around quite violently. So it’s a good idea not to have anyone near the jib sheets i.e. on foredeck.
Posted by Grant Headifen on July 2, 2009 under Maneuvering Under Power, Skipper |
A recent discussion with a student regarding Maneuvering a Sailboat Under Power is repeated here.
On 7/2/09 11:55 AM, matthew k…. wrote:
Hi Grant
I do have a question about the Maneuvering Under Power course – the course is set up for a vessel with a wheel-I have a tiller on my little full keel wooden boat -can you clarify for me how the reverse works with a tiller-it is backwards from a wheel is it not?
My specific issue is when I am backing out of my slip-especially with a few people on the boat-I am not able to get the bow to come to starboard. My prop walk is to starboard so I am hard over on the tiller to port. The frustrating thing is it is very inconsistent-of course it never works when there are people around or on the boat. The only thing I can think of is the added weight of extra passengers alters how Juna responds-the trick is I have not figured out how to compensate for this-any ideas or suggestions??
Thanks again for your help-
Matthew
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Matthew,
Yes either way, the boat when starting from a standstill, will always want to take the stern to port so applying tiller to port – wheel to starboard is the same action to try to counteract the propwalk. Try using less throttle – this reduces the effect of propwalk. Also try not putting the tiller all the way over to port. If the tiller is all the way over then the rudder may act more like a bulldozer blade pushing water straight back rather than a rudder diverting water to port and boat to starboard. Of course this requires backwards motion to gain this effect.
After you take the course you will be confident enough and inclined to back your boat into the slip. This will eliminate the issue because you’ll start out in forward.
Thanks – I’ll drop this discussion up on the blog site as it is useful.
Grant
>>>>>>>>>
HI Grant
Cool tips-back Juna into the slip!!!-well that might take a while but I’ll keep that as a goal!-
Thanks for the vote of confidence and the tips-here’s a little shot of Juna on a glorious day last fall in Puget Sound. She was built in 1939 in Blanchard boat works in Seattle and designed by Ben Seaborn-she’s such a cool little boat-feel free to post on the blog if you like-I’ll dive into the course full speed and let you know when I can back Juna into her home in Edmonds!
Thanks again
Matthew
