Remember the accidental ‘flyaway’ jib on an IOM a few months back? I’ve been thinking about it at great length. Problem is that where we are not using cat rigs, we are designing for quite thick ‘free floating’ carbon tube forestays so that forestay sag is independent of mast bend.
We were thinking of using strutted forestays with spreaders and shrouds, but experiments (ours and others’) suggest that this is an unneccessary complication.
So if the forestay is man enough to stand straight on its own, how do we get it to ‘fly away’? We need to push on it at one end to bend it. Making his happen at deck level is compley - definitely fine engineering. So why not a massive change in mast rake?
Actually, Angus, it has been in the back of my mind too. But, I don’t see it as difficult. especially if you use a rotating mast. If you had a drum mounted on the mast, say below deck, that would hold your jib line. When your mast rotated to a downwind position theline would slacken and your jib would fly and, of course, it would tighten when it is before the wind. The size of the drum would dictate how much line you would have to let out.
Just an idea, don’t know if it would even work
Bob
OK, here is another one
Might be a little more controversial. We are allowed to servos and two channels, but this should not stop us from using a switching circuit. By this I mean that at the end of the sail servo travel the servo could trip a switch mechanically to make something else work. Now, in the case of a fly away spinnaker this could operate an electromagnet system or a small motor with a drum on it. Either would not be difficult, but would use up battery power.
Bob
i was gonna suggest something where the sail arm pulled a chute up when you eased the main… but then you have a chute, with now ability to trim it… almost worse than no chute at all!:rolleyes:
I’m a little late into this, but. Since the intention is to rake he mast forward to either slacken, or in the case of the carbon tube, bend the forestay, why not some kind of mast ram linked to the sail servo. Mast fixed but able to rotate slightly at deck level and a lever to pull the foot back at the step attached to the servo, instaed of a fixed step a trough or channel for the foot. Tight forestay whenn main is in, some forestay sag when reaching (opens the slot) and lots of sag on a run. I’m trying this on my una rig Footy, mostly because as an ex Laser sailor I like to drop the rig forward downwind and sail by the lee. This heels the boat to windward a little and improves hull speed but gets a bit ‘hairy’ as the breeze pipes up.
Yeah. I think something like that’s going to be pretty much essentia; on one of Barrett’s M505s. It’s the only way to keep[ yhe boat under the rig downwinf without movable ballast.
Any of them - at least if you take what I mean to be ‘symetrically under’. And there’s only one person who’s going tp interpret that:he works on a far bigger scale than you or me!