Water bottle

Sugar

New Member
Does any one have a good idea for placeing a water bottle in the boat. I have seen a few guys place them on the mast - this doesnt seem really all that practical.
My preference is to attach it to the toe straps with shock cord so it doesnt move around. What do the class rules say about this & what is the best way ? So photos might help explain.
Thanks
 
attach a piece of shockcord to where your eyelets for tying your hiking strap on are then run the shockcord throught your traveler eyelet then a bowline then get a drink bottle with a clip and attack it to the shockcord adjust the shockcord to right tention for drink bottle to sit in the sorner of the cockpit
 
Tom Scully's quick description is completely unintelligeble to me. The way he words it, he's got a water bottle on the transom! Tom: Could you please go over it again? Step by step.

SG
 
i saw his setup at the worlds, shockcord is tied to one of the metal hiking strap eyelets at the back of the cockpit, the shockcord is then led through one of the traveller eyelets and back into the cockpit with a clip on the end so it can be clipped to the drink bottle. if the shockcord is at the right tension, the drink bottle will sit nicely in the corner of the cockpit.

personally i just tie shockcord to the aforementioned hiking strap eyelets and make a loop in the end so i can put my drinkbottle in it and it is tight, therefore not coming off
 
Tom first, then Chris...
Chris' description is a bit clearer, but still leaves me confused. Obviously, I don't understand the language here.

What holds the water bottle securely "at the corner of the cockpit"? Is it wedged under the grabrail or what? Does the water bottle need to be tied to the shockcord at a particular point along the bottle? When at rest, does the bottle stick up from the deck level?

Why is this so hard for me to understand?



Anyways, for years, I have been carrying my water bottle as follows: Tie one end of a thin shockcord to the starboard side traveler fairlead, lead it through the port traveler fairlead (from inside), and lead the tail of the shockcord through the port side hiking strap eyelet (from above) on the aft wall of the cockpit. Tie a loop to the free end of the shockcord of sufficient diameter to tightly accept your water bottle. Insert water bottle into the loop.

At rest with the bottle full of water, the shockcord should be under slight tension to keep the bottle up, sung against the eyelet.

You need to use one of those plastic water bottles designed with an indentation at mid height specifically to accept and securely capture a tie or strap.

This is similar to the design Tom and Chris mention (I think) except for the routing of the shockcord and the final rest position of the water bottle. I like my system with a centrally located and more secure bottle much better (preseuming I guessed correctly what they meant.)

An alternative to my system is to skip the shockcord section between the two traveler fairleads. Some racers "believe" that part may interfere with the traveler blocks. I've never experienced any such interference.

The advantage of such long-shockcord systems is that you can use them in the middle of a race. On reaches and runs, you reach and pull the bottle to you to take a drink. You do not take the bottle off the loop made at the end of the shockcord. When done, you just let the bottle go and the bottle is retrieved back to the aft cockpit wall. You don't have to fiddle with putting a bottle through a shockcord loop while racing.

A short-bungee favorite of some Europeans is to use the bungee used to hold the hiking strap up to hold the water bottle, too. Pass the bungee through the webbing at the end of the hiking strap, center the bungee to leave one tail 7-10 cm shorter than the other tail. Pass both ends of the bungee through the eyelets (from inside) on the aft cockpit wall, lead the ends up to aft deck. Pass the longer tail behind the traveler clamcleat (under the traveler line), stretch and tie both ends together, approximately at the turn of the afterdeck int the cockpit.

The water bottle is then inserted under the double bungee staps between the clamcleat and the eyelets. The bottle rests against the aft cockpit wall. A photo of this setup (minus the bottle) is available in the Rooster Sailing website.

SG
 
This may or may not help the discussion, but I have seen several Lasers in California that actually have a compass bracket that includes two water bottle holders. Has anyone else seen this? I have no idea of the manufacturer or the legality.
Ralph
 
This certainly seems to be a sound argument for one picture being worth 1000 words. I too was confused by Tom's and Murph's description of a traveller eyelet- I assume they meant fairlead. Also it is unclear if Tom has a special water bottle that has clip on it- I generally just used my water bottles from cycling that had the middle indent that Shevy refers to.

