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I guess the subject says it all...
Whats the prefered method for attaching the controls to the clew of the jib?
I currently have both joined to a thin line with a small plastic bobble on it, a loop of which is passed through the jib and hooked over the bobble. I hate having to tie knots here as my eye sight isnt that great and I find it a pain to untie but the bobble occasional gets caught up so I'm open to suggestions. 
Ian
3453 Email

Hi Michael

Thanks for your answer, and yes we should meet up. We've been pretty busy recently which is why I havent been back in touch and are on Holiday soon so unfortunatly will be missing Burton Week (again  )

We always pencil in the round Sheppy race each year which we are planning on taking the 12 to this time. More of an adventure than a race but great fun all the same.

Ian

Raced it again for the first time this weekend. Only handicap racing I'm afraid as is our norm with a F3-4 in the morning and a F2-3 in the afternoon but great fun.

The foil certainly adds a whole new dimension to the sailing experiance!

The good news was that the foil and its adjustment worked perfectly, didnt break, and we were the first boat back each time... beating a Phantom and  Blaze on the water in the process. And if these were the only other boats in a our fleet we would think that it was awsome. Unfortunatly we had a well sailed Wayfarer just behind us each time so I suspect it was more to do with the conditions and courses that just favoured us rather than any significant change n boat speed.

We did find it really hard with no one comparible to race against, to work out the best settings on each point of sail though. Our confusion came from the fact that as we pulled on more and more foil the noise from the back of the boat would disapear so our ears would be telling us that all was good but at the same time you could feel the extra drag so our other senses would be saying no!

Does any one have a rule of thumb that they apply when trying to decide how to set their foils on each point of sail and boat speed?

Ian and Hannah
3453 Email...

Ok just to keep this thread alive and perhaps inspire others to have a go here is our mk2

Same rudder blade just cleaned up. Same section T foil but this time everything is covered in carbon, that has been vacuum bagged on (using an old fridge pump) I'd never done this before so kinda made it up as I went along following the excellent advise on this website (plus a bit from the Cherub site)

The T is once again a single laminated cedar core but with some white ash stringers running through it for added strength. Everything is then coverd in 4 layers of 200grm carbon tappering out to two layers at the end. Then a single 200grm layer of glass over the top so that I could sand it back to get a finish without damaging it.

Came out really stiff and i would be totaly confident of climbing back in the boat on it (my new measure of stiffness and tested in the garage... well if its gonna break it might as well happen now) )however I am now slightly concerned that being so stiff all the shock loads are going to go through the T and might lead to a different kind of failure!

Had to make my own stock as well as i wanted to keep the adjusting system simple, I didnt want to butcher the boat and I didnt fancy cutting up my current stock, so my system just uses a fixed top gudgeon with a slotted lower one which in all gives me a range of about 6deg... probably not enough but enough to get me started and apart from two small holes in the transom the boat is untouched. I control it buy running a line around the pintle and back through a cascade block system to a single swivel jammer.

Only used it a couple of times so far but it shows promise... and hasnt broken so I'll update this again when I have a better idea of whats happening.

Ian
3453 Email

The mk2 is coming along. I've put 5 layers of 200grm carbon on the foil now (2 at 45deg over the middle 3rd and 3 more over the complete foil) all vacuum bagged down and its now so much stiffer.

I've tried atanding on it, in the worst possible way (sat it on a peice of wood in the located in the middle and then ballanced on it with a foot in the middle of each side) and even with all the point loadings of the wood it took my weight with ease so i'm feeling more confident.

I need to trim it to size now and cut it into my rudder.

Quick question, how wide are most foils at the moment. My mk1 had a total span of about 800mm and with the subsequent failure I'm thinking of making this one smaller... whats the considered opion on a good size. (note it has a uniform section along it whole length and a chord of 100mm) 

Regards
Ian
3453 Email

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but having recently bought 3453 a carbon chapter I am now in a position to answer my own question.

Shroud tracks are great! Would I spend the money if i was rigging out a new boat, possibly, possibly not... all I know is that now I have them i use them.

Ian
3453 Email

Heres the before and after or my foil... the before pic wasnt finished at this stage but you get the idea.

I reckon I could have stood on it although I'm not sure i would have wanted to... But from our experience now with this one I reckon that's got to be a good test. I'f I'm not happy about standing on it then I should expect it to fail at some point!

Ian

Thanks for all the advice and offers of assistance guys.

 

I feel like I’m getting a grasp of the problem now. Michael Airey
also sent me a pm that has helped me realize something that I guess I already knew
but kinda forgot. When I set my off position to 1 deg negative that was on the
basis of the neutral position for my T foil section in horizontal flow…. But the
flow off the transom of a 12, especially one like a DCB or Chapter that has a
lot of rocker aft isn’t horizontal is it. I probably had a couple of degrees of
positive flow across the foil and with the speed we travel at in a F5... well that would easily
explain all the lift.

 

So yes I’m going to have to come up with a simple, yet strong
method of attaching and adjusting the whole rudder before the next tests. My
initial setup was all about seeing if I could make a foil, if it would do
anything and weather it was worth pursuing. So although its all fallen apart I
can at least answer all my questions with a big YES… so now its onto the mk2

 

I’m thinking that I might just make a slotted top pintel,
with a large pin passing right through it, the rudder and then pivot around a slightly opened
out hole in the lower pintel. .. it should work shouldn’t it?

