New Sail

[Renae]

New sail made to order by Sail Technologies, who apparently make the sails for new Com-Pacs.  A significant improvement in sailing behavior over my "who knows how old", blown out sail.  And, we turned even more heads than usual today.  Thanks to Mike at ST, and compliments on the quick turnaround.

Note:  a little less aggressive outhaul took care of that wrinkle after the fact.  Time to add some telltales!

[Jim in TC]

That looks really great! I know my sail is old and weary...

[Renae]

They have standard white sails for the SC in stock...or did, three weeks ago.  I was flirting with tanbark or cream/beige, but they did a computer knock up of this pattern for me and I went in entirely the opposite direction.  My hull is a bit darker...not quite navy.  I think it works.

[kickingbug1]

    gotta look great with that blue hull

[bruce]

Looks good to me, very distinctive! It does look like it would set well with an outhaul adjustment. Great, so now I need a new sail. Thanks, Renae.

[Renae]

Looks good to me, very distinctive! It does look like it would set well with an outhaul adjustment. Great, so now I need a new sail. Thanks, Renae.

Benchmarking.  It's a service I provide...

Mostly what it needed at the time of the photo was a little less gaff outhaul, I played around with it onshore later and found what I think is the right amount.  But yeah--a bit more boom outhaul would probably help the shape slightly.

In other news, I bent (about 30 degrees), but didn't break the gooseneck while taking the old sail off.  Experience tells me that it will give out on an 80 degree day with steady 12 knots from a preferred direction.  Didn't you come up with a Dyneema-based solution?  I seem to remember a photo.

[bruce]

Not exactly sure what was bent 30º, but I'm guessing it's the extended ring Com-Pac welds to the throat gooseneck slide. Certainly a problem on PCs, I haven't heard of as many complaints on SCs.

The issue is the slide gets pinched between the gaff and the mast, and the extended ring gets bent to the side. On a friend's PC, the extended ring broke off completely from metal fatigue. On my boat, I replaced the slide before it was giving me problems since I knew about it, but there was scarring on the gaff and ring was bent in just the first few sails.

The solution was to replace the throat slide with a slide similar to the one used on the boom. The ring needs to be under the gaff, on top it will bind, at least on the PC. I used a 3/16" soft shackle to attach the throat halyard to the slide through the ring, but many loops or lashings could work. The halyard pulls straight up along the axis of the track, the slide doesn't bind.

On the SC gaff, they use the Dwyer Mast extrusion DM-1, same as the PC. The slide you'll need is part of the DH 353-1L gooseneck assembly, according to the shop drawings Dwyer provided me when I asked. Click on the DH 353-1L image to get an expanded parts diagram, the slide is DH 4151S, $64.38. You might be able to use the slide from DH 353-1S, which would be DH418S, for $59.74, if you wanted to save a few bucks.
https://cpyoa.com/forum/index.php?topic=11288.0
https://www.dwyermast.com/items.asp?cat1ID=30&cat1Name=Booms&familyID=3&familyName=DM%2D1+Boom

[Renae]

That was the one!

Any reason you didn't just invert the slide with the ring on top?  If it was a matter of attaching to the sail at the throat, an additional slug/clip in the mast track would do the job.

Nevertheless, I expect there was a reason.

[bruce]

You're welcome to try it of course, but in the first photo of my boat you can see that the gaff cast end cap was rubbing heavily on the welded stalk, that only projects about 1/4", the O.D. of the ring is 7/8". On a PC anyway, it would be worse.

A couple of other PCs, the pattern of rubbing is similar. The third photo was a friend's boat that I replaced the slide on, as described. I think the owner of the boat in the fourth photo did something similar.

[Renae]

The bottom photo shows about the same degree of aft bend I have on my GNS at this point.  It may survive, but I'm going to have a backup plan in the boat.  I've been really careful with it since I replaced it a couple of years ago, but while swapping out sails, I somehow bent it again.  I'm not even sure how, although I did have to uncouple the mast to replace slugs, so I probably pinched it in reassembly.

As far as your sail replacement colors, I think that ST has white, cream, tanbark, two shades of blue and perhaps a few others.  They only uncharged 10-15% over the price of the white sail for the custom job.  Recommended.

[bruce]

Renae, I recall the discussion in 2019 about your gaff downhaul.
https://cpyoa.com/forum/index.php?topic=11450.0

If your extended ring is bent again, I doubt this is due to an error you've made. It takes a lot of force to bend the extended ring, not something that would be done casually as you rigged the sail. With a sail loaded up, the gaff jamming against the mast, the forces are there. Once the ring is bent to the side, the halyard, or downhaul depending how it's rigged, will pull off axis, and cause the slide to jam. It probably won't fail in the short term, but it will likely give you problems.

Here's another photo of the result of the issue. All the sailor did was try to raise the sail. It's not operator error, it's a design flaw.

[Renae]

Yeah, I?ve seen that image before...close up.

It makes sense that the bend happened with the gaff up at peak.  That?s about the angle of my bend.

I appreciate your other pictures.  I?m pretty good with a soft shackle these days.  What size is that on your GNS?

[bruce]

Here's the soft shackle I use. I like its handy calculator. In this case, the line size was 3/16", the length 12".
https://l-36.com/soft_shackle_9.php

The tubing is Dyneema chafe sleeve from West Marine, size small I think, maybe medium. Just to keep it snug around the gooseneck. Other tubing would work, and not really necessary.

[Renae]

Yeah, I?ve seen that image before...close up.

It makes sense that the bend happened with the gaff up at peak.  That?s about the angle of my bend.

I appreciate your other pictures.  I?m pretty good with a soft shackle these days.  What size is that on your GNS?

Parenthetically, does anyone know a hack for the substitution of symbolic characters when posting from an iOS (and possibly Android--I see this in lots of people's posts) as seen above.  In this case I am referring for the substitution of a question mark for an apostrophe.

The meaning is usually clear, but it's displeasingly untidy.

[Renae]

    gotta look great with that blue hull

I think so.  Now that I have finally figured out how to link photos, I'll try to get someone to take one from shore.  Or, perhaps, my nerdier child will get into drones.  It seems like just a matter of time...