I'll throw nothing of value into the ring by saying that I made a double loop of 1/8" shockcord that went through the two hiking strap eyelets in aft of the cockpit through which I pushed a water bottle of Shevy's description. It worked fine for between races; I am not so talented that I can be fooling around with a waterbottle while trying to keep from being last in the fleet during a race. The one problem that I had was that on some occassions when I was vigorously kicking water out of the cockpit on windward legs I would kick the water bottle free. And feeding the water bottle back into the loops in a panic situation was not a source of relaxation.

btw Shevy - thanks for the inf on the camcleat wedge issue in another post.
 
im sorry "Shevy Gunter" but my drink bottle system was setup for me by stewart casey and is used by brendon so y dont you try setting it up and you will know how it works because you obiously have no common sense.

PS i have issues with you
 
Everyone is free to "have issues" with everyone else. It's a free forum!

In the meantime, probably we would all appreciate it if you could describe to us more fully HOW this Stewart Casey (or Ben Ainsle, as if that makes any difference) has set up your water bottle system.

Best regards,

Shevy Gunter
 
tom is the funniest person on these forums. I enjoy laughing at his immature ways. He is just so manly using an 6:1 outhaul instead of an 8:1.

and of course if ben ainslie and all the olympic sailors are using it. it's gotta be the only way to do it.
 
Hey - hey Tom,
do you think, this is the right way to talk?
So, if you think "yo!-man!", then I must tell you all:

I, T H E - L O O S E R L U - F R O M - T H E - O L D - (R U M S F I E L D-) - G E R M A N Y, - H A V E - NO - B R A I N!! - B E C A U S E - I - D O - N O T - U N D E R S T A N D - W H A T - T O M`S - S O L U T I O N - I S... : - )

So, Tom, would you please so kind to explain us, the few other readers, who like to know your solution, how it works, please? - Thank you, Tom ;-)


Hey Shevy, hey Tom, why don´t you meet each other on a lake between your homes for a little race and make your discussions on the water as good laserites do it?
Would be fine for all the other readers here.



Ok, do as you like....


My way to fix my water-bottle is, to take a 1-Liter-"PET"-bottle and push it "top-down" between the triangular "whole" of the (oldfashioned) hikingstrap control line. Only when the wind gets stronger, I knot a (any I have) 3mm diameter ropeline (lenght ca. 1 meter) on the top of the bottle and knot the other end of the line to to one of the metall-eyes of the hikingstrap (forthat the bottle will not get away if I mke a deathroll or else).


bye-bye

your "brainless" Lasercruiser
LooserLu
 
Never thought I'd see a pissing contest over placment of a water bottle.

In my last boat I kept my water bottle in my "fat bag" in the inspection port that was near the center board trunk. I know "everyone" puts their knee through these, but I never did. Having the bottle there did 3 things. 1) it kept the weight in the middle of the boat. 2) it kept the water out of the sun and salt spray which made for much better/colder water. 3) It was easy to get to w/o having to muck around with 20 feet of bungee cord or how ever these other "aft cockpit" solutions work.

Perhaps this is what kept me from qualifying for that olympic berth?
 
Hi Rob, I can tell you, on our little lake Aasee here, we "Germanic"-Laserites did competitions about less problems like that water-bottle, believe me. But getting a solution on the water, under control of fair referees, it´s a good way to dig at least bad discussions (is that an "issue", sorry, my dictionary is at work, that is 60 miles away from here now). After getting a solution on the water, as fair sailors do, we got friends again, while dinking a beer aft the race at the sailingclub... ;-)

But here the problem is the distance between the both. Unfortunatly the pacific (if I see it right now) is "the lake" between them, so I did a stupid idea, sorry.

