Jump to content

Euphoria - The adventure begins.


Recommended Posts

As alert readers will probably be aware Euphoria is undergoing a minor refit.

 

Bits are being bought and/or built according to my layout plan.

 

Can anyone tell me what the best sheeting angle is for a No.2 jib on a gbe or similar?

 

I can suss the fore-and-aft (twist) myself, but don't want to attach bits in the wrong places to start with. 

 

So, roughly how far off centre do you position your leads? I know that ideally they get trimmed for every wave and gust, but gimme some idea for the lower end of the wind range please? I don't have a No.1 to worry about at this stage.

 

Cheers,

Aaron.

Link to post
Share on other sites

And for upwind, you would usually wind it in until the leach is almost up against the spreaders and leave it there. If its windy enough to fly a hull, let it twist a bit and play the traveller to keep boat on its toes.

There is a school of thought that sheets closer to the centre line, but that can get very sensitive to stalling out the main, espically if the main is a bit older and has a bit more draft.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Week nights are pretty unlikely as I don't get away early enough, although there may be a possibility once the christmas rush is over.

 

7 deg sounds pretty narrow, glad I asked as I thought it would be a bit wider.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Come on down to Westhaven and take a look at the various 8.5's - we all have slightly different set-ups and ideas on what works. :-) 

 

Freedom looks well set-up and is on VWX currently too. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Most of the GBEs i've seen have an overlapper which sheets to the back beam via a bridal to change sheeting angle. The bridal is normally off the back of the motor pod.

 

All the smaller head sails then sheet off the main beam. We just have a block attached to a slider in the beam track and we can play the halyard height/jib cunningham to move the sail up and down to change the sheeting angle. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

So we finally got our biggest jib up today, while "moving house".

 

Seems to be like 105% overlap. Full hoist or close to it. Because we are still in the development phase, we were sheeting to the main beam for twist control, while running the spare sheet aft to create a sort of bridal. Seemed to work ok, but I'm looking forward to getting the right leads sorted. Looks like they'll be about 2 feet aft of the beam, and 18 inches out from centre. Does that distance from centre sound about right?

 

 Happy with the performance today, managed to pass most of the boats that were going the same way. Although something Ross or Young-esque called Hullaballoo got past us when we went a bit too close to north head, and as the wind had dropped a bit, we couldn't catch him again. Although we did gain a little in each breezy bit, just not as much as we lost in the calmer bits. Estimated top speed today somewhere around ten knots, estimated windspeed about the same. Neither of us thought to GPS it!

 

Today was the first proper sail since I've owned her, and the first time we've got any jib up. The No.3 sure is tiny!

 

Edit: just looked it up on Racetrack, Hullabaloo is a young 11.

Link to post
Share on other sites

So we finally got our biggest jib up today, while "moving house".

 

Seems to be like 105% overlap. Full hoist or close to it. Because we are still in the development phase, we were sheeting to the main beam for twist control, while running the spare sheet aft to create a sort of bridal. Seemed to work ok, but I'm looking forward to getting the right leads sorted. Looks like they'll be about 2 feet aft of the beam, and 18 inches out from centre. Does that distance from centre sound about right?

 

 Happy with the performance today, managed to pass most of the boats that were going the same way. Although something Ross or Young-esque called Hullaballoo got past us when we went a bit too close to north head, and as the wind had dropped a bit, we couldn't catch him again. Although we did gain a little in each breezy bit, just not as much as we lost in the calmer bits. Estimated top speed today somewhere around ten knots, estimated windspeed about the same. Neither of us thought to GPS it!

 

Today was the first proper sail since I've owned her, and the first time we've got any jib up. The No.3 sure is tiny!

 

Edit: just looked it up on Racetrack, Hullabaloo is a young 11.

 

Did the dinghy slow you down a bit!! :-)

 

Lookin' good.

 

Eup.jpg

  • Upvote 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Yep, meant to email you last night but was too stuffed and sunburnt, then fell asleep without doing any of the planned things.

 

Looking forward to riverhead on Saturday, and of course the rum race on the 23rd.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Holy moly that's a good zoom on your camera! Taken maybe a mile away? I couldn't work out which boat you were in the distance, but those black sails look good!

Samsung G5 ... good phone eh! :-)

Link to post
Share on other sites

So we took part in the Crew.org.nz rum race last night.