 

O and one other question. My first T foil didn’t have any sweep or tapper in it. My thinking was that I didn’t know
if I could make a foil at all to start with and this made creating a uniform
section much easier and removed the need for a join in the middle. Apart from
all the aeroplane inspired reasons for having sweep etc is there a good reason
form a fluid mechanics standpoint, interaction with the stern wave, rudder etc?

 

Any way my homemade rudder blade survived so I’ll get
started on the next T, this time I’ll splash out some money on some carbon and
put on a few more layers. The first foil was made out of 7 layers of  200gm glass that I had left over from a canoe
build a few years ago (or at least there were 7 layers in the middle tapering out
to three at each end.) And I have an old fridge pump now  so I’ll have a go
at vacuum bagging it this time. Starting to feel like a proper 12
sailor now making bits for the boat myself J

 

Ian

 

3453 Email

I had built myself a T foil
for Email over the last couple of weeks and we had only our second sail with it
this weekend.

 

Last weekend was very light
F0-1, 2 in the puffs and I was amazed by just how much lift it seemed to
generate in so little wind.... So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by
the problems that we had today.

 

In brief all I'd built so far
was the blade itself... For adjustment I used a conventional lifting rudder
stock and set limits on the blades movement at about 4deg positive and 1 deg
negative figuring that this would be a good starting point for a basic on and off
control.

 

The problem was what looked
like a F3-4 on the beech turned out to be a solid F5 gusting 6 and we were
pretty much out of control whenever we headed off downwind.... and as the start was
a run.....! Essentially even with my foil set to what I thought would be off
the lift generated was so great that we couldn’t keep the Bow up. We didn’t go
in but the constant battle to keep the boat under control and to get the bow up
to take some of the load out of the rig resulted in the foils eventually
ripping off.

 

I’m not that upset by it all
in fact I half expected it, all part of the learning curve however I would like
to know from those more experienced in these things what they do in strong
winds. Is it all technique? Is adjustment key and I’m better off getting an
adjustable pintle setup that works first… or do you ditch the foil on the silly
days and just stick to a normal rudder blade?

 

Ian

3453 Email

Morning all

If the picture is attached... how does this work. Looks very neat and light.

I'm in the process of making myself a T foil for Email and I'm looking for ideas on how to mount it... so I've more than just a passing interest :-)

Cheers

Ian
3453 Email

Thanks Chris

I'd like to come down to Pevensey but its our daughters birthday party that Saturday.

Ian

Just finishing off email and note that the carbon rod fitted into the end of the boom (Angel) for the outhaul to run up and down on is badly worn. As the system actually works really well I'd like to keep it so I'm after a cheap easy supply of a suitable carbon or stainless rod.

Any one any suggestions

Cheers

Ian 
3453
3162 (For sale)

video looks fantastic !! .. .. except .. .. (no reflection on the video itself) I get a succession of 'stills'.
I run Firefox off the back of Ubuntu Linux 10.4 and can strrem BBC iplayer or YouTube content with no apparent problems - but some video, like vimeo, refuses to run properly.
Despite eschewing Windows XP for Linux and having a generally productive relationship with Linux for 18 months or more I'm not really that 'geeky'. I read 'Linux Format' (a mag'), 'techie' books, and sometimes find content in the Linux forums that answers questions in terms I can understand, but I haven't quite 'got my head around' the full breadth of issues surrounding 'plugins' and 'codecs' as they apply to a Linux convert.
There are some clever people number amongst 'twelvies', I know - though I ain't one of them. Before I immerse myself in geeky Linux forums and the propects of incomprehensible (incomprehensible to me that is!) run in Terminal command line jiggery-pokery is there a fellow 'twelvie' who can lend off the cuff direction?

For what its worth it jumps a lot on my XP box a well, but by default the film displays in HD mode. If you turn that off the quality is still more than acceptable and it plays fine... or at least it does on my pc.

Ian

Hi Antony.

Yup wish we could be there this weekend... but such is life.

And bendy mast. (Angel) Yes we havent tried it yet but I've heard the stories and its part of the reason that i want to get the lowers working in a way I'm happy with so that i have some control.

Any suggestions on setting up and sailing with these masts? Does it require a different cut of sail or just a different technique?

Cheers

Ian
3453, 3162

Hannah and I have just bought Email so I’ll attempt to fill in her history, the little I know about it. If any one knows any more or can correct any of the mistakes I’ve made (this is just what I can remember from the stories told to me) then please do so. 

She was original built by Nigel Waller and bought by Ewan Stamp in 2000. All Carbon, very light and stiff and clearly professional turned out.

Ewan lent her to Stuart Hudson for Burton week that year who ruffled a few feathers by turning up in a new boat, in a class he didn’t really know and sailing with Ewans daughter promptly won quite a few races... ultimately finishing second overall. (which I’m told is still the best position achieved by  Chapter at Burton week!)

She was generally sailed by Ewan and his wife at Royal Harwich Yacht Club I believe, making the odd guest appearance at other events in the hands of various other sailors before being sold to Peter Nicholls who bought her for his sons to sail in about 2005. 

They sailed her for a couple of years before University, other interests and the fact that they had grown a bit too big for her resulted in her being put into storage. (Note storage in this instance is a heated garage normally reserved for classic sports cars!) Which is where she sat until May this year when we responded to an add on the class association website and decided to purchase her.

She was looking a little rough around the edges but nothing serious so we are currently cleaning her up, repainting the deck etc,  re-rigging some parts and completely re-roping her.

More to come when we start adding to the next chapter in her history.

Ian and Hannah

Note the picture is from the day we bought her