Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends … 

Or at least that what it feels like with this project. I installed my first pieces of rigging yesterday as a test. Measuring is a bit of a challenge. First you need good measurements. I started out using the factory measurements, but it appears mine is not standard. Easy enough to remedy, just measure your rig before you start. Oh, and don’t forget to add in the bury part of the splice for BOTH ends. I didn’t and it cost me another $300 to buy more line for my longest pieces. The hard part is figuring out how to set your measurements. when you do the splice the piece will shrink considerably. But then some of that will stretch out when the piece is set up taught. I will have more details on this when I am finished. 

My initial impressions so far: 

1) Forget about the mad Haitian with a machete, this stuff is TOUGH. Could not even faze it with a large pair of scissors or a very sharp knife. I had to use tin snips to cut it, and even that is not easy. 

2) Very stiff to begin with, but softens up when fiddled with. 

3) Splicing is easy as far as type goes, but it is time consuming. Also your hands will get sore if you try to many at once. On a scale of 1-5 with swaged fittings by a rigging shop a 1 and wire eye splices a 5, I would rate this a 3. 

4) The most difficult part is getting the measurements right.

I have just received notification that my standing rigging is at the post office. Once it clears customs (and that could take years and cost thousands of lives) I will be able to start the next phase of Shanti’s rigging.

Mean while I have a story. This was prompted by another BCC owner who is headed south from New England and is going all the way to South Florida before jumping off to the Caribbean. I wish him well. Anyway here is my experience with that journey. And it is a journey and not just a trip.

I have twice made the trip to the islands from south Florida. The first time in Angelsea (an engineless Falmouth Cutter, the little sister to the Bristol Channel Cutter) in 1990. That trip was not bad….just LONG. I figured I would wait for a front to make my easting out to 65w then turn right for the islands. We waited and waited for a front to come through. No luck. Wind was East, then east some more. We were hanging out at Green Turtle Cay in the Bahamas waiting while it blew east, east, east….god if it blows ANY direction except east I’m leaving I told myself. Oh, did I tell you the winds were east? We waited for 2 weeks. Finally the wind went SE, so we left on a starboard tack. A few days later the wind went E again and we tacked to the SE at about the latitude of Jacksonville (we departed from Ft. Lauderdale). So we continued tacking and tacking until we finally reached 65w. Boy was I looking forward to a little reaching, as we would be heading due south towards St. Thomas. Well guess what???? The wind went south on us! GRRRRR! So we tacked all the way to St. Thomas. Mind you we never saw more than 22-24kts and the average was around 15kts on the trip. So the sailing was easy. But it was a 21 day sail (we average 100 miles/day) from our departure from Green Turtle Cay. Total time from departure from Ft. Lauderdale was around 6 weeks. Went into emergency rations and were using country time lemonade to mix with our warm rum. Glad I threw on a couple of bags of beans and rice!

Ok that was the first trip. I think I remember swearing I would never make that trip again. There is a reason they call it the thorny path. But I’m getting old and my memory is failing, So what do I do? I make the trip again with Shanti in November of 2007 from Palm Beach.

Ok, forget about making easting…I have an engine now. Ha! Lots of good that did us. So my plan this time was to draw a rhumb line from S. Florida to St. Thomas and bounce off that to the east each time we were taken back down to the rhumb line. The pilot charts show mostly NE winds in November at an average of 15kts. (remember that’s an average, so it has to blow harder to make up for the light days). Well our course to STT was going to be basically ESE to STT. So hey, maybe we will get lucky, it will blow NE and we will have some close reaching and not much tacking. Jeeez am I getting stupid in my old age. But with the memory of my first trip lingering in the back of my mind I even considered just sailing up to Bermuda, then head south. Fortunately I had hired 2 guys from STT to make the trip with me (insurance required it), but I’m glad I did.

One must realize that just a little south of Ft. Lauderdales latitude you start picking up the Trades. These winds blow ALL the way from Africa. They build up some pretty good seas that you have to tack into. Ugly business!

Ok, so we left from Palm Beach across the gulf stream with light NE winds. Tacking towards the east to transit the Northwest Providence Channel through the Bahamas then out into the Atlantic. At least that was the plan. We made it into the channel late into the second day. That night we played dodge ball with a continuous line of cruise ships(they stretched from horizon to horizon), while tacking into 20kts of wind. It was a scary sight with all these huge ships steaming through the channel. I was going to put a radar reflector on, but one of my crew reminded me that a working radar was one of the best solutions for ships to see us. Well we lost our radar that night. Tense!!!!

