Hi Guys,
Has anyone fitted a short length of mainsheet (plunger) track to the aft deck of a N30U in lieu of the swivel base and U bolt I find fitted to my boat. The hope would be to reduce the abraded area on the corners of my full cockpit cover.
The length of track I am considering would fit between the stations either side of the transom gate.
Members thoughts most welcome.
Peter Richardson
SV NonPareil N30U #449
Craignish, West of Scotland, UK
An annotated picture or two would help us visualize what. You want.
Will do when I get back to my boat next week.
Looking forward to the photos.
The racing rules prohibit installing a track so some members would not install a track for that reason. I suspect Nonsuch class racing is not a merger concern on the west coat of Scotland so that may not hold you back.
I can think of two options. One is a true traveler where you can adjust the position of the sheet blocks along the length of the track and the other, which I call a horse, where the sheet blocks are not controlled and slide to the low side. If you install a horse you will find it harder to sheet the boom into the quarter for close reaching. As the sheet blocks move to the reward side the pull on the sheet will become more vertical pulling the boom down rather than in. With a trailer you could pull the sheet blocks to the high side which would restore the horizontal pull. The problem would be the size of the sail. I sometimes race on sloops that have much smaller mains than a Nonsuch and pulling the main to the weather side on the traveler is hard work. I don’t think I could do it with a sail the size of a 30U. Also adding a travel as opposed to a horse would mean you have one more line to trim. I guess I can think of another option, which is a bridle but I would not recommend using one. It would just add another line to snag the person at the helm during a tack or gybe.
Have you tried holding the sheet in the position it would be in if you had the track to see if it makes much difference? If it does not move the sheet far enough it may not be worth doing.
Some of the boats have struts that run from the top rear corner of the enclosure to the outside of the pushpit. The sheet bends around the strut and does not interfere with the enclosure windows. Paul Miller has the struts on his 30U. I do not have struts on my 26 so I remove the rear corner panels of the enclosure when I sail. The owner of the Wiggers 33 Loon Shadow said if he unsnapped the bottom of the corner panels he did not get any chiffon the panels. He told me on one occasion he forgot to unsnap the panel and the panel suffered rope burn when the sheet ran across it.
Mark Powers
Terminology may differ between Scotland and Southern California, but when you say “plunger track,” I think of the traveller arrangement that came with the 1973 Columbia 36 sloop that I bought in 1985.
The track had holes every 4", with a loose bronze slider to which the mainsheet block was shackled. It was held in place between any two of those holes by bronze sliders on each side which both had spring-loaded plunger pins that dropped into the holes in the track to lock the mainsheet slider between them.
If that’s what you have in mind, my experience with it makes me advise looking for other solutions. The slider was very prone to jamming. And that was probably a good thing, because either of two bad things frequently happened when it didn’t. Often the forces sliding it against the holding slider made it impossible to raise the plunger to adjust its position. That, in turn, was probably also a good thing because the second bad thing that frequently happened was that the slider car moved while my hand was still on the position adjusting slide – resulting in painful hand injuries. Several, because I was both a slow learner and on a limited budget.
One thinks that this can be avoided by anticipating the risk and only making the adjustments in advance when there is no pressure. If you have very good discipline and a boat that never displays unexpected behavior, that might be true. I prefer to adopt equipment designs that don’t assume perfect operators and perfect conditions.
In that case, the solution was to upgrade to an adjustable traveller.
I’m not sure how to maintain a fair lead to the sheet winch if changing to either sort of traveller arrangement in your case. Mark’s free-sliding “horse” arrangement strikes me as both risking injury from the moving object and also introducing problems keeping a fair lead to the winch. I’d lean toward either the suggestion of struts or checking if there was a place for leather chafe guards at the abrasion points.
– Bob
Me Gusta
Nonsuch e26U #233
If your concern is the wear on the bimini fabric caused by the mainsheet… my boat has extra heavier fabric sewn around the aft edge of the bimini to prevent chafe. Seems to me this would be a much simpler and cheaper solution than installing a track. This was done by previous owner.
I have a “roll bar” on my boat, but no bimini. I’ve attached a photo of it. It guides the sheet from one side over the top and all the way to the other side. I don’t have a bimini, but if I did it would sit just forward of this roll bar and would be protected. A stainless steel bow protecting the canvas - and you! - from the sheet.
