Search results

@beldar boathead, your initial response was snarky, your follow-up response was condescending. I will cede that my response to your comment was not constructive. At no point did I suggest my set up would work for everyone, just an interesting observation I have noticed from my own racing...

I do, and they don't.

Where's the edit button, brain fart here, this isn't cumulative. I'll still stick by 2 degrees AoA as a reasonable number for a sunfish rudder. In general I do not chase weather helm adjustments with the sunfish. Efforts to reduce weather helm by moving the goose neck aft on the boom have never...

@Riv , load on the tiller is weather helm by definition. When you let go of the tiller of the boat rounds up to the wind you have weather helm, if it drives down you have lee helm. The direction of load on the tiller is letting you know what face of the rudder is working, and the amount of force...

@Weston here is a common set up for a 6 to 1 on both the Cunningham and outhaul (3 to 1 on the boom with an additional 2 to 1 at the sail). On the Cunnigham the grommets on the sail act as turning blocks with the line going through the tack, up to the Cunningham grommet and finally terminating...

Aluminum rivets are plenty strong, you can pick an entire boat from one properly prepared rivet If you really want over kill spend the extra money of monel rivets.

Anytime you put dissimilar metals together ther will be galvanic corrosion. Rivets are cheaper than booms, and much easier to ship. What you're seeing there is galvanic corrosion between the rivet and stainless strap. A piece of tape, plastic or any number of commercial corrosion barrier...

Race committees don't want chatter on the radio because if you have 50 boats out there you're going to get 15 or 20 of them on the radio all asking the same two questions "are we in sequence now?" and "what course are we running?". If you ask the a measurer they are going to take a...

Section 3.1.9 prohibits the "use" of any "electronic equipment not specifically allowed in the rules". Feel free to keep your radio turned off and in your dry bag with you cell phone and electronic car keys. If you use it during the race you could open yourself up to protest, but I'm guessing...

All aluminum rivets are preferable (no steel mandrel). Galvanic corrosion will eventually be an issue with an dissimilar metal, the timeframe for when it becomes an issue is open for debate. I've lost a boom from galvanic corrosion at the boom block from stainless fasteners. It took years and I...

I don't think the blades on the sunfish have ever been the limiting factor on pointing. The shape of the sail is what drives the Sunfish to tack at the angles it does. Anyone that has raced in a mix fleet of Sunfish and Super Sunfish notice this quickly with the Supers pointing much higher. I...

You're deluding yourself if you think the board and rudder made the boat heal less. The sail carrying power of a dinghy/skiff is controlled by the vertical location of the center of effort of your sail, the size of your sail and the lateral location of your righting force and the amount of right...

The Sag Harbor guys haven't been complaining about the standard boom breaking, I wouldn't worry about it. However, I do think the interceptor type rig would benefit performance and control wise from a stiffer boom. With the foot attached to the boom like the regular sunfish sail, the rig...

To me it looks like it might. The sunfish boom will be plenty long and will need to be cut down. The yard may or may not be long enough. If you really want to know reach out to Dave Clark who builds the Rocket. Another option that's very simular is Kevin Farrar in New London CT. He builds a...

Everyone here is going to hate me for saying this but....I don't really have a big problem with your Cunningham. The force vector the sail will see respective of the upper yard is half the angle of line to the thimble and the boom (assuming the other end of the line is tied to the tack which it...

That's a great instinct and I think it will serve you well on any boat. I would only warn that the sunfish will have a bit more helm pressure than many other boats of similar size due to rudder geometry. So you may have to recalibrate your helm force expectations. Often as good an indicator as...

You really don't want a neutral helm, both for safety and performance. You want the boat to round up by itself for safety. In terms of performance, you want enough weather helm to allow the rudder to contribute to working the boat to windward. If you have neutral helm your rudder is at that...

Believe it or not the surface finish that far aft probably isn't going to effect your speed. The boundary layer grows progressively thicker and by that point on the hull is thick enough to fully engulf the rough paint. Most your benifits in fairing a boat are going to come from where the water...

I use the cheapest bicycle quick release seat post clamp I can get. Amazon/Ebay/other currently have 10 packs of them for sale for $10.95. Buy the ten pack. Eventually the nut will fuse into the threaded portion, but by that time you have it set correctly and it's not an issue. Keep the rest as...

@beldar boathead, I think the quickest way to get rough idea is to look at the foot and luff round (lay the sail flat and draw a straight line from tack to clue/head and measure the amount of extra material). Obviously these you have posted have a different panel layout then the ones I measured...