How are you all using uncut windsurf sails with out the wishbone boom and getting proper outhaul?

The outhaul pressure applied with a wishbone boom is very small especially when compared with the force applied by downhaul.
The only time you need outhaul pressure is to set the cams on the mast in the pic below sheeting in hard on the standard boom with the mast mounted on the base has the same effect as applying outhaul and allows the cams to set quite easily.

Its possible that when sheeted out the cams might not rotate as well on the mast as they would with a wishbone setup I don't windsurf so I cant say for shore but it all works pretty well.




If you have the gear try it yourself. Set a cammed sail on a mast using a wishbone boom then when the cams are set and the downhaul tension is right remove the boom and see what happens to the sail shape... (Nothing)
Once everything is set the boom is just for steering.

Thanks Sylk for the reply and explanation!

I dont run cammed sails. My quiver consists of older(read cheaper) uncammed wave sails. It may be that the way I am using
the sails is the difference. I modded my kite buggy to sails and just use a modified mast extension to mount the sail to the buggy.
It just drops into a mast step. The downhaul is then on the mast and not the buggy. I originally made a simple boom that is similar to the set up in your pic. However even with massive downhaul the lower battens would remain well ahead of the mast with a twisted luff pocket. If I added enough downhaul to finally get the battens close to where they belong then the entire leech was loose instead of just at the top of the sail as specified by the manual. With the wishbone the sail easily comes to proper shape with out excessive downhaul. Im not a real fan of a wishbone on a landsailer, but at least with my set up it seems the only way.

What am I missing here? Or is it the way I have done it?

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blackislandben said..
If I added enough downhaul to finally get the battens close to where they belong then the entire leech was loose instead of just at the top of the sail as specified by the manual. With the wishbone the sail easily comes to proper shape with out excessive downhaul. Im not a real fan of a wishbone on a landsailer, but at least with my set up it seems the only way.

What am I missing here? Or is it the way I have done it?

That would indicate that the alloy mast is way too stiff for that particular sail. There is no easy way to correct it other than what you have done with the wishbone boom to out haul it to shape. Or a recut to match the loaded masts curve.

If your into resewing it... The mast fitted with a lower (land yacht) style boom at the same height at the front as the sail now sits. A rope from the tip of the mast to the end of the boom (rope the same length as the leech of your sail your converting) and sheeted in hard will give you your new luff pocket curve (mast curve) for a recut. I would use a ratchet strap instead of a sheet rope so I could adjust it to see what the boom height I needed to be at without wrestling with it. It was much easier to ease up and down, without the mast trying to kill me. I use a cardboard template (an old fridge box) and trace the curve from the mast and transfer it to your sail when laying flat. Other wise it will simply a guess.
Tighten the luff curve up 5mm or so about 600mm from the tip of the sail to put more weight on the tip of the leech to stop it fluttering at speed.

A softer mast on your "Simmer" brand sail would correct it.
What size is the sail (I'm guessing 4.2m2 and it would need a 400cm 19 IMCS to windsurf with) We are starting to find by going up a size in IMCS to say 25 IMCS the same rigs are achieving much more to speed. The difference/reason for the increase is, we are bottom mounting the masts rather than the wishbone boom doing some of the work. This is particularly true when getting large cambered sails to change sides in lighter winds. Windsurfers can pump them through/across to change sides on the mast in a tack/jibe. A luxury we don't have siting underneath them. By increasing the mast strength (hard top Severn masts) the leech remains as the sail designer intended it, without as much downhaul required (and the leech going floppy) for our land sailing needs. The belly/fullness of the cambered sail is still controlled completely by the downhaul.

Thanks so much for the explanation Chook!

Makes more sense now. The mast is proper for the sail, a carbon composite. I bought it specifically for it. 400cm/19, constant curve. I find with the buggy that 4/5m sails are the basic sizes needed. The Simmer is a 4.7. Will probably need a smaller one come the winter winds.

I have a boom already made that mounts at the base of the extension. That was the issue I was facing with downhaul only with the battens not rotating. Setting the draft of the sail is a snap with the wishbone though not on the fly of course. I have seen you all downhaul on the fly with the composite system of sheet/purchase. I forget the proper name.