Rob, I have no inspection port at my Laserhull now (but in some weeks), thanks for your good tip, I got a "fat bag" / "barnie bag" from my Laser-merchandizer. In future I will put my bottle (or when I need 2 [<- that is my big storage problem in the moment now] when I´m cruising around for hours on big lakes) to the barnie bag
bye-bye
LooserLu
 
stop boggin up this thread with all your back and forth banter
some people might be actually trying to view this thread and now they've probably given up due to all that useless stuff u guys have posted
 
sounds like a mailing list i know........

i think shevy would kow this list too.

we dont need this sh*t here, especially over where to locate a drink bottle (as Rob Bowden pointed out)

i too store my drink bottle in my 'barnie bag' when im out training or sailing with yachts during the week, keeps the cockpit un-cluttered (all i need now is one of those rooster mainsheets) and it is kept away from the sun.

for your benefit i have drawn a (very) rough diagram of my system that i use in my boat, after reading this post i realise its not the best but i like it because i know my drink bottle will be there and hasnt jumped out of the boat as i think some systems with long shock cord would do

murphs-drink.jpg
 
Hi,

I used to own a Laser (#134145) that had an inspection port to the starboard side of the daggerboard well, too. And I had a "barnie bag", too. I used to keep my water bottle in there, too, along with a sandwich, any SIs, a wax pencil, etc.

Of course, the one liter bottle would be near the centerline on starboard tack but all the way out near the rail on port tack. I remember trying to drink the whole thing down in a few regattas once I realized that I somehow had to hike and roll harder and got tired faster on port tack. Maybe it was the imbalance in my body, maybe the imbalance in my brain, maybe that in my hull. I can attest to the presence of the former two, and it's up to you to decide whether the third could also have been a small factor...

Also, couple of times in really heavy air, I inadvertantly capsized between the races while I was trying to get a sip off of my water bottle in my inspection port. I unscrewed the port hatch, took the bottle out, and as I was trying to temporarily screw the hatch cover back on, I found myself about to dump. Both the water bottle and the hatch cover were gone. I had to replace my inspection port cover three times over two years, and finally, I decided that storing stuff that I will be needing regularly in the inspection port was getting to be too costly an idea.

Anaother factor that moivated me to consider the "long-shockcord" solution was the nature of the races we regularly held in my Fleet.

We would have a series of seven to eight short (12 - 17 min) races per evening. The leader and the trailer Lasers would be separated by 20-30 seconds at most across the finish line. And the RC would blow the warning signal prior to the commencement of the 3 minute sequence right before the last boat crossed the finish line. This would give us around 3 min 10 sec before the next start. (I'd usually get about 3.5 minutes myself - usually finishing first, of course :)))

Anyway, if you were dehydrated, that 3 min 20 sec would be all that you would have to quench your thirst AND start. Unscrew the port hatch, take the bottle out, screw the port hatch back on to secure it temporarily and to keep any waves out, drink, unscrew the port hatch again, put the bottle back in, and screw back the port hatch on tightly again... All that would take me too far away from the starting line, and more importantly, it would take away valuable seconds off of the time I had to get ready for the next race - to figure out the favored end, the favored tack, the wind and current-favored sides, the starting strategies of my competitors, etc. So, that's also a reason why I decided to switch to the LSWP ("Long Shockcord, Warm Powerade") system.

In short, my advice is: consider your sailing conditions and ability before you decide where you want to store your water bottle.

Best regards,

Shevy Gunter
Founder and Fleet Captain (1991-1996)
Philadelphia Laserfleet

PS. Maybe one day, we will be graced with a fuller description of the SMSCUB ("Setup for Me by Stewart Casey - Used by Brendon") system to go ahead and try iy out.
 
Tom said:
im sorry "Shevy Gunter" but my drink bottle system was setup for me by stewart casey and is used by brendon so y dont you try setting it up and you will know how it works because you obiously have no common sense.

PS i have issues with you

Grow up, no one wants your blatant flaming here. Shevy is not the only one who didn't understand your garbled excuse for the english language.
 
They're some pretty good ideas there.... I think i've lost about 10 water bottles to the ocean, so to save myself some money and the guilt of littering the ocean, i'll have to try some of those systems out.
I don't know what you guys are on about, I could understand what Tom was talking about... it's a Forum, not an essay contest.
 
Hi all,
now you can see my little idea of storing a waterbottle on the Laser on my Photo Gallery here in TLF.