By the next morning we were roughly 2/3 of the way through the channel and had been sailing hard on the wind for 2 days. But we had problems. Of course the radar was down. We had also lost the self-steering. Our water and fuel were contaminated. Things were going to hell in a hand basket. So the decision was made to put into Nassau. We had already put in 2 1/2 days beating to weather, so we turned south for rest, repairs and some gambling. We arrived in Nassau in the early afternoon. We picked up a fresh load of water and fuel, Then looked for a place to stay for the night. We decided to get a slip at Atlantis, since none of us had ever been there. It’s a very nice marina geared for Mega yachts. It was quite the sight, little Shanti tied up amongst 25+ million dollar yachts. We had foulies and stuff hanging all over the place drying. We had fresh showers and hit the slot machines that night. Next morning we left to cross the Exuma Banks and breakout into the Atlantic at a little place called Highbourne Cay. Winds were still on the nose, but reasonable. We actually had a nice sail. But we could not make it across in one day. So we anchored on the banks that night. It was only 10-15 feet deep. Very strange feeling anchored out in the middle of the ocean with no land around…all by yourself. At around 2am that night I heard …Gary…Gary…you better come up here! Under a full moon we watched an old gaffer sailing towards us. It was quit a beautiful sight in the moonlight actually, but stories of pirates played through our minds and we were ready to repel borders. The old gaffer sailed up to us, then headed off towards Nassau. Whew! the next morning we awoke to find the wind right on our nose again. Imagine that. So we motored into it and arrived at Highbourne Cay on Thanksgiving day. That afternoon we broke out a bottle of wine and popped some Marie Calender Turkey diners in the oven. It was a beautiful Thanksgiving day. It was to be the last nice day for the next 2 1/2 weeks.

The next morning we awoke to a very nice sunny day for our transit of the pass at Highbourne Cay. The tide was ebbing so we had a 10k flow going with us through the pass. We broke out into the Atlantic about 11 am that morning with the wind blowing about 15kts. Soon it was back up to 20 and we were hard on the wind in 6-8ft seas. The next few days we were hard on the wind, tacking in 25kts of wind, making very little progress. Day and night living with the rail buried and getting drenched from punching into large seas. We lived in our foul weather gear and ate very little. Some days it was so hard to get around we didn’t eat at all. So for the next 7-8 days we tacked and tacked. Bouncing off our rhumb line. Wind was averaging 25+ knots and the seas were upwards of 6-8 ft. Finally the NE winds started to fill in and we were able to lay a course for STT. But, we were still hard on the wind. Still had our rail buried. Still getting soaked! One night we encountered up to 40kts of wind and 14ft seas. After Shanti fell off the backside of a particularly large wave and my crew levitated off the deck by 3 ft, we decided to heave to. We slept hard that night, for we knew what the morning would bring. You guessed it, what was your first clue? More 25kt winds on the NOSE. Ah, but we were at least laying our course. Towards the end of the trip we were pushed a little SW of our rhumb line and ended up off the east end of Puerto Rico. The morning brought squally weather with winds ranging from 0-25kts. Soon these squalls past and we turned on the motor in flat calm seas. Motoring for the remainder of the day we reached St. Thomas a 9pm that night.

What a relief! Hot showers (I think we all took 2 actually), big cheese burgers and this strange clear kinda square things floating in our drinks.

This trip was HELL. My worst trip in 40 years of voyaging. I implore anyone coming from the NE U.S. to jump off at Annapolis at least. The best would have been to go straight to Bermuda, then south. Reaching with a BCC (or any boat) you will make great time to more than make up for the extra distance.

Well at least I now have a BCC by the name of Shanti here in the Caribbean and life is GOOD!

Cheers,

Gary

Hi friends,

( scroll down to next post for photos )

Well the jury is in. This furler system works GREAT. I am very pleased with it. Took Shanti out for some beer can racing Wednesday night and everything worked great! Nothing like a little competition against some Farr 40′s to shake the cobwebs out.

