MacGregorSailors.com

sailboatmike wrote:If your using the furler check for forestay tension, boats will never point with a sloppy forestay, I find that somewhat of an issue with the CDI furler, its very hard to get reasonable tension.

How can you measure the tension on a CDI furler? And what should it be?

NiceAft wrote:

K9Kampers wrote:I read the words but what in the furling hull are y'all jivin' about?!!
My brain is full, can I go now?!

BOAT is trying to find out (a) if anyone has found a good wind instrument for his that can accurately tell the wind direction because an rotating mast makes it difficult to do so. Also he is trying to figure out (b) how close to the wind is the most efficient course because he wants to reduce the time it takes to get from point A to point B when that distance is two hundred miles.

Sailing 30 degrees off direct wind is desirable. 0 is best, but impossible.


It may be time to remember that sailing is a Zen thing; it's the journey, not the destination which matters, most times

Ray

Thanks Ray.

How about calculating for both 45 AND 30 to determine if the difference necessitates more beer provisions and whether to dress for hors d'oeuvres or dessert!
I can appreciate the math exercise.

NiceAft wrote:If it's just a matter of having more wind, keep this on board

Ray

Okay! It's obvious I have opened a can of beans here - so let's just forget about the pointing capabilities of the M for now - maybe I can approach this from the back side and it might make more sense:

Pretend your sailing to a place that is dead into the wind. The place is an tiny island in open ocean and it's 35 miles away, so you can't see it. As you sail, what makes you decide when to tack?

Come on Boat, don't give up, you can figure this out. Start the darn motor and enjoy the ride.

Please don't repost and ask “what if you ran out of gas?”

Ray

NiceAft wrote:Come on Boat, don't give up, you can figure this out. Start the darn motor and enjoy the ride.

Please don't repost and ask “what if you ran out of gas?”

Ray

No no, it's okay, I'll play along - (I need to get my come-uppins every now and then), being a good sport I would not run out of gas on you guys, (remember the beans?), so let's just put the island in it's real location - the island is really 200 miles away so it is beyond the reach of your fuel tanks. BUT! You DO have BEER! So, sailing thought the night is definitely an option but you want to get out of bed at the right times to make your tack. Do you drink enough beer to make you get up soon because you need to go pee? Or do you just get comfortably buzzed and fall asleep for a few hours and just tack when you wake up?

It sounds stupid, but my latest calculations on the M show that you will reach your destination faster if you beat the boat as hard into the wind as you can at a diminished speed and then turn to a broad reach racing as fast as you can back to the course-line and then turn back to a hard beat. This creates a sawblade like course as opposed to the 90 degree right angles we see in most canned tack plans that come with sailing software. Those plans fail because they are not based on the reality of the boat. My strategy is totally based on how high you can force your boat into the wind, and I think it works. I just need more testing and confirmation from other boats.

So, any comments about the type of beer?

I do not have ur issues for obvious reasons
http://vid844.photobucket.com/albums/ab ... 0_2494.mp4

But as I do consider myself as a novice sailor compared to ur sailing skills I,m very interested in the out come of this subject so I do hope we get some serious input here on this subject , so as we can all learn something here !

Ray
As for the can of beans they r only good for sailing down wind , up-wind u,ll suffocate

ok let the show begin I wanna learn something here

J

Okay! It's obvious I have opened a can of beans here - so let's just forget about the pointing capabilities of the M for now - maybe I can approach this from the back side and it might make more sense:

Pretend your sailing to a place that is dead into the wind. The place is an tiny island in open ocean and it's 35 miles away, so you can't see it. As you sail, what makes you decide when to tack?[/quote]

Boat; I may not be much help on the pointing I am a new sailor (well trying) . But sometime ago I read the logs of a man that sailed to Hawaii from Southern Ca. almost a straight track to the Island, If I remember right 14 days plus nights. When he started back he was sailing on a track to Alaska for about 14 days and a night or two, then turned to point to his home port in southern Ca. for another 14 days and a night. I am still learning to sail this boat 26M and how it points to true wind I am not sure I bent the markers on the wind vane 60% from each other , that to me gives me a 30% marker ( but not really because the mast rotation ) I can point just outside of that marker in most wind. I have mostly been in light winds on the lakes in Florida. I feel like it is good place to learn, get it wrong and I just run a ground. ( walk back to the truck).

