Hello to all, and to all an apology in advance for not posting in Danish.
Of course I’ve been meaning to post for quite some time, but Ole has taken care of introductions and passed on my emails. Rini was involved in absentia- but no more.
We have a problem with our rig. Ole suggested contacting the former owner (Henry) with questions, which I have done, but alas with no reply. The basic facts are this:
– There has been an increase in friction on the jib halyard, which one can feel while raising or lowering the jib.
– The increased friction has been demonstrated by the near complete destruction of the block on which the halyard runs, at the top of the mast.
– The block has been destroyed AGAIN, and within the short time since we replaced it on Bornholm, which was early June of this season. We sailed all of last season and much of this season (april to june) without needing a replacement.
– The only changes we have made to the parts of the rig that might have impacted this has simply been to re-orient the backstay, however, no additional blocks or pulleys were added, and so no additional force should have been introduced into the system.
Right now the near-term remedy seems to be to relieve all back-stay tension while raising or lowering the jib, causing less friction from the forestay, which is causing the wear by pressing against both the block and the halyard. This is essentially okay, and we can work to remedy the problem by either replacing the block with a smaller diameter, or by adding a pin to the area just below the stay, above the block, to keep them from interfering. But any real changes will probably be left until after this season ends.
The real question or concern is what could have caused this? Should we be worried that our stays are stretching drastically? I wonder if we should shorten the length of the forestay (via the turnbuckle) to change the angle at which the stay leaves the top of the mast. Or perhaps reseat the mast to change the angle? Of course doing either of those could cause lee helm.
For illustration, and surely artistic appreciation, I’m attaching two pictures. The first is the setup while I am lifting the forestay out of place with my hand, the second is with the stay as it sits naturally, but with NO tension on the backstay:
Here’s a third one just for fun, the feet are mine, Gilles, the proud co-owner is pictured below:
Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated!
Thanks and hope to post more often,
ben
Thanks for the advice, I will try to check out the Rig page you mention and translate it with google or gramtrans.com. The top of the mast is in no way damaged, but I think a small change during the winter is in order. Regarding the back-stay reconfiguration, I changed ours to fit the diagrams of Per, having the backstay attached in only two places to the hull, making it easier to reach the outboard engine with necessary.I have yet to measure the angle of the mast, but at the very least it looks to be good and straight while looking up the track, and the baby-stays (lower shrouds) are of similar tension and not too tight. Henry actually made internal improvements to the boat by attaching cables from the stay attachment points, inside the cabin, and leading down to the “bulkheads”. Perhaps I should take pictures for the benefit of the group? When we purchased Rini, Henry mentioned that he made the improvement because he could see the “ruftag” moving too much in heavy winds.In other news, Henry wrote me back!From his email:”Well, about the jib haleyard. I don’t remember the problem from earlier. However I usually did not tighten up the backstay unless I sail close to the wind. Usually it has been fairly loose – in weather not very rough close to actually be very loose – when we start sailing, which maybe is why I haven’t experienced this problem. So my standard procedure have been to loosen the backstay when in harbour, I just give it enough for the backstay to hold the mast whtn we take off. When the jib and mainsail is up, I tighten the backstay at the moment when filling the sails in a course close to the wind. I have not done it this way because of the problem you have realized, however, doing this procedure might have prevented me from experiencing a problem I was not aware of 🙂
I don’t think that you will obtain a much better angle by shortening the forestay ( try eventually to do the triangle calc), and on the bad side is that you will change the sail centre so that the boat will change its ability to sail close to the wind.”So, it seems that a loose fore-stay, even perhaps “very loose” is okay, which alleviates a bit of concern. I think we may have over time been more and more firm with the back-stay tension, and have been putting too much pressure on the wheel & halyard in general. We have been sailing the past few weeks with loose backstay and have not seen any detriment. In higher winds of course we tighten the backstay quite tight to flatten the sail, but as the halyard isn’t moving during these times there is no wear.I did work out the angle calculations for the case if I tightened the vantskrue 2cm or even more, and the angles all stayed the same except when figured to 3 decimal place. Makes sense of course.So- we have modified our procedures for raising and lowering the jib, and for now the problem is solved through that.On with more questions! I guess I’ll post regular posts rather than keep writing on and on in a single comment, but we’re curious about two things- 1) Pointing to the wind, how close can people get? and 2) Heaving-to, can anyone heave-to in their Drabant?Thanks again, ben
Wonderful picture from the mast-top. Incredible height, though only 8 meters, isn’t it?
I have tried to study your pictures and description of the problem. But I don’t see a clear solution.
As far as I understan, – the block at the top of ther mast is destroyed because there is a friction between the jib-halyard and the forestay. That is you have to pull very hard to raise the jib, I guess, – so hard that the block is destroyed. In danish that would mean that ‘fokkefaldet og forstaget går i bekneb med kinanden og ødelægger derved blokken på mastetoppen når fokken sættes’, I also guess.
1) Your mast-top could be defect some how. However that doesn’t seem to be the case according to your description and picture? So I assume some how that everything is in good shape..
2) I’m not sure what you actually mean when you write that you have ‘re-oriented’ the backstay? How is that?
3) The most probable solution, – as I(!!) read your description is (I’m sorry to suggest it, but we have to make sure, that it’s not the problem, if it’s not 🙂 ) that your trimming of the mast is out of adjustment. I get suspicious because you write that the problem seem to disappear as soon as you loosen the back-stay. This should mean that your fore-stay has not at all been tightened?
And you also suggest tightening the fore-stay turnbuckle (I assume that means ‘vantskrue’ in danish, that is the ‘vant-skrue’ used til fasten the ‘forstag’). Have you tried?
Actually Brian Terp made a description of the mast-trim and it’s on the ‘Rig’-page of http://www.drabant22.dk, – however in danish. His recommendation is that the mast should be exactly upright in an angle of 90 degrees when the back-stay is loose and the forestay (and baby-stays) are tightened to a fairly ”tight’ situation.
What about your front and rear baby-stays, would they be correctly trimmed.
Sorry for asking silly questions.
And surely I’m not the best to answer, so I hope somebody else will help. We had a recent discussion about rig-tension, – and I think the generel recommendation is that the rig of a D22 should not be to ‘tightly’ fastened, that is the tension should not be too high, – else causing damages on the ‘ruftag’ (roof of the cabin and the mast-support below the roof) (I don’t know the english words).
Good luck.. 🙂