Nationals

[JonThompson]

The Merlins tried wingmasts over 15 years ago (approx).  The boat was called "Wing and a prayer",  he soon got rid of the mast - because he could not depower it....

[JimC (Guest)]

While I'm not convinced that open rigs and wing masts would be right for your class let me just correct a couple of preconceptions.

> he soon got rid of the mast - because he coulkd not depower it

Then the design was no good (all UK bult ones I ever came across were rubbish).  My wood Bethwaite mast has excellent gust response for its era (1972). Its just a question of building in the right fore and aft and sideways taper.

> you have to physically tack the mast

When I was racing with one regularly ( crew in my boats) I got into the swing of uncleat jib, grab handle, use it to swing across boat (which tacked the  mast at the same time) sheet jib other side. Once I was used to it it just wasn't a problem, and this included using it for cruising up and down rivers on the Norfolk broads with no shortage of tacking (yes, a Cherub!)

One exercise if you wanted to let a few people try a freer design rig might be to force them to have say 5 sq ft less rag. That way the new more sophisticated rigs wouldn't be any quicker than the old style ones and you wouldn't compromise your racing.

[tim knight (Guest)]

Wow rotating rigs, great topic

Havn't paid much attention to the discussion group lately as it was getting a little stale but love this buried little thread.

I just happen to have a couple of extremely competitive 27 year old Tasars. Plan to sail this years nationals with a six year old main 5 year old jib and will probally be expected to get at least one bullet in the week.

The rigs last forever

Tacking is easy after a few practises

The sails are a lot smaller than a 12's and the PY..... suggests  that the Tasar is quicker.

Talking from experience sailing a week of 25 kts+ in a Tasar I would expect little or no damage compared with saiingl one race in a modern 12 over 25kts where half the fleet would stay ashore. The 12 would be terrifying. The Tasar I would just depower and have a lot of fun with no worries about the rig.

I never understand where the majority of people who make comments about soft rigs and there ability to depower get there Knowledge from. Where is this magical intermediate setting that a soft sail has that a fully battened sail doesn't have.  As for Salcombe I could not imagine a better place to have a rotating rig with all those reaches and short tacking up banks. Max acceleration out of a tack or in a new puff and max speed down a reach

Being a bit of a coward I get psyched out by a slipway full of soft flapping sails. Give me a slipway full silent fully battened sails in a breeze any day.

Just as you can rotate a mast to dramatically increase power you can rotate the mast to depower. Though most Tasar sailors just wind on the cunningham and play the kicker. With only diamonds the rig responds a lot more to gusts and the controls than a conventional mast with swept spreaders.

If anyone wants a go my boats are in Lymington.

I'm  currently sailing the 12 with eldest daughter Mariko as we are too light to sail a Tasar. (minimum crew weight rule 20.5st)* and Mayumi has been away.

I think I have sorted out the rig for light winds now and am looking forward to seeing some of you in the summer. Bucket and spade in hand.

Tim

Bouncing Ben


*what a good idea

[EmmaW]

Noone mentioned the fact that the sails wouldnt flap when rigging...I'm all in!!  

[Graham Iles]

Sorry Emma, that probably goes more with the fully battened main than the rotating mast. But since I don't really understand this very well maybe the two would go hand in hand?

If they do there's an intermediate stage to be had, we're all for gradual changes it gives people time to save for any new kit they may want.

[Merlin bloke (Guest)]

Wing masts have been tried much more recently in the Merlins.  Linton built several carbon sections a few years ago and several of our top helms tried them, including mutiple national champs winner Phil King.  However, despite some serious development (and expenditure!!!), none of these rigs proved to have any noticeable edge over conventional carbon spars, and in fact often seemed to be slower....Not sure about all the issues, but often an quoted problem was the difficulty of depowering the rig upwind in a breeze, or flattening the main for performance in light airs.

Overall, there seemed to be a fairly narrow band of wind strength where the wing masts would perform well, and performance was often poor outside of this.  This has been reflected in my own experience of racing against Tasars in my conventionally rigged Merlin (about the same PY) - upwind in force 3-4 they can be hard to beat, but in wind strengths around this, the Merlin is generally quicker.

Why not open up the rules?  Most likely a few people will try it, then quietly go back to conventional rigs after encountering a dramatic loss of form.....Even if they develop something workable, it seems unlikely the wing mast enthusiasts will have something which will render conventional rigs obsolete across all wind strengths.  These things tend to go in cycles - note that the 1947 vintage Merlin No. 1 sports a deck stepped rotating rig!

[matt (Guest)]

it seems to me that merlin bloke has a point. its not often that the class has a member with the imagination for innovation, technical skills to carry out the changes and the sailing skill to try them out with the prejudice of incompetence. these charactereistics are all essential if we are to accurately evaluate any innovations or rule changes before putting them to the vote to the wider membership.