A quick note regarding the races. They take place here in Charlotte Amalie Harbor on St. Thomas. it’s sponsored in part by OnDeck Racing. They have a fleet of Farr 40′s they take tourists match racing on for a couple of hours. So on Wednesday evenings if you are a local you can hop on board one for the beer cans. I did a couple of weeks ago and they are amazing sailing boats. The Porsche’s of sailing. We of course couldn’t touch them, but damn we looked good! Hey the beer was COLD!

Took on a couple of young bucks as crew. Told one to crank that jib halyard up tight, and boy did he. The halyard was so tight the head stay went slack and it was set at 1200# tension via a loos Gage. Will have to tighten down the backstay some more.  So the winch/2 part halyard worked as intended.

During the racing we were tacking between 85-90. So the performance has not suffered from using a flying jib. I thought it would not as long as things were set up correctly.

Furling was easy. I first I thought is was a little hard, but I guess things are just settling in ( including me ). Hauling the sail inboard with the bowsprite traveler works great and it is really simple and quick to drop the sail if need be. When I had the sail modified with the Dyneema torque rope luff line the sailmaker had taken off the telltales. So right before the race I wanted to put some more on. I just dropped the sail, then hauled in the traveler. Stuck the telltales on and set it again. Pulled on the furling line and BADABOOM it was done.

Pros:

Easy and reliable furling. With the single line furler there are no overrides ever. The angel of approach for the furling line is not critical. Depending on how things end up lining up when I haul the traveler out to the end of the sprit, mine doesn’t always line up perfectly. This has not been a problem. No problems with upper swivel breaking and jamming. Leaving the boat with a sail stuck out and up with a huge squall bearing down on you. This system still allows you to easily drop the sail.

Easy to use different head sails. I think it is much simpler than changing headsails than a standard furler in use today. Even easier than hanked on sails. I will even run an asymmetrical with it ( when I can afford one ). Dropping a furled sail allows you to easily fold up the sail and pop it in a sail bag. I prefer different size sails for different wind conditions, instead of a huge sail and reefing. Even with a foam luff on standard furlers sail shape still sucks. I’m so impressed with the way this system furls I believe that using a foam luff you could reef one of these flying jibs if you wanted. But that would have to be put to the test. This system does away with all the convoluted approaches to setting a light air sail with standard furlers. So you can have a very nice sail in light airs.

Less weight aloft for better performance. No foil draped over the headstay.

Ease of installation. You just need to rig a 2 part halyard and run your furling line back to the cockpit. Also have to have your sailmaker modify your sails with the Dyneema torque rope in the luff. Only people with long bowsprits like Shanti’s need to worry about a traveler and hauling the tack of the sail in and out. Although this worked easy also.

Cost is about the same as a standard furler unless you already have a powerful jib winch. Then the cost would be a little less.

Cons:

The only downside I can see to this system for cruisers is the need of additional storage space for a number of different sails and the additional cost of those sails. But your boat will sail better with sails matched to the prevailing conditions.

Conclusion:

If you want your boat to sail at her optimum and maybe do some club racing or just want to enjoy a nice light air day, this is an excellent system to consider. Even though todays furlers are miles ahead of the ones of yesterday shit still happens. I believe this system is safer and more reliable.

I would like to thank Erik Precourt for is co-operation and valuble insight into making this rig work.

Cheers,

Gary

Next…the standing rigging!!

Hi all,

Took Shanti for a little shake down sail yesterday afternoon.

Observations:

Had to use the furling line to unfurl the sail. I could not unfurl it with the sheet. This is quit secure, but a bit more work as I have to control sheet and furling line at the same time.

 Even with the 1200# of tension on the setup, it furled in easy enough. But for some reason would only furl to the clew. Had to ease the halyard off a little to get some sheet wrapped around the furled sail.

 I will need to change the outhaul line for the traveler. There is more pressure transfered to it than I had hoped. It stretches to much. So the whole rig ends up sitting back a little more than I want.

 The new Lewmar bronze winch is gorgeous and works a treat! With friction in the setup, it is hard to get the full 1200# I planned on. I am seeing a little more sag than I would like, but only a little. Maybe if I eat my spinach I can get 1200#. The true test will be today as I race this afternoon. Then I will see how she how close to the wind she sails. didn’t do much tacking to weather yesterday to see.

Now for what you all have been waiting for…more pics!

under sail, sail unfurled

The setup

Control lines for traveler

Furling line belayed back by the cockpit

Cool little fairleads from Classic Marine, UK. Bronze and lignum vitae.

