Larry, Your setup is what I first had in mind. I thought of adding the turning block to keep the line low like in the Harken pictures, but your reasoning (and experience) seem to show it's not necessary. The reason I wasn't planning to use the Harken endstops is that they seem to cut several inches off the distance the car can travel. Is this a problem? Thanks for the help. A picture's worth a lot of words. By the way, there seems to be a lot of friction between car and track. Does this free up with use? Thanks, Rick M17 #633 Lynne L On Wednesday, March 14, 2012, Larry E Yake <leyake@juno.com> wrote:
I will only have 2:1 - the deck block is only a direction changer so I can pull the car to windward from a seated position. The return to the becket tube is in accordance with the Harken instructions, adjusted so the car doesn't hit the other end of the track.
Larry, i want the car to be able to travel right to the end of the track. If the stop knot in the becket tube doesn't do the job I thought of glueing a heavy rubber pad to the cockpit side to take the impact. Would this work?
Rick, I have attached a picture of my rig. With this simple layout I can pull the car to windward easily in the strongest of wind conditions. No need to complicate things with extra blocks and lines. If I follow your plan correctly, you will be running the release line through a turning block near the end of the track. The problem I see with that is it will restrict your ability to yank the line up out of the cleat if you suddenly want to release the car. In gusty weather, if I have the car to windward at all, I sail with the release line in my hand instead of the mainsheet. Yanking it out of the cleat drops the car to leeward instantly, which dumps a lot of the air out of the main without destroying the sail shape like releasing the mainsheet will. Larry