Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Progress, of a sort



I put in another three hours today, in breeze of 10-15 knts. Plan C is just about complete, i.e., I'm about where I was last October. Even with my kludgey mainfoil and sloppy rudder (in its rudder box) I managed to pull off three foiling jibes, so my second cassette seems to have solved some problems. Unfortunately, I also found that occasionally I'm having a noticeable lee helm, so tomorrow will see slightly shorter shrouds and more rake.

I'm making progress on the new rudder. The pic above shows the geometry of the new gantry and strut. To complete it I'm just waiting on a new foil from Bora. There's also been no word yet from John Ilett about my new FC gen3 foil, but I expect it any day now.

Once the new bits go under the boat I'm sure things will start to come together. As for now, I'm just blindly muddling through the various combinations of controls and adjustments. It sure would be much easier to be sailing in company of other mothies. As it is, I'm alone and time's running short because the boat gets packed up in about 10 days.

Here's Pinhead Gunpowder



I walk Alone, by Aaron Elliott (aka Aaron Cometbus) in 1997

I walk a crooked twisting path
That seems to be leading nowhere
I lead a loner's life
Not what I meant to do
I do what seemed to be
The right thing at one time
But now that time has passed
And I'm the last one
Walking down this path
I walk along the same old streets
Where we used to meet by chance
But now there's not one familiar face
There's not one knowing glance
There's just my memory
A problem that I seem to have
Is not being able to appreciate
Or understand
The present until it's past
And so it goes
Away

2 comments:

Phil Stevenson said...

Joe,
Lee helm can also be a symptom of you sitting too far aft and carrying too much weight on the rudder foil.
When healed to windward the rudder vertical starts to carry some of this weight and that in turn feels like lee helm on your end of the tiller.
Sitting forward also requires more decallage between tha main and aft foil, which also requires the main foil to fly at highter AOA to carry a higher proportion of the total load, but it slao make sthe boat climb to windward better at the expense of top speed. So you need to crank in some bow down trim at the windward mark and move the body further aft, flying both foils at a lower AOA for higher speed and less drag.
Thats my take, I would love to hear another version form some of the guys who go fater than me.

Joe Bousquet said...

Phil:

Sitting too far aft may have contributed to the lee helm. The scenario is the bow rising (and my wand is pulled clear of the water, causing max up flap) but before the lift on the mainfoil was decreased to lower the bow, the nose was blown to leeward.

Moving forward would decrease lift, often to the point where the boat would drop off its foils. Again, wind was ~10 knots, with the stronger puffs of ~14 causing the lee helm.

I'm expecting a professionally built mainfoil will solve some of the problems, once I get the set-up dialed in correctly. In the meantime, it'll be sliding fore and aft on the rail. I am sitting forward off the wind.

Joe