@ Shevy:
You know, that I´m on the water for many! hours. So, I don´t need the waterbottle in the first 3 minutes or so. 1 Liter is too few for the whole day on the water. This, I recognized again, this day when I was on the water for 6 hours. I have no inspection-port now, but as LASERCRUISER (not RACER!!) it is needed to have enough water to drink. My dry-storage-bag (the white ton with the red top on the photos you can see in the TLF-Photo-Gallery) only can carry another 0.5 Liter - that is not enough-. So I had to think out for other solutions. Because of the fact, that I want in fututre to screw the XD-basic-plates with nuts, it is needed to sew wholes for inspection ports. So, after that, I use this ports not as a "hull-inner-ventilation-"fan"" but for the barnie-bag, I already got some years before for the rented Lasers I sailed. Rob brought me to the idea to find a useful using for that barnie-bag, that I´ve forgotten in my mind that, I have one.

Of course, Shevy, a racer dosen´t need so much water on-board he-she has enough to do with the water around the boat.... ;-)





@Tom:
Hey! Wy ya not goin´ putta foto onda TLF-album - ya man! ;-)

The brainless Germanic´s done - wy not´da cool Rastaman from down-unda -ya man!



Cheers!
LooserLu -the brainlesswaterbottled-Lasercruiser ;-))
 
Why don't you race LooserLu, and what do you do on the water for 6 hours? Do you just sail around near your Yacht Club, or do you sail to ther towns etc?
 
Re-Water bottle

@ JacksonAUS

Well, JacksonAUS, I have severall reasons for not racing.

I did racing a lot, starting in the Opti and than (as bowman) in a Sailingclass, that is called "Pirat" ( see www.piraten-kv.de ).
But when I had to join the German Army and after that at the University, I had not the time and not the money, to sail in a club or havin´an own boat.
When I got the possibility, than I rented a Laser in my vacations every year or I sailed on big boats or other sailing boats (like Fireball, some cat´s, 470er etc.) - but all never again as racer. This I did for 20 vears.
Because of job there was no time for racing and preparing it. And, of course, the money that racing costs. Here in Germany it is not usual, as racer, to not join a sailing club. Being in sailingclub needs money and time and of course a sailing club in the near area you live.
The last years I worked at at places where the nearest sailingclub was 40 miles away...
Last year I got the chance to buy very-very-cheap, good-looking, old Laser-standard - it´s the 46438 from 1977. Now I sail recreational with this boat most time on 2 areas.
On short vacations (4-5 days) in the Netherlands (150 miles away from my home): There you can find an area with lots of lovely chanels and (for us Germans) big lakes like the Jisselzea, the lake Snek and others. This area is called "Frisland". This lakes are all connected with the small channels. In the winter you can go ice-sailing (I will do this too in the future) with the "DN"´s or go skating and so on. Most time I chose a dayly-"target" (often one of the lot smal town´s at the lakes) and sail from my base-harbour to this target. Then I do some sightseeing there and sail back to the base-harbour (for example: www.kuilart.nl ) in the evening. Often heavy the wind comes not from the side, you know, so, one way to the target I sail downwinds by th e Lee in 1,5 hours and back hiking on the run 5-6 hours .... After 4-5 days doing this you get "ready", I mean tired... ;-) And often I buy something while doing the sightseeing that I have to store on the Laser (but where...? I use a big dry tonn from kanoecruising, that I fix with a tiedown for cars at/in front the undermast) -last I was searching intensive for a special shakle for Shevy´s quick-release-system for the outhaul...
On weekends I often (like yesterday) go sailing on big lake (160x10000 m²)that is only 1 hour away from my home. There I do my practice like "snaking"-sailing or downwind "by the Lee" testing the Laser 46438 or other Laser´s ( often I´m not alone while sailing) and its new stuff (the "bad" new sails from North or Hyde in comparsion to the old Harstick-sails or good new trainigsails from Banks/Hase-sails and so on) or I just sail around and watch the lovely nature at the lake - so, JacksonAus, there, time is runnig very fast while sailing. 6 hours on the water you remember first, when you get back to the habour at the evening and recognize that you are very hungry and tired. But since I´ve started to sail the Laser, every time when I got on the water, I learned something new. And Lasersailing doing the right way is good for the health when you have problems with wight and bloodpressure (like I have it) etc.

