Some thoughts about spinnaker hosting and dousing

Before leaving for MHOR2015 I was very excited to order an asymmetrical spinnaker with dousing sock. I had never used one and seemed like a great concept. While sailing on Miss Red we had a brand new Quantum asymmetrical with ATN sock and every time it was a challenge to pull the sock all the way up, particularly in moderate breeze (15kn). On several occasions it took two people to work the collar "halyard". Despite the convenience of hoisting the spinnaker in the sock and then retract the sock, the effort required greatly exceeded the convenience. The sock line has to be carefully tied down when the sock is all the way up or down, so it doesn't tangle with the rest of the rigging on the bow.

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to try my new Hood spinnaker with dousing sock; I had secret hopes that it will be better, because the spinnaker itself was a little bit smaller but it was pretty much the same - it took 15 of pulling to get the sock up; dousing it was somewhat easier but I still found it to be cumbersome and hardly worth the effort. The sock did not give any advantage to short-handed sailing either. So, I ended up giving away the sock to a friend.

My preferred technique for hoisting and dousing asymmetrical spinnaker is behind the jib, when sailing short-handed (with two people crew) I use the autopilot to steer the boat while one person works foredeck, the other person handles the pit.

To hoist:

• Set a course on beam or broad reach
• Make sure you're in open area with sufficient room and depth, preferably with no wind shifts
• Clip the turtle to lifelines on leeward side
• Rig the tack line, sheets and halyard
• Hoist the halyard all the way to the top behind the genoa; at that point the foredeck person can go back to the pit to assist with furling and trimming
• Furl the genoa
• Trim the spinnaker and move on

To douse:

• Make sure you're in open area with sufficient room and depth, preferably with no wind shifts
• Unfurl the genoa
• Allow plenty of slack on the lazy sheet
• Get a hold of the spinnaker sheet; if needed, give it enough slack to be able to grab it and pull it down
• Stand or sit down on deck between the mast and the bow and start gathering the foot and the clew, while another person releases the halyard in controlled manner, so the spinnaker does not end up wet, until the entire spinnaker is doused on foredeck.
• Make sure the entire spinnaker is low on deck, you may use a shock cord to tie it down in stronger breeze
• Detach the halyard shackle and clip it where it belongs; pull the slack on the halyard
• Depending on circumstances the crew may bag it while it is on foredeck, or stuff it in the turtle and properly bag later in the pit or downstairs

The one device which makes handling asymmetrical spinnakers much easier is the continuous furler with torsion line but they come at significant cost ($2000-$4000).

I would also highly recommend 2:1 purchase on the tack line, whether it is for continuous furler or directly attached to the tack of the sail - makes adjusting the position of the tack much easier under load.

Marblehead to Halifax 2015 (MHOR2015)

After doing MHOR 2015 on "Miss Red" in ORR class I decided to share some notes about the race. I was unable to find any information from previous years, except some anecdotal stories. Race documents here.

Miss Red at RNSYS after finishing MHOR 2015

The boat we raced on "Miss Red" is a cutter rig Valiant 50 designed by Robert Perry - a fantastic cruising boat with stunning cherry interior and all amenities. She was equipped with radar and B&G Hydra 5000 navigation system, which came quite handy. The hull was painted in gorgeous ruby red - hard to miss amidst the sea of white gelcoat boats. She is built like a heavy tank weighing 35,000 or so pounds.

Wind Instrument - Note TWS

B&G Hydra 5000

On the downside, the cutter rig makes tacking quite a bit of a challenge, the mainsail was lacking fine tuning - mainsail did not have adjustable outhaul or cunningham, the backstay tensioner was not usable and traveler was very hard to operate with control lines locked with rope clutches deep under the dodger. The biggest challenge was the lack of sail inventory - we had a single brand new cruising asymmetrical spinnaker, no light air jib or symmetrical spinnaker.