Why not have the equivalent of a vang on the boom or is this what the composite downhaul system does? I sail a 4,7 laser sailboat sail(among others) on my wooden fun sailer. The mast curve is set with the vang with it, though I just sail it loose with outhaul only. It uses the same mast and extension as the buggy but different boom. I have made most of my masts systems to be modular between
the two sailers. I have been lately buying (sometimes less than $10) dacron fun/training sails. The 4 batten types mostly. They are
very easy to deal with and tough. Surely not as efficient but fast enough for dodging the oblivious tourists that fill our beach sailing areas.

Am gathering ideas and materials for a proper "speed" sailer with the LLM as inspiration. I prefer a more upright seating
position due the my ancient back though. Nice thing about the buggy sailer it fits in its entirety in the back of my elderly
Honda Passport. A very nice feature. The easier it is the more you use it!

Ahh..........I jumped to the conclusion that the whole mast was alloy from your pic. Now I see that is only the base extension.

Well you are on the right track then. You just need downhaul to get it to set correctly. (That means serious downhaul)

These sails are designed to be down hauled VERY tightly. (not just a couple of loops of cord) we use "triple 30 mm block with a becket and spring loaded cleat on the bottom and a triple 30mm on the sail/boom connection.
It then still requires us to sit in the yacht with our feet against the steering pedals and pull as hard as we can to set the sail.
LOTS OF DOWNHAUL!!!! Is you friend.

On our larger sails we end up with a 1000mm curve back at the tip of the mast. This is without any sheet rope tension.

On your Simmer sail try a ratchet strap from your boom that has the sail tied to it down to the swan neck/frame of your yacht and pull it down tight and see how it sets up. It will go past the floppy leech as tension is applied and then into it's proper parameters and should look good as you tune the downhaul cord (literally...That tight that you can strum them) Then it can be finally adjusted with the addition of the sheet rope as you sail to get the downhaul spot on. As the sail settles into it's position on the mast from being folded in it's bag.

Good luck.

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Chook2 said..
... we use "triple 30 mm block with a becket and spring loaded cleat on the bottom and a triple 30mm on the sail/boom connection. ...

I don't know if this would work for your application, but I have a 6:1 triple-block downhaul for the blokart:
performancesailingproducts.com/PSP010.html
If you're interested, drop me a note. I can modify it to fit your mast/sail (ex. remove the snap-shackle).

Cheers,

Geoff S.

Chook,
I think you are saying apply down haul til the luff pocket and battens come into position. This is when the leech is loose its entire length. Then apply tension to the boom via the ratchet strap to straighten the leech? If you will look at the first pic you will see the boom mount. I can add a second one a few inches below it for the strap to attach. There wont be much angle but probably enough
to get a decent pull. Everything is mounted to the mast on this rig and swings with it. It wont work out to attach the strap to the buggy unless I do some mods. I saw somewhere in this forum a modded ratchet strap maybe to a rope, but cant seem to find it. Was that your idea?

Geoff,
Thanks for the link and the offer!
Since I am using the windsurf mast extension there is already a 6:1 purchase built into it and the sail. I set the downhaul and outhaul on the ground before I drop the mast into the step. My thinking behind this was to be able to use stock windsurf components. Using the wishbone boom I have the sheet pulley mounted to it and run the sheet lines directly thru it. This leaves me just one "string" to pull when sailing. I of course dont have on the fly adjustments, but its fairly easy to reset for changing winds with just a quick stop. Our winds tend to stay fairly constant at the beach over a given sailing period, so generally
adjustments arent much of an issue.

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blackislandben said..
Chook,
I think you are saying apply down haul til the luff pocket and battens come into position. This is when the leech is loose its entire length. Then apply tension to the boom via the ratchet strap to straighten the leech?

Tension at the tack where your triple pulleys are is what I meant. But from your description your onto it with the windsurfing mast extension.
From the photo the sail looks great with the conventional windsurfing boom. A traditional sail will always have the battens pushing forward to some degree unless out hauled with a lot of pressure, until sheet pressure is applied.
I think it was Hiko that said his battens were thinned down to compensate for this?

My Class 5 sail has very soft battens into the narrow luff pocket to get around this problem. You just sheet in as you tack to allow the battens to change sides.

A "Crocket Downhaul" is what you mean where as you sheet in more downhaul is added to the sail?

See this link here as well.

www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Land-Yacht-Sailing/Construction/US772-mast-step?page=1



Cheers.

Below is a photo of the cheap ratchet downhaul that I use on my minis
Works for me

For another solution see my last post in this thread...
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Land-Yacht-Sailing/Construction/Windsurfer-mast-extension-mods?page=1#20

Thats my heavy duty landsailing version of a windsurfer mast base extension inc downhaul and boom attachment.

