John Wheeler
Sydney, New South Wales
Boat Name: Serene 2
Model/Year: Boomaroo 22 (C22 Mk I) 1976
Hull No.
Hailing Port: Sydney |
 10/09/2008 7:44 PM Pacific Time
I have a 1978 C-22 which I have recently fitted out with brand new North sails (fully battened main + 130% hanked-on Genoa).
I bought the new sails hoping to improve on the rather disappointing tacking angles I had with the old sails, but unfortunately I haven't seen a lot of improvement with the new sails. In light winds (with a SOG of 2-4 knots) I stuggle to get a better angle that 130 degrees often as bad a 150 degrees. If I add some leeway to this, I often give up sailing upwind and use the motor. I doubt that I've ever seen better than 110-120 degrees, even in 20 knots true wind.
I've read most of the sail tuning guides, and played around with jib-car position, halyard tension (even installed an extra pulley to get this really tight), & backstay tension (tightening it up when going upwind), but still can't get a satisfactory result. I notice that that headsail starts luffing well before the mainsail.
Is this normal? Does anyone have any suggestions what I can to improve matters, or must I resign myself to zig-zagging across the bay without getting anywhere?
Thanks for your help!
John Wheeler
Sydney, Australia.
|
Greg Baker
Charlotte, NC
Boat Name: Sea Sharp Minor
Model/Year: Catalina 22 - 1984 - Swing Keel
Hull No. 11823
Hailing Port: Lake Norman Sailing Club |
10/10/2008 7:21 AM Pacific Time
John, I don't think the problem is with the sails, it's the wind. With only 2 to 4 knots it is difficult to make much headway upwind. As the boat picks up speed, the relative wind shifts forward and forces you to point further down. I can't get much better than 150° either in light winds so either we both are doing something wrong or it's just physics. |
David Torrisi
Santa Clara, CA
Boat Name: Dumbo
Model/Year: 1975 C-22
Hull No. 4330
Hailing Port: Santa Clara |
10/10/2008 3:56 PM Pacific Time
How's your mast rake, helm (weather or lee), keel shape, etc? These all effect pointing. Do you have a kickup rudder and is down completely? Have a look at the Mast Tuning section of this:
http://www.northsailsod.com/class/catalina22/catalina22_tuning.html
Pointing begins with good mast tuning. I'd hazard a guess that you need to lengthen your headstay a couple of inches, but try that in small increments if you decide to try it.
If you bought the sails from a local loft, have them spend some time on the boat with you. There are also a few C22 folks down there. Paul David is an excellent fellow if you can track him down. I believe he is in/around Melbourne. You could also find somebody who races smaller boats and take them out for a sail on your boat. You'll find that there's usually somebody at the local yacht club or marina who'd love to give you a hand.
BTW, I think Greg Baker misunderstood your 2-4kts as wind speed and not boat speed.
Hope that helps.
David
another great forum www.c22region10.org/bb
|
John Wheeler
Sydney, New South Wales
Boat Name: Serene 2
Model/Year: Boomaroo 22 (C22 Mk I) 1976
Hull No.
Hailing Port: Sydney |
10/10/2008 4:57 PM Pacific Time
Thanks Greg and David for your suggestions. I think that mast rake could well be an issue. When I was measuring the boat for the new sails, they asked me to estimate mast rake, and to be honest I could barely detect any; certainly not the 6-7" that the tuning guide recommends for a swing-keel C22. In fact, if I take all the tension off the backstay and look at the boat from a distance, it almost looks like the mast bends very slightly forward.
I imagine that lengthening the fore-stay will involve replacing it with a new one, but this probably is a good thing to do at some point anyway!
Halyard tension could also be an issue. I made a sort of downhaul for the bottom of the jib to try and get a bit more luff tension, but it might be an idea to add a snatch-block pulley at the mast to get extra tension when raising the sail. The rudder is a kick-up type, but I ensure it's fully down and and tied-off firmly.
Out of interest what are your best tacking angles with good boat speed (say over 5 knots), assuming no adverse currents? I'm not expecting a C-22 to outperform an Americas Cup yacht, but I hope I can do better than I am now!
Thanks again for your comments.