The race course itself is a mostly single-tack reach and downwind sail. The start line was several hundred yards long - more than sufficient for the seven boats in ORR class, so cramming for the preferred end was not worth it. After tacking around the first mark we maintained the same tack for the next 300 or so miles until we made our final gybe into Halifax harbor.

The Race Course on the chart plotter with no-go zones and VTS1 boundary at Halifax Harbor

During the first NE leg of the route from Marblehead to Brazil rock the wind was fairly consistent in the 15kn range with calm seas, we were able to maintain good boat speed with little effort using our asymmetrical spinnaker. Approaching the Bay of Fundy and coming into Brazil Rock is the tricky part of the route - Bay of Fundy is some the highest tidal ranges in the world with some local current systems. It is absolutely necessary to have Canadian Publication titled CURRENTS ATLAS - BAY OF FUNDY / GULF OF MAINE - $16.50 and worth every penny. The challenge is to estimate the position and time of approach to the Bay of Fundy to either take advantage of the tidal current - depending on the time of arrival it will be changing direction, so you don't get "sucked" into the Bay, deviate from course and have to fight against the current. At times we saw over 2kn impact to our speed due to the current. There are also local current systems, which can be taken advantage of, or have to be avoided. 

Our satellite data/phone and software did not work properly, so we were unable to obtain real time wind and weather forecast, we did not download GRIB data ahead of time while we had cellular data coverage, nor we did any proper weather routing, so we ended up sailing a rhumb line course. Hardly optimal.

Important note is that Brazil Rock is not an actual course mark, it was provided in the Sailing Instructions as a navigational target only.

During the North-NE leg from Brazil Rock to the finish in Halifax harbor we encountered periods of heavy fog with very limited visibility. Radar and AIS came quite handy and the B&G Hydra radar and AIS overlay made it very easy to track other vessels.

The during the North-NE leg of the course we experienced two very light air periods with oscillating winds, followed by fresh breeze with gusts up to 25-30kn. I believe the light air periods "compressed" the fleet and basically the race was decided within the last 100nm of the course. When approaching and entering Halifax harbor we sailed through 8ft swells.

8ft swells astern

The combination of gusty breeze, high swells and aggressively (and in my opinion dangerous and ineffective) overpowered boat with full mainsail and large asymmetrical spinnaker made the boat difficult to steer, we sailed most of the leg between rounding, recovering, picking up speed and almost rounding again at the next puff. Sailing with a more appropriate sail plan for the conditions would have resulted in much better average boat speed and much more efficient steering. We saw some amazing wild life - great white sharks, whales and birds many miles off shore.

Great White Shark

Part of the last East-NE leg, after the final gybe at entrance of Halifax harbor was downwind/broad reach, much more appropriate for symmetrical spinnaker, or at proper asymmetrical spinnaker (A2/A4-type). Cruising asymmetrical spinnakers just doesn't cut if for such deep angles, particularly with tack line which is not adjustable under load.

Surprisingly, the weather was not cold, even at night.

We arrived mid-day into RNSYS, cleaned up the boat and checked into a hotel. The people at RNSYS were extremely kind and helpful but the Squadron does not provide any facilities like a regular yacht club.

RNSYS with Heather's parents

I recorded most of the race on RaceQs.

1. Start Leg
2. Middle Leg
3. Bay of Fundy and Brazil Rock
4. Finish 

If I were to do it again (and I probably will), I would:

• Have a much more accurate performance data available in the form of polar charts of the boat - I had a set of polars generated by iPolar using dimensions from ORR certificate; they were surprisingly accurate in the higher end of boat speed/wind speed but very far from reality in the lower end.
• Have much better sail inventory, particularly for reaching/running - we encountered a very broad set of conditions - from 1-4kn oscillating winds to 25-30kn gusts, which demanded. different type of sails, that we just did not have. Having light air sails available would have given us a substantial advantage; having a running asymmetrical spinnaker or symmetrical spinnaker would have given us much better performance on the very last leg of the course.
• Clear instructions to watch captains when to switch sail plan
• Plan for taking much better advantage of the tidal currents

On a side note - Brewer Hawthorne Cove Marina in Salem, MA is not a great place to stay, services available are also minimal. Not sure what other options are available around Marblehead but I wouldn't go there again.