Take a look at the attached photo. It shows a bit of my dodger. Sorry it isn’t better, it’s from some photos the broker sent me before I bought the boat. Anyway, if you’ll look at the gray (or grey, in Scotland?) arrow you’ll notice that a second stainless bow has been welded onto the dodger bow. The black arrow shows it continuing along just a couple of inches aft of the dodger canvas. This is to give a hand grip in the cockpit and I’m just using it to illustrate what at least one other Nonsuch owner has done:
I looked at another Nonsuch that had a similar stainless bow welded onto the rear bow of their bimini. The point of that one was to guide the sheet around the rear of the bimini to prevent hangups or wear, much like my roll bar, only built in to the dodger frame. Retrofitting a guard like this would entail some minor fabrication/welding and probably some sort of modification to your bimini canvas, but I suspect the cost would be similar or cheaper than adding a wear strip to the canvas and installing the track. Especially when you later find that you hate the track. (Not saying you will, but I suspect you will.)
–Brian Godfrey
Vela, NS33 #77, San Diego
brian@wildbirdshop.com
Brian G
Thanks for posting the photos. I am always looking for ways to find stability while moving around these days. I could have used that arch to free my sheet from my first ever accidental jibe when it wrapped around and got jammed in a wire framed MOB life preserver on the starboard stern rail. Needless to say that wire frame belongs to Davy Jones. Trying to control the helm and free the sheet led to some very uncomfortable moments for my beloved crew. I now wonder if in such a moment I should have let go of the helm and allowed the boat to point itself to the wind to regain control. It seems that pointing into the wind it seems to sail itself.
Brian Cayer
Spirit~Wind
N30U 419
Westbrook, Ct
The roll bar really helps a lot, but sometimes the sheet will still get stuck on the little welded-on tab that the top lifeline attaches to. When it does it’s pretty easy to just reach over and pop it loose.
Thanks for the reply Brian but I guess the greater question is that when faced with a complete bind up of the sheet in a down wind jibe I should just let the boat right itself by letting itself point to the wind.
Brian Godfrey’s roll bar looks extremely solid and well-designed.
I’ve attached a “Crash Bar” design that apparently was designed and sold by Eastland Yacht Brokers (one of the two largest original yachtbrokers who sold Nonsuches) sometime in the 1980s as an aftermarket add-on for our boats. As it points out, these not only serve to keep the mainsheet from catching on stuff – they’re also good protection if the topping lift fails and the boom comes crashing down.
I’ve seen several boats with dodger grabrail add-ons like Brian G’s, and that also strikes me as brilliant.
Brian Cayer, I can’t think of an easier way to sort out a mess than pointing up and dealing with lines once they’ve slackened. Depending on the sea conditions, it might be better to try to sort things out by pointing up just enough to release tension on the lines without going all the way up dead into the wind. If it’s possible to do that and keep the boat moving somewhat, it’s less likely to be rolling or hobbyhorsing.
– Bob
Me Gusta
Nonsuch e26U #233
(attachments)
Crash bar.pdf (991 KB)
Many thanks for all your helpful comments which I willingly take on board. The 50m2 of mainsail on N 30 and a plunger adjustment of car position as against using control lines is a serious cause for concern…
My initial idea is illustrated in the photo attached using a scrap piece of aluminium channel for the proposed track position and yellow line to show the potential improved lead of the mainsheet to the boom (mocked up on my mooring).
The chafe marks on the cockpit cover are clearly seen.
When I purchased my N30U the mainsheet was anchored to the deck U bolt under the current in use swivel block, up around the swivel block on the boom, down to the currently unused swivel block and then to the block on the quarter before leading to the sheet winch on the cockpit coaming. This caused the mainsheet between the boom and the aft deck to often twist several times with increasing friction. I am currently trialling the swivel block with a becket on one anchor position, illustrated in my next post, so far proving most successful.
The potential for chafe is illustrated by the yellow line.
One other advantage for a track is to be able to slide the mainsheet swivel block away to one side and clear the area at the top of the ladder when at anchor.
Peter Richardson
SV NonPareil, N30U #449
Craignish, West of Scotland, UK