Monday, September 15, 2008

Re-inventing the Wheel

I timed myself yesterday on how long it took to rig up from pulling into the parking lot to getting afloat: 30 minutes. Too long for me, so I'm looking at things I can change to cut the time down. One thing that came to mind was the way I have the cunningham set up. I have a 2-1 hook and pulley arrangement that cascades to a 4-1 purchase for a total of 8-1 (discounting friction.) But, to get the hook in the sail I need to preload the luff tension requiring running the cunny just to the cringle and a free block a couple of times, loading it up, placing the hook, pulling out the line then re-running it through the blocks. I'm thinking of switching to the BR system with the triple on the sail and a double on the mast. I'll lose a bit of purchase but gain effeciency in rigging (I'm figuring at least a couple of minutes, maybe more.)

I'm sure when developing the "standard" BR set-up, AMAC and Rohan worked through the possibilities and came to the 6-1 system as the best trade-off in purchase and rigging ease. My re-invention of the wheel was more cumbersome to say the least. So, I'm switching the cunny and re-using my beefy hook to replace the clew hook that blew up on my outhaul. I've thought about just tying the clew down, but I like the efficiency of just placing in the clew cringle a tied down hook with pre-run outhaul purchase.

Where else can I save a bit of time in rigging? I've thought of a fas-pin to hold the rudder in its cassette, to replace my bolt and wingnut, but that switch just seems to be costly in terms of the $$$ spent for a too little gain in time. The most tedious is certainly rigging the sail with its camber inducers. Does anyone have any suggestions on speeding up that process, considering I'm rigging alone?

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