Photos are courtesy of one of our crew members Heather Fleming.

Rudder Support Bracket Replacement

One poor and short-sighted engineering decisions Jeanneau made is to make certain important components from carbon steel and not provide any rust proofing, instead of using stainless steel, or rustproofing.

Two of the most glaring issues are with the upper rudder bearing support bracket and the keel bolts and nuts (more on that later). There are a number of posts online from Jeanneau SO 45.1 and 45.2 owners complaining about their ridder bracket becoming dangerously rusty. The bracket has large flat horizontal surface, which prevents it from completely draining, which is causing severe corrosion.

As you can see from the photos, the bracket was definitely on its last leg.

The upper rudder support bracket is located between the twin helms (between the helm seats, right in front of the transom gate), about 7-8 inches under the deck. The bracket is H-shaped, about 40" tall and 20" wide and is accessible through the deck hatch in front of the transom gate.

After speaking to a number of fabrication shops and boatyards in San Diego I could not get a firm quote, so I ended up ordering the part from Jeanneau USA. Getting in touch with Jeanneau is a challenge in itself, finally I was able to get some help from Gilles Rigaux in Annapolis, MD.

The part was $540 (including shipping via UPS) and took about two months to arrive, it was a custom order part, not available on stock so had to be manufactured. The replacement took about 4-5 hours with two people - one was a diver, who helped hold the rudder itself while the bracket was removed. The rudder itself has negative buoyancy, so once there is no support holding it at the top it will begin to sink and has to be held in place.

The replacement itself was relatively straightforward, short of the need for different wrenches and hammers. First, we removed the bolt holding the rudder post in the top bearing. The bearing itself is made from plastic (probably Delrin) in a rubber sleeve.

Next, remove the four bolts holding the "H" on both sides and carefully lower the rudder post. The rudder post has to be tied and preferably a diver has to assist by holding the rudder itself. At that point the rudder bracket can be removed from underneath the deck.

We decided to carefully cut the bracket with electric metal saw to remove the bearing. Once the bearing was out of the old bracket we cleaned it up, greased it well and carefully hammered it in the new one with a rubber hammer. The new bracket was easy to install, we replaced the mounting bolts as well, pushed the rudder up through the bearing and installed the bolt holding the top of the rudder post.

All done, without having to haul the boat out, which would have been more money than everything spent so far on the project.

Spinnakers and Rigging

Southern Cross came with spinnaker car and track on the mast, spinnaker halyard and topping lift. There was no spinnaker pole, sails, foreguy or sheets. I wasn't sure if previous owners have ever flown a spinnaker on her.

Bowsprit

First step was to build a bowsprit for asymmetrical spinnaker. I used a 12' x 4" OD (0.125" thickness) aluminum tube from Industrial Metal Supply, large steel U-bolt on the front for tack line and an eye bolt on the inboard end. The inboard end is attached to the deck to an existing strong pad eye on the centerline, between the anchor locker and sail locker. The bowsprit goes through a 4" boom bail bolted down to the anchor roller structure.

The inboard attachment proved to be too weak for the load of large spinnakers, so I decided to use the anchor roller to attach the tack line block and do away with the bowsprit, until I can build a more robust attachment.

Spinnaker Rigging

For spinnaker running rigging I decided to use Novatech XLE lines.