But there are other reasons to not race:
that, has sometihng to do with our lousy ByLaws for the Laser. That, is my personal-own-problem with the ILCA (not the DLAS, where I really like to stay to - I joined the DLAS - not the ILCA - but unfortunatly, when I joined the DLAS, I was automaticaly a member of the ILCA-Europe-region. The DLAS-joining is needed here in GER, to get the border papers to sail the Laser in other countries.). Because of the not few faults in the ByLaws and the way some few powerful-"arrogant" (<-a german word I have now no translation for) international ILCA-officials treat us not-top-900-Lasersailors with it, in protest I do not sail as racer at Masterraces or others. You all must not do like me; race if you want to, it´s ok - but in my opinion, this special-powerful-ILCA-Officials (one is living in a country in the south west of Germany...) are not interested in us (the not-pro´s) and not interested in useful ByLaws, butare interested in having their fun with their power...

Maybe, in far future, I race as "GM" or "GGM" ;-) - but know I sail only recreational with my lot´s of waterbottles etc., doing like the Japanese words:

If you sit long enough at the river, one day you see the bodies of your enemies swimming down on the surface of the river....

Well I´m sitting at the river... with my waterbottles and my barnie-bag etc., waiting for a new Draft of correct-Laser-ByLaws ;-)

Greetings to you JacksonAUS, and of course all others
LooserLu
 
Ahh, I know what you mean LooserLu. I do sail for recreational purposes occasionally, but in an open bay it can get boring very quickly. There isn't a lot of politics in the club racing that I do, maybe when i start racing state competitions etc i will notice it more.
 
Yes, JacksonAUS, you are on a good way, I think. Go out and sail your Laserboat on bigger races (Don´t care about that funny-ILCA-people -become a member there, because you must be an ILCA- member if you will race on official-races and don´t forget to prove your Laser to the ByLaws, so that the boat gets with success quickly through the measurement, if there is one). You will learn a lot at racing-weekends, get new friends and get big fun etc. You know, the Lasersailboat is more than a funboat, it´s a real racer and (as I learnd lots of years ago: ) it´s a point of seeing the world.
Look at the newest photos of the pre-olympics at Hyeres in France (the neighbour-county in the south-west of Germany), what our big pro´s of the Laserclass did there some days ago. On your level, you can try to do it like them...
But don´t forget your little waterbottle with isotonic-fluid, dehydration is not a joke... Take a bottle from bike-racing (with it´s way to fix the bottle), as already described above this threat, on the back side of the cockpit and save the bottle with a shockcord or small rope, so that you do not loose it.

As a big official sticker in the end of the ´70ties told:
"Lasersailors have more fun"
Cheers!
LooserLu
 
From roostersailing.com

WATER BOTTLE HOLDER

B: used by Steve Cockerill (also keeps elastic away from the tiller end on a close reach -- when at the back of the boat)

LASER_WATERBOTTLE.JPG

Never tried it... if you guys could do little drawing of your system it would be great... I just use my traveller rope (that is way too long) to tie my bottle & I squeeze it between my hinking strap adjustement...
 
@ L-P Gauhtier,
the pic´s show exact that what Shevy is giving a notice to in his last 2 sentences at the end of reply #6.
The Tiller of my Laser ends at the cockpit. I can not fix the waterbottle in the way that is to be seen in "your" sketch "B)". :)

@ all:
To complete this thread, I have something new for discussion:

A few days ago, I was at a lokal bikers-shop to get a neoprenetube for the tillerextension of my Laser. There I have seen some drinking-systems for bikers, that works with plastic-bags (worn on the back of the body) and have a flexible tube for drinking.

One producer is "camelbak":
" http://www.camelbak.com/rec/products.cfm " ->several modells

Another producer is "deuter":
" http://www.deuter.com " (there at "products" go to "bike" and klick at "streamer 1.0")
The streamer 1.0 here costs about 20-30 Euro (1 Euro = ca. 1,2 US$) and lighter systems from Camelbak cost about 20 Euro.