John.
|
Erv Zimmerman
Anchor Bay Shores, Michigan
Boat Name: Adventuring
Model/Year: 1973
Hull No. 1787
Hailing Port: Anchor Bay, Lake St. Clair |
10/11/2008 12:24 AM Pacific Time
Somewhere I have polar diagrams someone generated for the Catlina 22. E-mail me at: [email protected] and I'll see if I can dig them up for you! |
Glenn Warner
Jacksonville Florida
Boat Name: Goblin/JuJu
Model/Year: 1981/1972
Hull No. 10369/1222
Hailing Port: Jacksonville Florida |
10/11/2008 4:07 AM Pacific Time
John, David is on the right track with your issue. You should easily be able to tack within 90 degrees (better than that really) with a swing keel c22. A few general suggestions here; Mast rake as well as general rig tuning will give you pointing. Halyard tension is not the answer. Most of us are running fairly loose halyard tension on the race course and this translates well to any type of sailing you do. I would look at, rig tune and mast rake, Make your headstay 27'1". Keep in mind that the trade off for pointing is weather helm, find a happy medium. You may be able to add a toggle to get a little extra length to your headstay until you get a new one. Make sure your j measurement is 8'. You may need to move your mast step a bit. Is your keel all the way down? Are you sailing the boat flat? If your head sail is luffing before your main you probably have over trimmed the main. For that matter, don't over trim either of the sails attempting to point higher. You will have better luck trimming the headsail to about 3-4 inches off the spreader tip driving to it and trimming the main based on the helm feel. Too much weather helm, ease the main a bit, and vice versa. If you can sail the boat flat and fast that will help your pointing by making the foils, keel and rudder, work more efficiently. So my suggestions are to add some mast rake, ease off on your halyard tension (rig tension too I would bet, check the tuning guides and use a gauge) ease the sail trim a bit and use the main to balance the helm, sail the boat flat and fast to allow the foils to work, be sure the keel is all the way down (center of resistance and all) Let us know how everyones suggestions have helped. Oh yea, definitely try to track down Paul David. He has years of c22 experience and would be happy to help I am sure. |
Bob Keim
Nashville
Boat Name: Pursuit
Model/Year: C22/1976
Hull No.
Hailing Port: Nashville |
10/11/2008 6:07 AM Pacific Time
Mast rake - you can add a long shackle to see if that helps. Also, move your forestay to the aft most hole in the bow stem fitting. Between the two of those things, you will likely move the top of the mast aft 4-6"
If your mast appears to be bending in the middle with your backstay off, your aft lowers are too tight. In really light air, forget the tuning guides. Let off both the forward and aft lowers until they are "sloppy". This will allow the mast to say to leeward in the middle, thus creating power. Let off the backstay until the forestay sags as much as you can, but still control the luff of the gennoa. Then tighten the backstay an inch at a time. At one point, you will feel the boat straighten up, point higher and accelerate. That is were you want to put the backstay in that wind. Mark you backstay control line at that point.
I disagree with Glenn about how far off the spreaders your sail should be. With that tacking angle my bet is you almost certainly don't have the headsail trimmed in enough. Move your jib tracks forward about 6"-12" from where you normally keep them.
In light air, I trim my main so that the top telltale is flying most of the time, but not 100% of the time.
A jib cunningham really makes a tremendous difference, or particular attention to head sail halyard tension is needed in light air. I will play the jib cunningham more in light air, than the main sheet.
You should be able to have a tacking angle of less than 80 degrees in virtually all winds - actually less than 75 degrees when you get it setup properly. |
Greg Baker
Charlotte, NC
Boat Name: Sea Sharp Minor
Model/Year: Catalina 22 - 1984 - Swing Keel
Hull No. 11823
Hailing Port: Lake Norman Sailing Club |
10/11/2008 6:58 AM Pacific Time
David, I did not confuse boat speed with wind speed. Lets make a hypothetical case of a boat standing still with a 3 knot wind at 45 degrees off the starboard bow. Now put the sails up, sheet in tight and the boat begins to move. As the boat accelerates, say to 1 knot, it creates wind of 1 knot right on the nose. If this wind vector is added to the original 3 knot wind vector at 45 degrees, the combined relative wind is no longer at 45 degrees but considerably less than that. As that happens, one needs to fall off to keep a relative wind angle to the boat that the boat can handle. At high wind speeds, the wind generated by the boat is negligible so pointing high is less of a problem. All the other things discussed also have a effect but there is no denying the physics of the relative wind. |
David Torrisi
Santa Clara, CA
Boat Name: Dumbo
Model/Year: 1975 C-22
Hull No. 4330
Hailing Port: Santa Clara |
10/11/2008 1:02 PM Pacific Time
Greg,
When John wrote "(with a SOG of 2-4 knots)", I thought maybe you saw that as wind speed. I saw it as boat speed.
I shouldn't be interpreting others postings. Sorry for that. I'll stick to writing my own thoughts.
David |
Boat Name:
Model/Year:
Hull No.
Hailing Port: |
10/11/2008 5:14 PM Pacific Time
Hi all,
Glenn has some good points. First, make sure your keel is all the way down. On that era keel winch, 40 cranks is about right. We had many boats in fleet 10 that the lockdown bolt would hang the keel up before it was all the way down. It was obvious on a race course or cruising that the boats lost 10 to 15 degrees to that alone. Since the cable slacked at 20 cranks or so, everyone thought their keel was fully lowered. Second, do not over tension the halyard. Forstay super tight. halyard just up so wrinkles are out. if it is tighter, it starts to cup at the leading edge (the draft moves close to the luff) and that changes the angle that it can accept the wind with attached flow.