• 3/8 Novatech XLE 100' for sheets, which are long enough for outside gybe of asymmetrical spinnaker
• 3/8 Novatech XLE 50' for guys
• 4 snatch blocks attached to the toe rail with shock cord to the lifelines to prevent them from scratching the deck and hull
• Stainless steel snap shackles
• Later I decided to add a dyneema extension to the sheets and guys
• Plastic shackle guards on the guys
• 2:1 purchase for the foreguy with Lewmar blocks. The top block is attached to the spinnaker pole with a snap shackle

Spinnaker Pole

At one point I decided to build a spinnaker pole for symmetrical spinnaker. The end fittings are Harken B121/80 - 32 mm Pole End Fitting — 80 mm Bell Pole End and B145/80 - 22, 27 mm Pole End Fitting — 80 mm Piston Pole End. The pole itself was made from 18' x 4" OD (0.125" thickness) aluminum tube from Industrial Metal Supply. I also installed deck fittings to hold the pole when stowed. The fittings were attached to the pole with 5 #10-25 screws tapped into the pole/fittings.

Deck Fitting - Piston End

Deck Fitting - Bell End

Piston End Fitting

Bell End Fitting

To make attaching the topping lift and foreguy easier I built a pair of 3/16" dyneema bridles with Brummel splices at the pole end and stainless thimbles for the snap shackles.

The bridles are semi-permanently attached to the pole (piston fitting) with luggage-tag loops and make it much easier to attach the inboard end of the pole and then connect the topping lift line and foreguy block with snap shackles to them, instead of trying to attach the snap shackles directly to the pole while the outboard end of the pole is extending beyond the bow.

Spinnaker Sheet J-Shackle (Tylaska)

Why teams don't win

Although I am relatively new to sailboat racing, I have played competitively in business for some years now and there are a lot of parallels to be drawn in both directions. That is why I believe sailing is a great team-building activity. Have yet to find out whether great teams from work make great sailing teams.

The playing field in amateur sailboat racing is fairly leveled, unless one has a lot of money to buy and maintain a great racing boat and hire professional crew, or has a really crappy boat. The PHRF handicapping system works reasonably well to boats with different performance characteristics can compete relatively fairly. Is it 100% fair - not at all, some boats are better in certain light air, some are not, but that aside, it seems there's a pattern that goes beyond the particular boat or weather conditions. It may seem counterintuitive at first, but some teams that race are not ready to win.

It boils down to experience and teamwork. First, most skippers and teams do not know their boats well. Think of the on-ramp on the highway on the way to work - having driven through it hundreds of times, you know exactly what is the maximum speed at which you can safely enter the turn. You know every pot hole and bump on the asphalt. Sailing is a bit more involved that that and the team has to know exactly how to tune the rigging and sails for particular weather conditions, what the best sailing angles on a beat or run are, what sail plan to choose for particular course, what the wind patterns are in their home port. The only way to learn is to go out and practice, try to get the best performance given the conditions and take notes. Build your own polar charts, benchmark them, print them, post them on the bulkhead and try to do better. Try different sail plans on different courses and determine what is best for the conditions. The same goes for the basics - tacking, gybing, rigging, hoisting and dousing sails. In most races a minute can be the difference between a good time and mediocre time. A minute is easy to spend trying to trim the sails for best performance, tune the mast properly, or deciding whether to change sails or not, rounding because the boat is overpowered or trying to figure out how to hoist a spinnaker. The team has to have most of the answers before they get on the course, not try to find them there and that happens only with experience.

Second, the lack of experience and practice makes everyone an expert and gives everyone's opinion a voice. Every decision is made by consensus in the midst of chaos, while nobody is focused on their particular role. Each role requires a lot of attention and focus at all times - it is a carefully choreographed play where everyone has a specific part. Making a good time on a course requires making the best of every wind shift, every tack and turn and great time on every leg.

So, get out, practice, measure and get better. And trust your team. You may be ready to win soon.

Rigging updates

Over the past several months I have made a number of upgrades to the rigging on Souther Cross. When I acquired her the running rigging was "original" circa 1997 which had seen little, if any maintenance over time. With the exception of the rope clutches most of it was fully operational, so I had the luxury of taking my time and doing it phases.

