setting up a Paper Dart

[Chris Berkley (Guest)]

[John Meadowcroft]

Chris

I am no longer a paper dart owner so cannot help with pictures, but I think that all these things can be sorted.  Give us a call - number in the year book

1 - lengthen the jib halyard - use some additional shackles

2 - i think the mainsail has shrunk.  either dont pull it up so high or just tie the tack to the mast (that is how most modern boats set up their mainsail tack arrangement).  the lever should be for the jib.  It sounds like the main halyard cleat is missing.  What sort of mast is it?  The original ones were mostly needlespars.

3 - not sure.  most likely to be related to the kicker / outhall or cunningham  i would have thought.

4 - 2646 was a paper dart.  not sure about the others

5 - lengthen the jib halyard - use some additional shackles.  I would set it up so that the boom is pretty horizontal with the mast pretty straight (note not necessarily vertical) and touching the mast ram.  sorry no measurements.  2646 is probably the best sail to use for the set up.  I can imagine that the various mains have different leech lengths to add to the confusion.  A loose footed main would be best.  I think the original paper darts probably were not loose footed.  You can make a slider with a loop of thick rope (mainsheet thickness).  Go through the gallery and have a look at how modern boats set this up.  Few have tracks or sliders.  Again I do have  a track, so no photo....

Hope this helps.  Glad the kids were bored with the other stuff!

John Meadowcroft

[johnk]

Item 2
Some polyester bolt ropes do shrink with time. The extruded filaments shrink in length and grow correspondingly fatter. The Jeckylls standard Mirror sails were classic for this. To check for this - when bolt rope is tight - are there still horizontal creases in the mainsail luff? If so bolt rope has shrunk.
The cure is to unsplice the bolt rope from the clew eye and allow the rope to slide up the luff.

[ChrisBerkley]

Thanks for the info:

1.  There is a short pennant already attached to the forestay.  Without any sails untensioned, the rig sits with the mast about 2cm behind the ram.  I could get on one shroud tension but the other is extremely tight and bows the mast the wrong way ie concave to the bow.  The spreaders don't appear to have been changed from original.  Does the mast bend aft due to the luff tension, sail weight, kicker and sheet tension?  (bendy masts are new to me!)  Even so, should I get both shroud tension on together?

As far as the jib goes, I'll add some shackles at the jib head to get the wire eye to the tension lever but is this just the sail shrunk again?

2.  The mainsail luff rope does appear to have shrunk.  Will look at the other sails and do a work around as suggested - thanks johnk.

3.  The spare tackle must be a cunningham as this is the one that is missing if i lead the main halyard to the second tension lever (therefore not needing a cleat)

4.  I've got details of the sailnumber / boats from the boat list here.  It is a mystery why I have one with N2.  But it is in nice condition being fairly recent.

Thanks for the help.  any more advice out there?

chris