I foot the boat off till she's got good way on her. On the M this is critical in any sloppy conditions else she's just going to sit there pointed in the direction you want to go, but going sideways. You cannot pinch this boat into the wind like a heavy keel boat. Unless she's got speed on her she won't go through chop nor will she steer. If I cannot do at lest 3.5 knots I fall off until I can. Keep the bottom clean, the boat trimmed properly, and the sails set correctly or you ain't getting to this mythical island or anywhere else. So far as when to tack, it's at your convenience. I don't think it makes a difference. I'd use like twenty mile tacks in the example. I don't buy the sawtooth business. Both tacks should be optimized for speed and heading.
Ix

Guys, this is not a mythical trip or mystery islands - it's a real place - I was there back in 1971:



Trust me, I have had my days on trailer boats - they are ALL tenders and NONE of them point for crap - that's not the issue. I can live with whatever drawbacks you all think the boat may have - my issue is speed into the wind. I think I got some good info from Tomfoolery on tacking and yukonbob about losing about a half a knot when he points too high into the wind. All good stuff and very helpful.
We ran into this phenomenon with trailer boats in Mexico back in the early 70's trying to race in regattas:



The pointing problem is because the boats carry the ballast too high up in the hull - (the boat in the picture has solid lead ballast) and it's not because of the size of the keel - it's because of the POSITION of the ballast - it's too high up - this happens with the trailer boats with lead ballast too - the boat tips over too much and spills the wind and slows down. That's why a TALLER rig is better with high mounted ballast. You need a sail plan that works better when heeled over - that's why Highlander can run 6 knots at 40 degrees! His rig is very tall. Schooners of the 1800's with long shallow keels worked the same way. Same with square riggers - they had almost no keel at all yet their sails towered high into the air. They would have made them taller but the technology for longer spars did not exist back then.

But I digress, the ability to point is not an issue here. I was just looking for bare numbers.

When the boat heels the amount of wetted area increases which increases the friction or drag, the foils also lose effectiveness as they are no longer being be presented to the water at the correct angle, the answer to over heeling is to reduce sail, change your point of sail or adjust your sails.

Boats sail at their fastest upright or with slight heel, I think Roger Macgregor recommends about 15 degrees is optimum on the X hull

As for taller rigs, many TS's have bigger rigs which are great for light winds but they really struggle once it blows above 15knts, two great examples are the Spider 28 and the Castle 650, both lightening in light winds but they may as well turn around and go home above 15knts.

I have proved this on my friends Boomerang 20, we went out sailing with a TOP GUN racer, he had her cranked hard over and we were doing 4.5knts, I recommended (as Im only a novice in comparison to this guy that has won plenty of big races) that he was trying to sail too hard, so we decreased the jib(furled it in) and let out the main slightly, the boat sprang upright and we sailed on doing a fine 6knts.

Heeled over hard with spay flying everywhere may look great and be exciting but the facts are it just slow

Wow. That's a clean Aquarius 23!

But then, I guess it was nearly new at that time.

Rough rule of thumb, you lose about 30 seconds of time in a race when you tack, so in a Mac, more like 60 seconds.

If you tack a course on a long trip every ten minutes, you lose about 1 minute of way for each tack, or about 10 percent off you VMG. That will be roughly the fastest path for your 30 mile course.

Most would sail more like 30 minutes in between tacks for convenience, I think.

Pinching below 45 on the stick rig will decrease your VMG due to leeway, which won't show up in calculations, but will on the water.

Catigale wrote:Rough rule of thumb, you lose about 30 seconds of time in a race when you tack, so in a Mac, more like 60 seconds.

If you tack a course on a long trip every ten minutes, you lose about 1 minute of way for each tack, or about 10 percent off you VMG. That will be roughly the fastest path for your 30 mile course.

I'm missing something here - if you lose 1 minute per tack, and assuming wind/current/all else remains steady, why would you tack more than you have to?

Tomfoolery wrote: I'm missing something here - if you lose 1 minute per tack, and assuming wind/current/all else remains steady, why would you tack more than you have to?

Even tan! There's more to sailing than just wind!

Tomfoolery wrote:

Catigale wrote:Rough rule of thumb, you lose about 30 seconds of time in a race when you tack, so in a Mac, more like 60 seconds.

If you tack a course on a long trip every ten minutes, you lose about 1 minute of way for each tack, or about 10 percent off you VMG. That will be roughly the fastest path for your 30 mile course.

I'm missing something here - if you lose 1 minute per tack, and assuming wind/current/all else remains steady, why would you tack more than you have to?

Once your tack leg length starts getting near the distance to destination, say within 25%, you want to end up,with the leg taking you in, or else you sail a much longer course. Early in the long trip it doesn't matter too much