Jim,
Re sail won't drop--I attached a thin cord to the top lug-- ran it back to
cockpit
with small blocks--a little yank and it's down
Pat
Seabiscuit 3692
P{ort Washington, WI
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Bernstorf" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2008 11:57 AM
Subject: RE: catalina27-talk: Twin track thingy
Tf,
That makes sense...reducing the friction level should help. I ended up
spraying Teflon lubricant on the slides of the mainsail which probably cut
in half the effort needed to raise the sails. I wonder if that grease goo
stuff would leave a mess on my sails or if it would be like the Teflon
spray
and just dry and be more slippery. I will check that out at West Marine.
For the most part I like everything about this system except the fact that
the sail won't drop. My wife and I really aren't in to racing. We just
love to sail and I do like things to work well.....although I do have to
admit that I am happier when my boat is passing someone as opposed to them
passing me!
Jim
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2008 8:21 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: catalina27-talk: Twin track thingy
Jim, it's most likely a TuffLuffR and it's both a boon and a hassle
depending on how often you singlehand. Ideally there is a prefeeder about
18" below the entry for the luff rope and that's help if you have your
main halyard running back to the cockpit. Dousing is an issue though and
it sounds like your instincts are spot-on when you tried installing a
downhaul...but as you mentioned, I'm not sure how effective it would be if
it's run all the way up to the jib's headboard.
One thing that will make setting and dousing the jib easier would be to do
some maintenance on the luff foil (TuffLuff). West sells a jib foil
maintenance kit which is bascially a triangle of heavy sail cloth sewn on
to a fairly stiff piece of bolttope with provision to attach the jib
halyard and a downhaul (or messenger) to haul the thing back
down...included in the kit is a tube of greasy stuff that you apply to the
bolt-rope and then you systematically haul the contraption a few feet up
the jib foil, work it back and forth, remove it and re-apply a bit more of
the greasy-goo and do another section further up the luff foil. After you
do this your jib will drop out of the luff foil one heckuva lot easier...
but you are right, unless you are changing headsails underway, the foil
doesn't offer much of an advantage to a singlehander, except ease of
swapping sails underway...it's faster to start the sail (no hoarde of
hanks to snap on when you're up front) but it's definitely more of an
issue to douse the sail without a jib downhauler.
tf
not down the stay (because of
the angle). That makes single handing pretty awkward (but not
impossible).
I picked up a length of rope to use as a down haul but it ended up too
short
so I couldn't use it. However after tying it on I wondered if it would
work
anyway since pulling on it would pull the top six inches that is not in
that
slide thing down over itself and probably hang up the thing anyway. I
guess
this is set up for racing since the previous owner seems to have
installed
everything he could with marking numbers everywhere and way more halyards
than I will ever need!
I don't have the money at this point to put on a furler unit which would
be
the obvious answer but I am curious if this is a racing set up how racers
handle it.
Jim
Jim Bernstorf
Jules Distribution
6025 Cloverland Drive
Brentwood, TN 37027
615.833.1848
