shaggybaxter said..Phoenix,
I love the fact that your headsail winches are powered up enough to backwind
, and you've 30 years on me.
Thanks for the pics/posts, most enjoyable, and very humbling!
Echo Datawiz, what boat?
Sam,
No mate, I don't have a self tacker. The only weird thing on the foredeck is the removable inner forestay. It's removable for the reason mentioned by Phoenix, so the genoa on the forestay tacks cleanly.
It's not as well thought out as Phoenix has his boat though! For example, I can have the staysail on the innerforestay all on the deck ready to go, but I still have to go forward to the mast to release the innerforestay (d-clip at the base of the mast). One of those annoying thingy's I haven't cracked yet that means I still need to leave the cockpit to downsize headsail. I have to go to the mast at least once to reef also.
Regards the bowsprit sails and balanced/unbalanced;
For mine, with just the kite up and no main, my speed is good but I've got too too much lee helm and the rudders are dragging. It feels like sailing through molasses on the wheel, it's an uncomfortable feeling.
I can recommend flipping on the autohelm before dropping the mainsail and look for the difference in the autohelm workload, it's an interesting dynamic, especially in any swell. On my last boat, my Raymarine EVO would simply lock the rudder angle at some happy medium to offset the kite pulling to leeward and skulldrag the rudder through the water, not very efficient
!
The little Star is an old 1978 Ranger 33, they were a Gary Mull design that fell in the cracks between the old rules and so didn't have any of the extreme "designed to a rule" features. About 460 were built in California by the people who built the Cals and the O'Days and as far as I know 2 made it to OZ. It was said that they had a hard time convincing Gary to design a cruiser rather than a racer and the Ranger wound up a little skinny. The accommodation didn't suffer but the side decks did. It makes her a great light weather boat without sacrificing her ability to punch to windward in heavy going with the appropriate sail up. The fairly high bow and sprung sheer make her surprisingly dry in heavy conditions. Never seen green water on the foredeck. (Maybe I don't pay enough attention to stuff in front of the mast). Encapsulated lead keel and ballast ratio of about 47%, displacement a bit under 5 tons and draft of 1.55 m. and a modest fin keel that still lets her self steer some of the time and she does heave to reliably.
Latitude 38 gave the Ranger 33 a boat of the year plug fairly recently and in the 2 1/2 years that I have had her she has grown on me, she still surprises me how quickly she can move when she is treated right. Boat speed about half wind speed to windward and under 30 degrees apparent. I can see why they are still a bit of a cult in the States .
P.S. the trailing edge of the fin is vertical, a real pain sometimes when anchored in strong wind against tide when the rode is wound up on the fin and the boat gets anchored broad side to the current. Then the heart stopping business of unwinding her without getting the rode caught in the prop. I really hate fin keels that won't shed the rode.
Yara
> 9 months ago, 25 Aug 2017
