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Oliver Shaw
ModeratorI am not entirely clear what holes you mean; can you post photos, please?
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorVery interesting points about the “new” sails.
However I do wonder whether they fully conform with Rule 11-6(c)(xi); it appears to me that they may not!
I have long retired from racing, so I no longer have any sort of vested interest, but it does seem to be worth asking Technical & Rules Committee whether they are happy with this development.
The dominant policy question for them is of course deciding the right balance between the one-design principle, to create a level playing field for racing, and keeping the class up to date and relevant to today’s racers. And that can sometimes be a difficult balancing act.
I will try to remember to raise it as a query at January’s Committee meeting.
Oliver
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This reply was modified 7 years ago by
Oliver Shaw. Reason: Correction to a Rule number
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorIndeed, yes; the bolt rope may well have shrunk. Thanks, Chris, for pointing this out; and slapped wrists for myself for failing to think of this possibility! It is of course so very much easier if one can actually see the boat in the flesh!
It is easily put right by a sailmaker, as Chris says. If the bolt rope has indeed shrunk it will be immediately obvious when the sail is pulled out straight, because the luff will be rucked up along the bolt rope, and this problem may or may not extend the full length of the luff. And when hoisted and tensioned, even at maximum reasonable tension, there will be horizontal creases from the luff, which again may or may not extend all the way up the sail.
However I stand by my comments about the photo which Dave linked to; that does not appear to be the result of a shrunken bolt rope.
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorThe sail in that photo looks to me like a deliberate attempt to bend the rules, defining the length of the luff by the tack cringle, but then having a significant area of sail below the luff.
That may be within the letter of the rule – indeed I thought at first that it probably was – but it is hardly within the spirit of it.
However, now looking at the Rules, my personal interpretation is that it is very probably in breach of 11-6(c)(xi) – the requirement that both the luff and the foot shall be contained within the length of their respective spar grooves. In the photo a significant length of sail edge below the tack cringle – a bit arguable whether it is luff or foot – is in the open air, not contained in either spar groove.
I am no longer an active racer, but if I am right it is perhaps something which Committee may like to look at, and perhaps tighten up the rule.
Now that I am back on Committee I might raise it at next month’s meeting, and see whether the racers are happy with that arrangement …
Oliver
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This reply was modified 7 years ago by
Oliver Shaw. Reason: Update with reference to Class Rule 6(c)(xi)
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This reply was modified 7 years ago by
Oliver Shaw.
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This reply was modified 7 years ago by
Oliver Shaw.
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This reply was modified 7 years ago by
Oliver Shaw. Reason: Correction to Rule number
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorFor what it is worth – and please forgive me if I am telling you what you already know – if you hoist the head of the main to the underside of the upper black band, with the boom off the gooseneck, then it should pull down onto the gooseneck (with a moderate amount of effort), and that should coincide with the “bottom of the luff of the sail” being level with the upper edge of the lower black band. However I am not entirely clear how the “bottom of the luff” is defined; I think it is most probably the bearing edge of the tack cringle, which is easily measured by the height of the pin in the boom end, but in that case why doesn’t the rule say that? Alternatively it might just possibly be the bolt rope (not directly accessible when the sail is set, so unlikely), or perhaps the upper face of the boom.
I would be less concerned about the clew, provided that the discrepancy is not desperately large.
i.e. the system should work, and work without the problems which you describe. So there does appear to be something wrong.
If the boom won’t pull down as described above, first check visually that the head is not hoisted above the lower edge of the upper black band.
If that is OK, that suggests that the sail may be under-size. In that case, a sensible next step is to take the sail off the boat, lay it flat on the ground (or other suitable surface), put tension on all three cringles, and measure its dimensions. You will find the maximum permitted dimensions in the Class Rules (on this site).
If the sail measures up, and you still can’t make it fit the mast, double check the measurements of the position of your black bands!
Beyond that it is difficult to diagnose without examining the boat in the flesh.
Hope this is at least some help.
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorThere are actually two separate parameters, which it is sometimes easy to confuse because they can seem to be interrelated; the length of the shrouds, and the tension in them. They are in fact largely independent, although with the modern high load rig there is some degree of interaction between the two (but only because steel is an elastic material – albeit with an inordinately high Young modulus – so the wire stretches, very slightly).
The tension when ready for sailing, but in zero wind, is essentially the same as the tension in the headsail (jib or genoa) luff, and is determined by the tension you apply to the headsail halliard. (Because the angles aren’t identical those tensions are not quite equal, but there is a fixed ratio between them; so they vary in exact proportion, and for our present purposes you can consider them as being essentially the same.) That tension is then modified by wind loading when you are actually sailing.