Thanks Chook , Hiko, and Sylk for the pics and links.

Chook, yes it was the Crockett I was referring to. Thats a really elegant way to handle the on the fly adjustments!

Hiko, thats the modded ratchet tie I had seem earlier. Very nice! I love re-purposed stuff. I will use a version of it for an
outhaul on my two seat sailer when I use the 4.7m Laser sail. Should work perfectly being so compact.

Sylk, thanks for the link. I had read thru it earlier and sort of based my buggy conversion on something similar.The buggy
uses a much lighter construction version since its so light. I have used it with the heavier two seater with no problems
however. I used a stock medium length mast extension with a 1 1/4"(actually 1.5"od) section of EMT tubing running the entire length and cross bolted at the base. The U bolt bracket doubles as the boom/block mount depending on what set up I am using.

There is a 1 3/8 hardwood dowel driven(with difficulty) the entire length also. The extension rides in a step with an old wheel bearing and washer taking the load and providing very smooth pivoting of the mast.

I have finally come to understand that your rigs use a free floating boom allowing downhaul of the sail/boom, makes
sense now. Mine are fixed.

I envy folks that have large areas to sail where speed can be enjoyed. Except in the winter(my favorite time) all I
have for the most part are congested beaches. Thats probably why my rigs evolve a bit differently.
Am beginnig to believe some from of braking is in order!

Still its mucho fun!

This type of boom set up looks perfect for what you are trying to accomplish and may be just the ticket.

I have sailed with a couple guys running sirocco's and they run really good.
I've seen them rig regular windsurf sails and they work just as well as the factory sail.

This is easy to do and can work with just about any mast set up. It can be an active down haul/out haul or it can be pre-tensioned.

I would use an old boom and rig it up just to see if it works.

You could take some aluminum tubing down to the muffler shop and I bet they would bend it for free. Especially when you tell them what it's for. Trace the foot of a couple of your sails onto some cardboard and take it down there.

The sails for the sirocco are obviously Aerotech, a company that makes outstanding winfsurf sails.



Others might disagree with this set up, regardless, it works good!

You can have a s...load of fun with this rig.

Thanks Kaonaona for the idea and the pic.

Thats basically the way my alternate boom is set up except with out the curve
I can see the advantage to the curve getting a bit of outhaul when sheeting.
Even though the sheet would be longer looks like it would be more advantageous
with the pulley attached higher on the boom at the sails leech anchor point, more leverage there.

I will bend up a prototype from emt, I have a mandrel bender. I do all my work with emt because its
just sooo cheap. When I have it like I want and if weights an issue, I will redo it in aluminum.

Those are neat sailers. What are they. One of the few with a tri stayed mast. My two seater is that way
with turnbuckles in the rear stay tubes and a turnbuckle adjustable cable in front of the mast thats anchored to the front frame.
I can tune it as tight as a guitar string to limit flex found in such a long yacht. Works great.

Those are Sirocco land sailors.

There are quite a few around and perform pretty well. I think the only reason I can pass them up is my experience sailing and my tire wheel combo.

I normally sail with a sail under 5.0m and some of those Sirocco's are using 6.5m sails and bigger/smaller sails too! They do also weigh a bit more than my yacht but I come in at just under 250lbs myself.

I don't see why it shouldn't work for you, or anyone else for that matter. I have a bunch of windsurf sails so I'm thinking of trying it myself.

The rigging puts outhaul when sheeted in. I don't think a block is needed at the clew for outhaul, just a line tied to an eye bolt through the end of the boom. There are plenty of pics and vids of them and should give you a pretty good idea of how they are rigged. The downhaul is pre-tensioned to get the LE shape. The booms on them are fixed at the front and the downhaul is attached at that point.

Those landyacht booms look a bit like the shape of 1/2 a wishbone sailboard boom....Booms with a bend like that will never be sheeted in as tight as a straight boom.... but for social sailing it won't matter.

It isn't always about going as fast as you can or your equipment performing like a race yacht when sailing, especially if you are sailing for fun. When this type of rig is sheeted tight then you do have the potential to go as fast as it can, regardless of how fast that is!
I'm sure you, (Gizmo) can tell these are not race yachts but fun yachts and are not geared for maximum performance. Comparing to a Manta, (which is a very dated design). They are a modern design that are faster and handle just as well, if not better and cheaper than most production yachts. There are several models that fall into one class or another and are one of the better choices available for fun sailing.