Detail of traveler and furler

Furled sail, nice and tidey. No dead bodies rolled up in it.

Detail

Closer detail of Precourt furler. Very small, but rated at 3000# SWL and up to a 450sqft sail.

Just the traveler is eased here, not the halyard.

Ready to drop on deck and stow or change

Shanti with her new hairdo ...shes such a girl!

Yes, I know I need to do something for anchor/mooring lines. I don’t have an extra hole at the lower part of the cranse iron for a block to run them through.  An it’s very difficult to free drill stainless steel.  hmmm, working on that one.

That’s all for now…maybe a will get some more racing tonight, but I may have my hands full with a green crew. Will report back on the weatherly performance.

Cheers,  Gary

Hi everyone,

A bit of an update on my furling system for those interested.

I have finally received all the bits and pieces I need to finish off my new furling system ( I think! ). 

1) Sail has been modified with Dyneema torque rope w/ an extra layer of heavy Dacron on the luff.  The extra layer was recommended by Erik Precourt. Erik also spliced up the torque rope for me. Although it is not hard to do ( I will have instructions sometime in the future ).

2) Code zero type furler From Precourt rigging. This is a small unit rated at 3000lb SWF and about the size of the palm of your hand, for the lower unit. The unit is rated for up to 450sqft of sail.

My furler is all black. Bottom part is carbon fiber. I used a length of 5/16 3 strand for the furling line.

 3) Low stretch high tech halyard XLS EXTRA T made by Samson http://www.samsonrope.com/index.cfm?rope=225 . Purchased from Defender marine as they had the best price, even better than Port Supply (West Marines wholesale division). Bought 115 feet for a 2 part halyard.

4) Some nice lignum vitae/bronze fairleads ( From Classic Marine in UK ) for the control line to the bowsprit traveler. And a couple of Herreshoff cleats for belaying the traveler control line and the furling line.

5) Small blocks for leading furling line aft to cockpit.

6) All bronze #16 Lewmar ST winch. With this winch and the 2 part halyard I should be able to get about 1200lbs on the jib luff for good performance to weather.

Some concerns I have:

1) The furler will not work well under the 1200lbs of load. May have to back of the halyard a touch to furl. We’ll see.

2) At 1200lbs the load may distort the bowsprit traveler. We’ll see.

3) What the evolution will be like to hoist the jib or headsail. Do I have to be off the wind, or can I do it into the wind. We’ll see.

Sunday a couple of friends of mine will help me set everything up. Most is done now, but the headstay has to be moved at the mast head to accommodate the 2 part halyard. Hopefully we will be sailing by Sunday afternoon.

I’ll let you know and have some pics…stay tuned!

Gary

Mini UPDATE:

Well I didn’t get a chance to take Shanti out sailing on Sunday. But I did get up the mast with the use of an ATN Topclimber. Monday I finished everything up and hoisted/furled the jib. so here are some observations.

ATN Topclimber. I moved my boat off it’s mooring and motored over to a little cove called Honeymoon Bay. I did this because where I am anchored is a bit rollie. But dinghy wakes gave me a problem anyway while in Honeymoon. It’s amazing how some people just don’t pay attention! I only had one individual slow down when he saw me up the mast. Everybody else was full tilt boogie as the passed and waked Shanti. The problem I found with the ATN was you need both hands to use it. So you don’t have anything to steady yourself against the wakes/rigging. So I found out the hard way that you need a really flat sea condition and no wakes to work aloft with an ATN Topclimber. I have bruises from being slammed into the rigging by wakes. It’s also a slow climb, but fairly easy. Coming down is harder than going up.

Furler. It’s works fine, but is not an “easy” pull to furl under the ~1200# tension. But it is sweet being so small. I need to sail and furl a few times in different conditions for a final analysis. It does furl nicely though. The “torque rope” for the luff worked very well and is the key to making the system work. Thanks Erik!

Jib traveler. I cranked up the halyard as tight as possible giving me a calculated 1200# tension on the luff of the sail. The ring did not distort! yaaaa!

I hoisted the sail while on the mooring, so I was dead into the wind ( about 8 kts ). I had to guide the sail a bit to keep the upper unit from banging the mast. It was easy though.

More to come. It looks good so far.

Gary