The length of the shrouds, not the tension, determines the amount of mast rake. So in practice that needs to be set first; with the modern rig (bendy spars and high rig tensions) it needs to be set with the desired amount of pre-bend, but with vintage boats we don’t need to go quite there. Then, and only then, is the tension applied, by tensioning the headsail halliard.
Having the shrouds (i.e. the entire rig) just tight enough to prevent the leeward shroud going slack is entirely a matter of how much tension you apply to the halliard, and it has nothing to do with the adjustment of the length of the shrouds.
Hope this helps,
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorBe aware that the early GRP boats had occasional issues of structural strength, and there have been occasional cases of chain plates pulling out of the hull. Although uncommon, that is a risk to be aware of in the context of your stress cracks. If the stress cracks are in that area, reinforce it heavily.
What I don’t know is whether on those boats the chain plates are screwed into hardwood (or even plywood) pads bonded into the fibreglass; certainly that method of construction has been used on some GRP boats, and not only GP14s, and there have recently been some well publicised cases of failure in such construction on the Speed GP14s (much more recent than your one). If it appears that that is the method of construction on your boat, and others may well be able to shed light on this point, it is a relatively straightforward repair to grind away the GRP until the wood is exposed, then replace the wood (using marine hardwood, nothing less), and then laminate up again. But if you are in luck you won’t need to do that!
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorMy oldest sailing friend did a stunning restoration on an early GRP GP14, and he painted her with Toplac. This is an International Paints product, and is a top of the range conventional yacht enamel, available from any good yacht or dinghy chandler. I have used it myself on wooden boats, and have also had superb results from it.
The top of the range product, provided you are painting direct onto bare GRP (with no previous paint of unknown type) is 2-pot, most usually found in the form of 2-pot polyurethane. But that is much more expensive, and more troublesome to apply.
On my trailer-sailer yacht I have used Epifanes Monourethane on the deck and cabin, and am well pleased with both the way it went on and with the end result. That is a sort of half-way house between Toplac and a two-pot paint, and it seems to be more successful than the one-pot polyurethanes of 50 years ago, which was the point at which I decided that the technology offered the limitations of both with the benefits of neither! The technology seems to have advanced considerably in the last 50 years, as one would hope it would have done.
In either case you will need to prepare the surface, and you may need to apply a primer and an undercoat.
If you are right about the cracks being stress cracks they will have weakened the hull, so they need proper repair. The official dictum is to grind out the damage, and laminate up new GRP, using marine epoxy resin (NOT, repeat not, polyester, even though that is what she was originally built with). The big problem with polyester resin is adhesion; it does not adhere well to most substrates, even including cured polyester. It is fine as a building material (although epoxy is both lighter and stronger), provided it is always applied wet on wet, completing the entire lamination in one go.
However if the damage is only very local, my own thinking is that an alternative might be – depending on the location – to first reinforce on the inside, by laminating on additional layers of GRP, here again using epoxy, to provide the required strength and rigidity irrespective of the damage to the original laminate. Then you can simply grind out the cracks, and fill them. That may well be the easier route.
Good luck.
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorSince you have no spreaders my expectation is that you have either a wooden mast or one of the first generation metal masts (almost certainly in that case either IYE (gold anodised) or Proctor (silver anodised)). This also ties in with your earlier post saying that you have inherited the boat, and the implication that she is an elderly boat, what some might call vintage: indeed if she is old enough I myself might call her vintage, and that would be with a great deal of respect!
There are tuning guides available in the Members’ Library, but they are all aimed at the modern rig, with bendy spars, and high rig tensions. My purely personal view is that these are of limited use for your rig.
What I myself would do is to set up the mast in the gate, with the gate closed, and then attach the shrouds. If you are using rigging screws (which is quite likely on a boat of this age, although that is not an invariable rule), now set them up hand tight, and lock them. As a purely temporary arrangement, use the locknuts provided, but once you have done your experimenting (see later), and are satisfied with the final adjustment, secure them with monel seizing wire (readily available from all good yacht chandlers) in order to prevent them unscrewing.
If you are using other types of adjuster, set them JUST FRACTIONALLY too tight to engage without first easing the mast back a little (open the gate for this), then secure the shrouds, push the mast back into the gate, and close the gate.
Then, and only then, attach the forestay.