As I have said earlier where we sail has a lot to do with what we sail.
Those with large open areas have the best option for a speed oriented build. The rest of us sail where and how we can and tend to tailor a build for the immediate sailing environment. Once before the final curtain I would like to sail one of the dry lake beds out West, even if with just a fun sailer. Regardless of what or where we sail we all share the love of the sport!

I didnt recognize the larger Sirocco as I had only seen the Sprint which is very similar to my converted buggy. Looks like a very nice yacht. Strangely my wooden sailer is very close in basic design. The basic dimensions (L&W) are almost identical and the upright steering design is also. I had a lay over steering originally but it wouldnt turn in a small enough radius to clear all the people and clutter on our (at times) rather narrow beach. Once again use dictates design. This is a hugely stable sailer and
has great straight line tracking.

I just converted Woodie to a two seater. Yeah I know lawn chairs. But they are very light and massively comfortable. I have sat
in one non stop all afternoon. The yacht can be converted back to a single seater in less than 30min. Its about to be disassembled and painted. As you can see it has a ships bell to try to get the beach dummies on the move out of the way. Am going to add rear scrub brakes while its down for paint just to be on the safe side Am adding the wider rear tires/wheels also to ease the load on the sand.

So back to sails. Both sailers can run all the different sail set ups I have though a few may be too big for the buggy. I am building a boom to use with the surf sails like the Sirocco to see how it works. The Sirocco sail looks tailored for it but close enough to a surf sail that it should work fine I would think. Heck I sailed a long time on a 45 sq ft blue tarp sail and had great fun. Even a badly
adapted surf sail is better!

Heres a link to Johns great buggy conversion. It looks to have a Crockett? Its obviously using the straight boom.
Maybe its a low wind day. I never really see the sail flatten when being sheeted it looks very full. It also looks like
the clew just follows the boom loosely. You all be patient with me if I am missing the point here. I am under the impression the sail is set flat for higher winds and full for lower. The wish bone will certainly do just that. or does it really matter.
My end of all this is not speed but sail efficency, if speed is a by product that good too!

I wouldn't worry too much about sail performance because it really doesn't matter much unless you are racing.

It looks to have a Crockett?.....Looks like a simple down haul to me.

Its obviously using the straight boom.......If his boom was a bit longer to pull the out haul more square with the mast and the boom could be closer to the clew.

Maybe its a low wind day.......Yes, not much wind but the rig works fine. As he sails more he will learn how to get the most out of the wind available.

I never really see the sail flatten when being sheeted it looks very full.......You don't necessarily need a flat sail. Most light wind needs a fuller, looser shape and bigger sails.

It also looks like
the clew just follows the boom loosely.......This all has to do with the length of the boom. And the fact that he has long distances between the boom, the out haul and the clew strap. Otherwise it wouldn't move around much.

You all be patient with me if I am missing the point here. I am under the impression the sail is set flat for higher winds and full for lower. The wish bone will certainly do just that. or does it really matter.......You don't necessarily need pre-tensioned or tight sails to run well either. Just tie the tack, clew and clew tie down with some 1/4" yacht or dacron braid. You don't really need blocks in those areas, they just add weight and create drag. Not to mention the cost.

My end of all this is not speed but sail efficency, if speed is a by product that good too!......You will learn how to tune each rig as you gain more experience sailing with them. Take my word for it, it will come to you, eventually!

You are definitely on the right track for what you need to rig your yachts. A little complex but effective.

I really like how you clamped the bike chassis between the frame rails. I would have never thought of that. Very unique.

After you are done with your boom you'll be set. Just make it long enough for use on several different size sails or make one for each sail.

Thanks Kaonaona for taking the time to answer my questions!

Havent had time to finish a "bent" boom for the surf sails. Have been working on finally finishing the
wooden "social sailer"(like that term!). I switched from barrow wheels/tires to 16/6.50x8 tires on the proper
5" wide wheels to carry the weight of two riders. Cool thing is due to the offset of the wheels I can go from 70"
of track width to 77 just by flipping the wheels around. Takes a couple of minutes per side. They are inward in the pics.
This is the default position as they probably wont go down the ramp to the beach in the wider position.

Hopefully the winds will be favorable soon to give it a try in the 2 seat version.