 

When we motored across to Westhaven, there was basically no wind, and the harbour was board flat. Half an our later things were very different, as the breeze was close to 20kts (Force 6 in old talk).

 

We hoisted the jib, and promptly discovered something I'd missed. In my rush to get the boat ready that afternoon, I'd left the reinforcing plates for the jib leads at home, and then attempted to jury rig it. The starboard side was ok, but I hadn't put a stopper knot in the port side bridle, and it promptly started slicing through the tramp mesh.

 

Switched to the small jib instead. It's tiny, and even in that wind we couldn't get powered up to windward. The boat felt badly out of balance, but we had no choice.

 

With me at the helm, sailing it basically like a big PT we weren't doing overly well, struggling to get past monos of similar length to us. Halfway to Orakei I gave the helm to one of the crew, a former national cat champ, albeit 35 odd years back. He sailed a whole lot freer, and although we went a lot faster, our VMG seemed to be roughly the same, as we still matched the same group of boats. 

 

After Orakei, heading for Saltworks, we couldn't quite lay through on one tack, but the breeze had built a bit more, and with bigger waves we decided to crack sheets slightly and just go fast. Euphoria showed us glimpses of what a GBE can do, and within minutes we had open water between us and the boats astern.

 

Sundreamer, and eventually Taeping went past on this leg, but they weren't going hugely faster, just a lot higher. They both laid straight through, while we had to tack back towards the island.

 

Once we rounded Saltworks, we all remembered why we were there. Even though the true wind angle was quite deep, we were able to round up, get the apparent forward, and blast back toward North head. Again, the little jib didn't really help. From there it was just a nice gentle run up the harbour to the line. On this leg we found the seagull striker was loose, and one of the mainsheet turning blocks had pulled out of the deck.

 

Throughout the race, we found tacking relatively straight forward as long as we didn't stall the boat through too much helm. Live and learn, now I have more bugs to iron out!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Finally got the alloy wear plates for the jib sheet leads fitted early this morning, then went for a sail.

 

The bottom badly needs a scrub, so we didn't manage to really get going, although to be fair there was hardly any wind, maybe reaching 10kts for part of the trip home. Our top speed was probably a little lower than that, I don't think we would have hit double digits. In the very light, we had a little tussle with the rented AC boat, which during the course of the day overtook us 3 times. We did get past them once tho, so not all bad!

 

I have gone back to a single ended mainsheet for now, as I'm trying to de-clutter the deck area so the kids don't trip over as much!! To that end the jib sheet blocks are attached to a bridle which runs under the tramp and takes the load. The leeward tramp does lift when sheeted tight for upwind, but it has no tension, simply lifting because the bridle under it has loaded up. I still need to tighten these bridles further to minimise this lifting effect.

 

Racing purists will probably insist that I don't have enough control over the jib, as the blocks are in a fixed position, but I don't care.

 

The next two jobs are to fit the self tacker track to the main beam, and to sort out the sheeting and halyard system for the kite. I plan on doing that "Skiff style" with a single control for prod and hoist, so will see how that works out. It looks good on paper!

Link to post
Share on other sites

One awesome way to finish up the summer!

 

A hot fine Saturday afternoon on the sparkling Waitemata harbour. We were only out for a few hours, but chased and almost caught the Green Death Trap on the way home. We saw a top speed of 12 knots just west of the naval dock.

Pretty surprising considering the wind was only about 10 knots and the boat needs a scrub.

 

Now it's time to work on the inside, make the cruisey parts work as well as the sailey bits. Lots of things to do, but she's user friendly from the decks up.

 

A couple of mates are keen to join in a few of the winter series races, so we'll try to get to the line on time. 

 

Next summer promises to be good, once the insides are sorted there could be quite a bit of weekending going on, so what's the go for cooking on these things? Just a cartridge cooker up on deck seems like the easiest option. Or do you just go ashore?

 

Any ideas welcomed, I'm a racing boy at heart, still no real clue about cruising with family. All I've managed to ascertain thus far is that a large portion of the first day will be taken up with loading lots of random stuff aboard.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, someone on here suggested some pop up tents, so I've got a couple of them.

 

Trying to plan some usable space inside at present because I don't have the requisite funding for the big boom tent yet.

 

But yes, lots of deck space and awesome sailing!

 

Which reminds me, I haven't actually set up a reefing system yet. Best make a start on that too.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...