[MHml] Winch vs Tackle

[Peter Lillywhite]

The only time we lifted a hull, thanks to a gust off a local hill,
dumping the track line had little effect a big ease of the main sheet
brought the hull down immediately. The most interesting thing for me was
with the hull in the air our cat developed huge lee helm,  this I assume
is due to the drag of the leeward hull acting against the CLA, but how
do you guys who regularly fly your cats handle this?
 
Cheers Peter.
 
-----Original Message-----
From: multihulls-bounces at steamradio.com
[mailto:multihulls-bounces at steamradio.com] On Behalf Of Paul Nudd
Sent: 06 December 2007 11:22
To: Informed discussion of multihull issues
Subject: Re: [MHml] Winch vs Tackle
 
From: martin.schoon at gmail.com 1) On a 40' cat you don't really have any
alternatives to winch+tackle. -------------- Correct but you do have a
choice of how much tackle. -------------- 2) I don't like self tailing
winches. 17 years ago I ended up under a flipped 40' cat due to a main
sheet left on the self tailing mechanism. -------------- Hardly the
fault of the winch. I have seen lines from a non self tailing winch
cleated off on a horn cleat but I don't hate horn cleats, I love them.
It is important to use any piece of equipment appropriately. That means
taking the sheet out of the self tailer and in certain conditions hand
holding. 26 years ago I very nearly ended up under a 24' cat because I
couldn't uncleat a mainsheet that I should have been hand holding.
Fortunately someone else released the jib sheet. I had pulled the main
on by hand (8:1 tackle and no winch) and cleated. When a gust caused the
hull to lift the load was so great that I couldn't uncleat (the cleat
was on the tackle). Since then I always use a 'remote' cleat, fixed to
something that doesn't move. After that 'incident' I changed to a lesser
ratio tackle and a winch (not self tailing on that boat) which I could
hand hold without cleating in hull flying conditions. --------------- 3)
The conditions around here have me adjusting the leech tension *very*
frequently. This leaves me with the option of not using the self tailing
mechanism at all or having to put the tail on/off the self tailing
mechanism all the time. ------------- Only to increase tension, not to
decrease. I find that in conditions where I need to do a lot of
adjusting I can do it all by hand anyway. When the wind is up such that
I need to use the power of the winch I don't do much adjusting of the
leech tension. Perhaps that might change if I reduced to a 2:1 tackle. I
guess my ideal system would be a 2:1 double ended with a 2 speed self
tailer in each cockpit and with such a system I would tend to leave the
tail in the tailer most of the time, except in hull flying conditions
where I would hand hold. I don't think I could be comfortable flying a
hull with a mainsheet cleated. ------------ The next sailing season is 6
months away so there is plenty of time for convincing me that I am wrong
regarding winches. My report is definitely food for though regarding
this. ------------- My guess is that you will convince yourself but it
doesn't really matter as your existing system obviously works very well
and you have done a lot of sailing in various conditions without having
a problem with it. Have a good winter. We enjoy our winter sailing. I
expect you have compensatory activities in your winter. Paul Nudd 
  _____  

Join Lavalife for free. What are you waiting for?
<http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Flavalife9%2Eninemsn%2Ec
om%2Eau%2Fclickthru%2Fclickthru%2Eact%3Fid%3Dninemsn%26context%3Dan99%26
locale%3Den%5FAU%26a%3D30288&_t=764581033&_r=email_taglines_Join_free_OC
T07&_m=EXT> 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://steamradio.com/pipermail/multihulls/attachments/20071206/54c56e81/attachment-0001.htm