Anyway, the wind finally abated at the end of last week and on Saturday I could go and do a test fit.
The results were not good. Even though the sail is laminate one from a Fireball dinghy and the measurements were close, the sail is actually too big to fit on the mast. The leech is way to full and interferes with the backstays. Not just in a small way: the top batten jams in the backstays as the sail tries to tack.
I've taken a few pictures. The first pic shows the sail a bit short of the top of the mast and still overlapping the backstays:
At the bottom end the news isn't much better. The boom is at the bottom of the mast and still loads of bag in it.
Not much scope to tighten the outhaul either, the sail foot was as long as the boom:
So, being a £20 sail, do I mess about with it and have a go at trimming bits off, or forget about it? Can you even mess about with a laminate sail like that?
Not sure yet. I'd have to take a significant chunk out of the foot of the sail to lose some height and even then the sail may catch the backstays.
Back to the drawing board for now. I do need a flatter sail though.
In the meantime, the original went back on:
Looks better at the bottom as well:
At the end of the boom the original sail has more scope to tighten the outhaul. Still some space left at the end of the boom:
One thing I did notice is that the last 12 inches of lift started to get very stiff and I had to sweat the halyard in order to pull it up that last 12 inches.. Looks like the pulleys in the mast are getting a bit stiff. Possibly some lubrication needed or a duff bearing. So now add that job to the mast beam replacement when the mast has to come down.
Ho Hum... The hunt for a decent sail continues....
Did I mention that the boat is completely rewired now? Got to feel positive about something... right?
In the meantime, more watching on eBay for a sail about 5m luff and 2-ish metres on the foot.
Did the same thing to my main over the winter... took it to Batt Sails at Bosham.. reasonably priced... don't take it from the bottom if you do it yourself, trim the the head - same effect (shorter luff) but less work and less material to cut... might also help to reduce the leech fullness?
ReplyDeleteSteve, If I trimmed the head, then the leech would seriously foul the backstays. I'd have to shave a bit off the leech as well. I did lay the sails flat on top of each other and the dinghy sail has a huge increase in the back end of the sail compared to the original. Also chopping the foot will reduce the length of the foot and allow a bit of tension in the outhaul.
ReplyDeleteFor £20 I'm minded to just have a play with the sewing machine and see what happens. Sail purists may look in horror at the Frankenstein's monster I haul up the mast, but hey, if it's flatter than my baggy red thing it should go better. I'm sure a tarpaulin hauled up the mast could do better. ;-)