I occasionally crew aboard the 70-ft stays'l schooner, Aldebaran, out on the SF Bay (and beyond). Doug's head sail configuration reminds me a "little" of ours. While tacking, Skipper only calls, "Cut!" when the jib backs and pushes the bow through the eye of the wind. He's not too concerned about the main in transition, but he's very picky about the stays'ls and head sails NOT going into transition until after the bow has cleared the eye of the wind. So anyway, I was wondering with those two sails flying out there, Doug, if you did wait until the jibs backed before you cut those sheets? Just curious. It might be a completely different dynamic because of our small boats, but I was just wondering... particularly in the stronger wind. I would imagine that a lot of flogging in transition would really slow the tack down (flogging as she came about). What we find aboard Aldebaran is that when the jib backs, and then we release, wham, bam, it's there, we sheet-in, and we're done. The first picture in this sequence is a nice view of Aldebaran's jib and jib-top flying: http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6342916 Karsten M-15 #236
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Message: 3 Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:44:22 -0600 From: "William B. Riker" <wriker@mindspring.com> To: <doug_kelch@yahoo.com>, "'For and about Montgomery Sailboats'" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: Re: M_Boats: gaff rig pictures Message-ID: <E1LtaVY-0003xs-9C@elasmtp-dupuy.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Doug,
It looks fantastic! You can tell from the pictures that the lower CE reduces heeling and that puts the effort into forward progress.
The boom is really high - a good thing on light days. I'd be inclined to lower the main a bit, if possible, when it's really blowing. I do that now as I have a few inches of play.
Bill Riker M15 - #184 Storm Petrel
-----Original Message----- From: montgomery_boats-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:montgomery_boats-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Doug Kelch Sent: Monday, April 13, 2009 8:16 AM To: Montgomery Subject: M_Boats: gaff rig pictures
Sunday was a nice windy day so I asked a friend to take some pictures of my modified rig on the M15.
http://montgomeryowners.com/gallery/
The winds were a steady 15kts with gusts to 25 kts.? What a hoot :-) ? I have a lot to learn about tuning the rig but she handled exceptionally well.? I was able to carry full sail during the 12 - 15 kts without an serious heeling and the gaff rig shed the intial 20 kt gusts pretty well.?
As the wind increased the tacking became slower with all of the leverage against the turn with the jib way out there.
The wind increased to 18 kts with gusts to 25 kts so I put 1 reef in the main and with 1 gust over 25 and the main fully release the jibs absolutely took control and we took off to leward.?
The boat was a little sluggish to me going to windward with both jibs up and 1 reef in the main so I rolled up the jib and sailed under the staysail and single reefed main with a substanial increase in speed.? Interesting.
This is going to be a fun season. :-)
Thanks
Doug Kelch "Seas the Day"