Not much wind this week has given time for boat work. After the new boat's first outing last weekend, I learnt the lessons of gearing very forcefully, thanks to the new SailingBits ride height adjuster.In the morning we had a 12-14 kt breeze. Before the tide turned, a run up the Emsworth channel in flat water was producing an average of 21kts which I was pleased with. Si Payne, who also has a SailingBits RHA fitted, noted that a lower gearing was being achieved than with the standard Mach2 set up. In the afternoon, I got in to a world of pain once the tide had turned and the chop started, where the boat was, inevitably, struggling to cope, due to the same lack of gearing.
An email to John Harris (who sells them) and he got onto Nathan about how he used this thing. It turned out that he used it with 2-3 turns on the front gearing as well as the RHA gearing mechanism. Due to the thickness of the barrel, it does not seem to be possible to get enough gearing on to deal with significant chop without winding on a substantial amount of front gearing. This rather negates the point of of the gearing barrel but never mind. I now understand a factor that must have contributed towards the success of the Australian Moth Squad. Great on the flat Lake MacQuarie but not so great when you introduce waves into the equation.
My next addition will be the adjustable wand. A short wand solves the problem of a lack of gearing in rather an unsubtle way. The problem is that it is slow. The dilemma now is do you have a short wand and get downwind slowly or do you do the Australian thing of going as fast as possible using low gearing and risk crashing occasionally?
I think flying low with low gearing in chop may be the ticket, from the vids of Australia. Until the chop gets too big. But it's only a guess.
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ReplyDeleteCookie said: I kind of assumed you would use a mid range gearing setting at the front and then use the in boat one to tweak it one way or the other? Thats how I've made mine anyway - maybe lock off the bow one in one place with a nut?
ReplyDeleteIve just bought one of these, and will fit for Coronado and our PCCs. Hawaii was a great experiment racing with likes of Bora and Bear. Had a couple of down wind runs with Bear, who's typically very fast down wind. To keep up I had to keep ride height wound on so I was just skating on edge of fliping. That extra 2 - 3 ins ride height seems to equate to a knot or 2 of boat speed. When I got too scared and wound down, I couldn't keep up. When breeze was up I kept ride height high, lowered a bit for a gybe so foils hooked up more easily, then go high again..... Seemd to work and was same technic used by Bear.
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