We can't keep on rejecting ideas becausae they MIGHT be too successful becauase we won't make any progress at all.  lets give out some dispensations to individuals or to everyone for a limited time so that we can get some accurate evaulations of these dieas.

if you are taking a stand on rotating masts you might just be proved right. if not then at least we've learned something

[If you want it (Guest)]

Ask for a dispensation to try it.  Write to the chairman with your proposal.  Bitching on the website will just make you angry.

[Matt (Guest)]

fair point I suppose. I don't actually want a dispensation. I was just making the point that all this speculation doesn't get us very far if no one gets/wants to try it out.
bitching on the website doesn't make me angry - does it make you angry? Perhaps you'd prefer it if I stopped posting.

[Kevin I (Guest)]

Bitching! Where? I miust have missed it, not even a vigorous discussion by the standards of the Iles household. This is the best discussion we have had for ages. Keep posting Matt, but next time try and think of something really contentious, but new!

Kevin

[Tim L (Guest)]

Some thoughts:

- 2 foot longer with a smaller rig, of course it'll be easier in 25kts.  All very well in Oz but a bit limiting in a country where 9-10kts is the norm...
 
- Burton week - twice as many entryies as the Tasar champs so it's fairly likely that there are more inexperienced teams and people sailing with small children (a crew weight rule would exclude a huge majority of 12 sailors who sail with their kids - a bit stupid...) who won't complete races.

-Metal 12 rigs last forever too, suspect carbon rigs wil too for the most part (especially the Angells... famous last words...).

-The only places you find wingmasts are on a couple of not that popular dinghy classes and at the no expense spared end of the sport IMOCA and ORMA 60s suggesting that
 a) the average dinghy sailor isn't that bothered with wingmasts (so it won't bring people into 12s),
 b)that the performance gain is very small relative to the expense, the guy who just won the vendee had a conventional mast as he reckoned it was more rliable and the performance gain didn't justify a wing.

-There are probably plenty of ideas that can be developed/refined within the present rules, ripping off ideas from other classes/ things you've seen in sailing magazines and then wanting the rules changed to to suit seems like  lack of imagination...

-If you're that desperate to try wingmasts and you've got too much time/money that you need using up then go make one anyway, why do you need dispensation you can still go try it out without it.

I'm quite happy with the boat and racing as it is. If we had to have expensive development then a masthead assy and all the lead out would be rather more bang for your buck...   Wingmasts - yawn...  

T
N3497

[Tim ; (Guest)]

And Tasars really llook their age, very 70s, not pretty...

[Tim ; (Guest)]

And Tasars really look their age, very 70s, not pretty...

[James McC]

This discussion has touched on a couple of interesting points.  I have a couple of thoughts to add, though this really doesn't make much odds to me as my boat is too old to be competitive anyway!

1.  Tim L said "The only places you find wingmasts are on a couple of not that popular dinghy classes".  I would suggest taking a look at the high performance catamaran scene - they are not uncommon with the fast classes.

2.  Perhaps going fully battened (mentioned at some point) would be an interesting starting point for further development.  I believe (though correct me if I am talking out of my ar$e) that this would enable more sail area as the battens would help support the leech further out.  Would also improve efficiency and (as mentioned) stop the sail flapping!

I used to crew on a Hurricane 5.9 which was awesomely quick and had a wing section mast and fully battened main.  Controlling the mast was something that we never really worried too much about it - it tended to get set at the start of the leg (with a line led from the handle onto the boom so you controlled the maximum twist relative to the boom position) and left.  For club racing I seem to remember we didn't even worry about it that much - just set it when we launched and left it!

I have no idea how much difference these two changes would make, but it would be interesting to find out.  OK, the cost of the mast and associated deck changes are perhaps prohibitive, but buying a fully battened main would not be quite so serious as I guess a lot of you serious guys have new sails on a fairly regular basis.

Just my thoughts, hope no-one is offended or put out!  Healthy discussion has to be good for the class.

[Mikey C]

To Mr If you want it,

The great thing about this is that by having a nice friendly (Well, it would be if I knew who you were...) discussion on this topic, is that we can establish what is likely to be acceptable to the fleet in general - while no one in particular has been that fussed either way about rotating masts, there have been a few people plussing on maybe aiming for a battened rig.
No one wants to waste their time and money at the end of the day, and the class has to have a bit of interest in the topic to even consider moving in that direction.

So - next topic. Full batttens? Keep the sail area the same, move to measuring actual area, free up the cross widths and allow 3 full length battens. Performance is likely to increase, sail lives are likely to increase, and less kids will be scared out of their minds before launching on a nice F4+ because of all the flapping! (I know, I've been there too....)

Cheers

Mike C
3489 Radical Edward