The forestay serves very little purpose most of the time, but it is a vitally important purpose nonetheless; it is there to support the mast when you have no headsail set. And in the original thinking for the rig, in common with normal practice at the time (the boat was designed in 1949), it also serves as a guide to the luff of the jib or genoa, which is hanked onto the forestay; it helps to keep the sail on the deck and out of the water while hoisting or lowering, and it gives additional support to the luff when hoisted in order to prevent it sagging away to leeward. With modern rig tensions this last is redundant, because the luff tension is far greater than the forestay tension; normally on a modern boat the headsail is not even hanked onto the forestay, and the forestay goes slack when the sail is hoisted and the luff is tensioned.
Once that is done, at your convenience (and it is now getting a little late in the year for many of us) take her out for a sail and see how she handles. In particular, how is the helm balanced, and how well does she go to windward?
My guess is that this setting will be about right, but if you start racing her you will find that you want to tweak the mast rake slightly. Rake it just a little aft (i.e. tighten the shrouds) if you feel that (when sailed absolutely upright) she does not perform to windward quite as well as she should but goes well off the wind, and has a natural tendency to turn away from the wind (i.e. she carries slight lee helm). Conversely the reverse; rake it just a little foreward (i.e. ease the shrouds) if you feel that (when sailed absolutely upright) she goes very well to windward but less well off the wind AND tends to turn into the wind (i.e. she carries weather helm).
This final stage is all a matter of experimenting, over an extended period; and I know nothing about your sailing skills. In order to do it effectively, it is easiest if you have reasonable racing skills, and if you hone her in race competition with other GP14s whose helmsmen have a comparable level of skill. If that is not viable, or if you don’t yet have that level of skill, don’t hesitate to ask an experienced member of your club to take the boat out with you, to evaluate the rig balance and advise you.
One final point; I have referred in passing to modern rig tensions. Do not attempt to generate modern rig tensions on an older Series 1 boat unless she has been specifically adapted to handle them, by having the approved mast step conversion fitted. Otherwise you risk serious structural damage, which at worst could – at least metaphorically – push the mast out of the bottom of the boat. Modern tensions are vastly greater than the boat was designed to support, because in 1949 no-one ever envisaged such rig tensions being applied. If your boat is fitted with the original type of fittings, or even such tensioning devices as a toothed rack (across the halliard) or a Highfield lever, you will be fine; you can safely apply as much tension as you can generate by hand. But modern “muscle boxes”, and powerful cascade tackles, are a big no-no unless you first do the mast step conversion.
Oliver
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This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by
Oliver Shaw.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by
Oliver Shaw.
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorNorman,
Thanks for that; however I think you mean the Measurement Form page 4B, with the references which you then quote, rather than the Class Rules. Both are on this site.
Regards,
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorMaurice,
Steve White is probably the most relevant the guru on early GRP boats, and certainly he has rebuilt the mast step for at least one of them.
I hope to get down to the club tomorrow, and may be able to photograph and take measurements from an early boat (probably Mk 2), but I am not sure that this is a great deal of help to you, since there is no guarantee that anything on that boat will necessarily be still original and correct! We all know that it is a block (wooden in the Mark 1 or 2 boats, GRP for many of the mark 3 boats) with a rectangular (approx square) mortise approx. 3″ square, sitting just ahead of the centreboard case, but I gather that you want more precise details than that.
I presume that there is some good reason why you cannot just take the dimensions and location from the old one before you remove it?
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorIf you can hold fire for a few days, I think on reflection that there may be a Mk 2 boat at my sailing club. If so, I will have a look at her floorboards, if of course she still has them(!), and photograph them for you.
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorRoy’s other great claim to fame is an answer he reportedly gave to a question at the Boat Show (or perhaps the Dinghy Show) in about 1990.
He was asked how long a GP14 would last.
“I’ve no idea”, said Roy, “the design’s only forty years old!”
And the follow-up to that is that the design is now approaching seventy years old, and some of the very first boats are still sailing …
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
Moderator> … you really know your stuff!
Credit for the detail on the history of the hull really lies with Roy Nettleship, a past President of the Association, who wrote the definitive guide. Most of what I wrote above is merely borrowing from Roy’s document.
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorBefore you do anything about an outboard motor, whether electric or otherwise, you might like to read my paper on Fitting an Outboard. There are pros and cons, and there are also issues of how to mount it.
Personally I have always found oars a sufficient alternative means of propulsion, but that is not necessarily the right answer for everyone.
This paper should be available in the Members’ Area.
Oliver
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This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by
Oliver Shaw. Reason: Typo
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This reply was modified 7 years ago by
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