Rope Clutches

The first thing was to replace the old Antal clutches - the combination of aluminum and plastic with stainless grommets in the aft end did not do very well in marine environment. Most of the clutches were chipped and required extreme care to avoid chafing.

I decided to replace them with Garhauer Marine 14-11S Stainless Steel rope clutches - they cost about 50% cheaper than similar ones from Antal or Lewmar and are made of stainless steel. As a bonus they have extending handles which give a bit of extra leverage. The replacement project itself took several days and basically involved removing the overhead lining in the salon to expose the underside of the deck, remove the bolt nuts on the old clutches, hammering out the bolts from underneath, filling the aft bolt holes with epoxy - both for structural strength and to seal them, drilling new holes in the deck to match the mounting holes of the new clutches, then bolting them down with some sealant around the bolts (3M 4200 white). Blue painters' tape is your best friend - both epoxy and 4200 are much better kept away from gelcoat, instead of cleaning up later.

It has been almost a year since I installed the new clutches and so far have no regrets. No slipping, jamming or chafing either. Overall I have been very happy with all the hardware from Garhauer Marine, everything has been very well-made and durable.

Finished Project

Work in progress

Traveler

The existing traveler was an old Lewmar in dire need of new bearings - the car was hard to move back and forth; it was also a bit too short, so I decided to completely replace it. Again, Garhauer came to the rescue with a traveler which was half the price of the competition for (in my opinion) much better product. After spending countless hours on the phone with Guido from Garhauer we decided to go with MT-2CT-TP traveler for $650. Garhauer was going to custom-manufacture it to match the bending radius of the existing traveler and the mounting holes. Also, the new traveler was going to be 10" longer to make trimming the mainsail on a reach easier.

Old Lewmar Traveler

New Traveler Drawing

I measured the curvature, after several weeks the new traveler was ready. Removing the old one was not as easy as anticipated. After taking off the overhead liner in the salon and removing the nuts the bolts did not want to come out. We had to use a halyard to pull the traveler up. After it was removed I found out the bolts were sliding in a channel in the underside of the traveler track. No way for Garhauer to pre-drill holes. 

I ended up getting the traveler from Garhauer without holes and marking the holes with a pencil through the existing holes in the deck. The traveler had to be mounted with 7" bolts, which had to be custom-ordered and were $10/ea. The lines were lead down to the deck to cam cleats.

Garhauer Traveler Installed

Genoa Track Car Adjustment System

After replacing the traveler I decided to install a block and tackle system to allow adjustment of the genoa car under load. I ordered the Garhauer EZ-Glide E-Z G-3 system with the optional swivel jammer SJ-2. The system had to be custom-manufactured for my French "metric" track, it took a couple of tries for Garhauer to get it to fit properly and slide without excessive friction. The installation itself was a breeze - removed the old cars, installed the front blocks, the sliding car and the swivel jammer and ran a line through it. Total installation time was under an hour.

This is by far the best money spent to improve ease of sailing on Southern Cross.

I would highly recommend it to each and every cruiser or racer - having to luff sails to move the genoa car looks like a bad memory from the past; so is the need to winch the control line on some boats to move the car. No need to winch, at 15kn winds the car can be adjusted by hand with moderate effort.

Boom Vang Repair

At one point I noticed the boom vang has no upwards pressure, the boom was held by the topping lift and would drop without it. That was not a big issue with the in-mast furling main, but once I decided to get a non-furling main I needed the topping lift as a second main halyard, so the boom vang had to be fixed. After some research I narrowed down my options to:

• Replace the entire boom vang - probably the best of all options but both costly and involved a lot of work. Garhauer has a "rescue program" - they would manufacture a perfect replacement based on the specs of the existing boom vang at a reasonable (compared to Selden, etc) price - $900. I decided not to pursue this route due to cost and complexity - things are never as simple as just replacement, there's always more to it than that and I did not want to deal with it
• Replace the boom vang with a soft vang and boom kicker. Decided not to go this route for the same reasons as above. I wasn't sure whether the boom kicker will have sufficient amount of force to support the boom either.
• Replace the gas springs - this seemed like the most reasonable option, so I got right on it