Good luck on all your efforts. The post that said you should get inside 90 is accurate.
Tom
Quixotic, 7555
Chesapeake Bay |
Greg Baker
Charlotte, NC
Boat Name: Sea Sharp Minor
Model/Year: Catalina 22 - 1984 - Swing Keel
Hull No. 11823
Hailing Port: Lake Norman Sailing Club |
10/12/2008 8:01 AM Pacific Time
Maybe part of the confusion here is that when John refers to tacking angles of 130 to 150 degrees, I am assuming he is refering to the angle over ground as would be measured with a GPS track. The windex might well show him tacking through less than 90 degrees. |
David Hewitt
El Dorado Hills, CA
Boat Name:
Model/Year: C22/1986
Hull No. 13153
Hailing Port: Folsom Lake Marina |
10/12/2008 9:40 AM Pacific Time
All good tips. I had to add a 1" toggle to my forestay to get proper rake in my '86 swing keel.
Do you have telltales and know how to use them? If your main is luffing before your jib, I'm guessing you're not optimally trimmed. Check out http://www.wb-sails.fi/news/95_11_Tellingtales/Tellingtales_print.html for one discussion on tell tales. Make sure they both fly properly, and play with jib car and traveler location to make sure they stall predictably as well. In under ~15kts, trim the sails, and steer to the tell tales. In 15kts+, steer to a point and trim to keep the boat from excessively heeling (and stalling).
Dave |
John Wheeler
Sydney, New South Wales
Boat Name: Serene 2
Model/Year: Boomaroo 22 (C22 Mk I) 1976
Hull No.
Hailing Port: Sydney |
10/12/2008 3:45 PM Pacific Time
Thank you so much to you all for the responses to my question. I tried this out over the weekend and was astonished with the results!
Having played around with luff tension and jib car position without huge results, I looked at mast rake. I found that my forestay turnbuckle was almost completely tightened up. I had adjusted this myself after buying the boat because I thought that a tight forestay would improve jib luff tension; what I didn't think of was that this removed virtually all mast rake. I slackened off the forestay by about 2 inches (leaving about 0.75 inch of the screw inside the turnbuckle) and tightened up the backstay - what a difference this made!
In about 10-15 knots true wind I was able to tack through 80-100 degress, which is far better than I've ever done before. I was finally able to tack up river and actually get somewhere - what a great day's sailing!
The forestay still sags a little bit to leeward, but overall handling was much better - how much leeward sag is normal?
My cap shrouds are also a bit slack, but I've almost run out of adjustment. I can probably move them in a 8 inch circle about 5 feet of the deck, which is a lot more than the tuning guides recommend. I don't have a tension gauge. Presumably this means the mast will fall off to leeward a bit - could this be a problem and would a tighter shround improve performance?
Thanks again for your wonderful advice!
John
|
Glenn Warner
Jacksonville Florida
Boat Name: Goblin/JuJu
Model/Year: 1981/1972
Hull No. 10369/1222
Hailing Port: Jacksonville Florida |
10/13/2008 3:23 AM Pacific Time
Greg, as far as tacking angle I was referring to compass headings. John, Some headstay sag is fine and will give more power in lighter air. Sounds like from your original post that you have a backstay adjuster. If you don't, I would recommend this being your next upgrade. Use this as the wind comes up to add more tension to your headstay and bend your mast to depower the main. Your cap shrouds should be pretty snug. Yours sound a too loose. Your wire may have stretched to where you can't get them tensioned up anymore. If your shrouds are close to 10 years old or if you don't know how old they are I would be thinking seriously about replacing them.
Glad things have improved, and thanks for keeping us posted. |
Bob Keim
Nashville
Boat Name: Pursuit
Model/Year: C22/1976
Hull No.
Hailing Port: Nashville |
10/13/2008 5:49 AM Pacific Time
Upper shrouds that can't be tightened most likely means your deck has compressed under the mast step. Take a look at the gap between the pop top and the deck in the front from side to side. If there is more gap in the middle than on the sides, your deck has collapsed. This is easy to fix with some epoxy and a 1" spacer under the mast step.
Your uppers (if that is what you call the "cap shroud") are way too loose, I believe. Of course, the more force you put on any shroud, the more it will move. So, you don't say if you are simply moving them around, or hanging all your weight off them. I'd guess mine move about 2-3" if I put all my weight on them leaning out over the edge of the boat.
In 15 mph winds, we generally don't allow much sag as the boat is fully powered up at that point. As the winds get lighter downward from 15, the forestay can be allowed to sag more and more, up to about 6-8". The halyard tension will be adjusted to match the headstay sag, BTW.
Glad you are doing better. |
