ok...I'm full of goofy qUesTIonS tonight..

mixmkr

mixmkr

Well-Known Member
How come no goof-nut has ditched there silly wire bridle (or rope) and put in a piece of track for a proper traveler? I mean...it'd help a little for those club races where class measurements are ignored ! :) Especially for heavier air to flatten the sail by dumping the traveler all the way to the rail.
 
Cost to benefit.
You can just take some paracord and tie the bridle end of the mainsheet over to the side.... Wrap the mainsheet on the tiller right above the gudgeon... or other similar cheap quick ways to do the same thing.

The track = $$ and the boat is never class legal without restoring the bridle.
The cheap solutions are reversed just by untieing a knot or two.
 
So you are going to mount a curved track that rises over the tiller in order to get the sheet maybe one inch further out to leeward in a blow? I think the reason that hasn't happened is 1: minimal benefit, 2: against the rules for racing, 3: costly, 4: Not helpful when it isn't really breezy, and it'll probably hurt, 5: KISS. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
 
You should go to Sunfish regatta a regionals or na's. Hopefully one with a good breeze. I think you would see that even though a sunfish is a simple boat the racing is very competitive. There is nothing like sitting on a 70 boat starting line. The sailors are always willing to share information and help on boat setups. It still is amazing sailing a one design boat and watching the really good sailors sail so much faster. The sunfish is good in both light air and heavy air, often out sailing when other boats are on shore.
 
The old Sunfish I got had lost its original cable with the loop in the middle because the guy I bought it from had replaced that cable with a crappy bare wire held on with cable clamps. So I cut that sucker off, got the stock measurements from the class legal cable and created a duplicate with some low stretch poly and dyneema line. And I just tied the ends to the traveler eye straps in such a way that my new rope traveler could be removed in about 30 seconds.

traveler-with-loop.jpg


I tied the traveler to the eye straps this way because I had created a second traveler that had no loop in the middle. But it did have a small pulley on it, where you tie the mainsheet to the pulley. The idea, like you pointed out, was to allow the boom to position itself a bit more to leeward... like my Laser... for when it was really blowing. I then always had this second traveler and pulley stashed in the boat when I went sailing so that I could swap it out in a snap if the wind really came up.

But I came to discover... by swapping my travelers back and forth on days where it really blew hard... that it only made a slight difference to allow the boom to drop to leeward a bit. A difference but not as much as I thought it would make. So, unless I know it's going to blow very hard, I don't bother swapping over to the traveler with the pulley on it.

Cheers,

- Andy
 
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Seem to remember a few years back some of us on this forum used a un-looped cable and a simple pulley as a traveler. Go to your local small
town hardware and they should be able to cut you some cable and Nicropress the ends into loops for you. I haven't got around to doing it on
my current boat. I would guess the effect would be about the same as adding 2 feet to the length of the Sheet. Sunfish is a simple boat and some
like it kept simple. Not a boat for people who like pulling a whole bunch of lines all the time.
 
By having the center loop for your mainsheet, when you are sailing the load goes to only one eye strap. The other or lee side of the traveler is slack. By allowing the mainsheet to slide you distribute the load to both eye straps.
 
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