The first task was to disassemble the boom vang. As expected, 17 years of salt water and UV exposure made this a challenge. The boom vang itself consists of aluminum tubular body which has two metal caps on both ends. The mast end has an eye and is attached to the mast, the other end has a plastic bearing which allows the retractable part of the boom to slide in and out of the body. The retractable part has a metal fitting which is attached to the boom. The inside end of the retractable tube is supported by a plastic cylinder which slides within the boom body. Both ends are attached to the mast fitting and the boom with large diameter pins.

With some penetrating lubricant and big screwdriver I was able to remove the four screws on the mast side and disassemble the vang. There were two gas springs which were heavily rusted and were pretty much sealed in fully compressed position. Completely dead. They were marked Rayflex 512424 215701.01 F1=1150N. I found them on the web here. At 100+ Euro each, international shipping (which means returns are not easy either) and limited information on the web site I gave up. Based on the specs I asked Rigrite for a quote - $139/ea. More research, finally I located suitable replacement at Zoro Tools. I ordered 2 x G0141321 27.99" to 29.41" Long Steel Gas Springs Gas Spring, Steel,Force 250 and 4 x G3543942 Gas Spring Hinge Eyes Hinge Eye,8.2mm Hole,M8 Thread, total $133.84. To replace them I had to disassemble the boom vang again, three of the four pins that were holding the ends of the springs did not want to come out, so I decided to just unscrew the old springs and screw in the new ones. Put the bottom cap on, lubricate the retractable tube with Sailkote generously, then compress the vang with the winch until it was short enough to fit under the boom and bam! Done!

Sheeting angles and sailing higher

My friend and sailmaker Luis Gianotti from LG Sails was generous to share a very insightful article about headsail sheeting angles from April 1997 issue of "Sailing World" titled "Sailing faster and higher by changing your sheeting angle".

I can't share the article itself due to copyright reasons but the gist of it is that one of the biggest improvements one can make to their performance and pointing ability is to change the sheeting angle of their headsail.

The sheeting angle is determined by the length and position of the jib track, in order to calculate the sheeting angle Luis made a simple spreadsheet, which requires several rig dimensions:

• Distance from deck to headsail halyard block (I)
• Distance from deck to lower spreader (S1H)
• Distance from deck to upper spreader (S2H)
• Distance from centerline to chainplate (rigging base B-2)
• Lower spreader length (S1W)
• Upper spreader length (S2W)
• Distance from forestay to jib track (TRK aft)
• Distance from centerline to jib track (TRK out)

Most boats have sheeting angle in the range of 7.5-10 degrees, 22-25 degrees at lower spreader and 29-34 degrees at upper spreader. The lower the sheeting angle(s), the better the pointing ability of the boat, particularly in light air and calm seas. An Excel spreadsheet with formulas to calculate the sheeting angles is located here and has the data from Southern Cross. As you can see the sheeting angle on my rig is 8.77 degrees, which is somewhere in the middle - not great but not terrible either.

Depending on one's specific case, abilities and risk tolerance the options are to live with it, install a barber hauler or change the rig - move the track, install another track and/or shorten the spreaders. In my opinion making radical changes to the rigging is an expensive proposition which involves shortening spreaders and shrouds and carries a lot of unknowns and risks (including rigging failure), may impact ability to tune the mast, it hard to reverse and is quite expensive - riggers cost $80-$100/hour. Definitely not a project for anyone but rigging expert.

I am planning on installing two large pad eyes between the genoa track and centerline, attach a block to each one and use a pair of spare sheets for barber haulers. The same sheets can be used both to move the headsail clew inboard for tighter sheeting angle, as well as outboard for reaching to get a better control of headsail shape