My problem with this systems is the storage on the back. I already allways "contact" the boom of the Laser with my racing-secuitiy-suit, when I change the direction of my Laser through the wind to the other side on th run. I can not add there a drinking system, although this drinking systems also have some positive aspects: tempoary:additional wight for hiking (but be aware about Laser-class-rule-Bylaw 1 No. 6, No. 27h and No. 28h!];
Im heavy winds: drinking in hiking-position is possible, while simultaneous using hands for the tillerextension and the mainsheet.
Maybe you have other idea for storaging a system like above, that fits to your security-suit.

Bye-bye
LooserLu
 
Apart from Laser Class Rules 6, 27 and 28, which relate but not directly, we have the ISAF Racing Rules of Sailing, Part 4, Rule 43.1 (a) which states:

"Competitors shall not wear or carry clothing or equipment for the purpose of increasing their weight."

That is, such "weight jackets" (which is what they effectively are) are not allowed! The Camelbak used to be used quite commonly by NA Laser racers. Then, they noticed what a bad idea it was when the "unfit" started permanently disabling their backs and had to quit the sport they loved! Do NOT wear any water bottles on your body. Not only is it illegal, it is also bad for your health!

I have three such units in my sailing closet. Never used any one of them except for hiking or biking.

Shevy
 
Tom, Shevy, I can't quite visualize the water bottle system you guys are describing, although the "returns to aft cockpit wall" part sounds great. Can either of you post a picture of it? Murphs drawing was excellent, but I'm already using this system and hate it.
 
Sorry to take my time with this reply...

What I am talking about is similar to what is shown in Panel A of the Rooster Sailing diagram posted by Louis-Philippe.

Here's a photo of Steve Cockerill's own system shown in Panel B:
http://www.drLaser.org/images/parts/adjust_Hstrap.jpg (46KB)

(Cockerill is leading the Masters Worlds in Bitez after two days of racing. But it's not because where his water bottle is.)

The water bottle is inserted under the double shockcord resting VERTICALLY on the aft wall of the cockpit! Not on top of the aft deck (as Panel B could be interpreted to imply). The water bottle does NOT interfere with the tiller, no matter how long or short your tiller is!

Here's a photo of my own system:
http://www.drLaser.org/images/parts/waterbottle.jpg (46KB)

The blue shockcord goes aft and can be deadended on the port side traveler fairlead using a tight bowline. I actually remove the fairlead, make the bowline first, push the forward post of the fairlead through the loop of the bowline, and then reinstall the fairlead.

On the cockpit end, I lead the shockcord through BOTH bridges on the aft wall of the cockpit to create more friction for the hiking strap adjustment line.

The shockcord is tensioned only very slightly (about 5% stretch), and then a figure-eight stopper knot is placed right where the shockcord exits the starboard side aft wall bridge. After another couple of inches of tail (to achieve slightly more stretch), a bowline is made to size to tightly grip a biker style (indented mid section) water bottle.

Note the water bottle rests to starboard, the tack where you have rights over port tackers.

If you use a conventional shockcord (which can stretch to about 180% of its original length), you will need to sit upright to take a sip while sailing. If you use more modern substitutes such as a SOLCOR Covered Solid Elastomer stretch cord (which can stretch to 200% of its original length), you can even take a sip while hiked on a run.

For more reach, I lead the stretch cord through the port side traveler fairlead to the starboard side fairlead. This doubles the length of the stretch cord, and allows me to stretch it to any hiking position. No, the part of the shockcord between the two traveler fairleads does not prevent the movement of the traveler blocks all the way out to the fairleads. I rig the stretch cord section between the traveler fairleads from BEHIND the aft posts of the fairleads.

If you don't have a screw-on cap for your water bottle (i.e., if it is a snap-on type cap), then I'd advise duct taping the cap on. Otherwise, when you release the bottle so that it snaps back to rest at the aft cockpit wall, the cap may occasionally come off with the impact.

This will someday make it to the drLaser FAQ... if I ever have the time. I may even call it "The TS Rig" ;)

Stay hydrated!

Shevy Gunter
 

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