overdraft

If you're prepared to bend those Ronstan fittings and attempt to keep the alignment then you might as well bend your new eyes in the same fashion as the boat was rigged originally... I TOTALLY get that it looks ghetto (or ratchet or whatever we're saying these days) but there have been a ton of boats rigged that way over the years and I believe as sketchy as it looks that it's a sound method. Not to say it couldn't be improved... change to t-balls is the obvious choice... but this may be a situation where it's tempting to overthink it.

hey, it's a 16ksb (on a good day!)

Definitely thought about this. The floating tack system when drawn tight consumes about an inch and that's what lifts the foot off the deck. The difficulty is that I'm already at the front of my tracks and whereas floating the tack an inch moves me back onto the useful part of the track a jib cunningham will move the jib car position forward, possibly beyond where I can move the car. obviously when I get my next jib I can correct this, but in the meantime...

ya, long story... the boat has a hanked jib and the sail needs more tension than you can get by hand so you've got to put it on the winch every lap which is time consuming. In order to speed up the leeward marks I've put a tackle on the tack so now I just hand hoist to the mark on the halyard and then pull the tack down with the tackle to get my target tension. It's making the bottom corners way smoother and allowing us to keep the kite flying for a few extra boatlengths so it feels like a good move, but not if I'm losing 10 boatlengths on the beats.

So if I raise the tack of my jib and it's no longer touching the deck, but instead has a 1" gap, how much speed and/ or point am I losing now that I've lost the 'end plate effect'? Are we talking I'm going to look over the stern to see if I've picked up kelp, or more like in a side by side test over a mile course I'll lose 5 boatlengths? 24' frac rig 100% jib... Thanks for your thoughts!

thanks for the info mr. crocodile! I see you’re in Australia... haven’t seen anything like what you’re describing in North America... local clubs running golf handicaps, yes, but nothing formal. what sort of fleet size would you think it woild take for either of those systems to be viable?

i’m keen to hear more about this adjustable rating concept... PHRF takes ages to get a rating change in this neck of the woods anyway, certainly not a time frame within the context of a single series, and all the would-be rival systems pride themselves in being measurement based... maybe it’s some high level pro thing in which case ya, scrap the discards AND the dynamic rating system. if you’re at the club level I agree with sunseeker that it’s an attendance contest. I came in second one season in SV Cup... i was a mid pack rider at best... some would say grid filler... but I was one of the few guys that were prepaerd to race a motorcycle in the rain so I just got more points than many of the faster riders. So I guess it just depends what your objective is... figure out the best program? who are the the guys with the least life ouside sailing? encourage participation?

yup, I do. and i also have a thought and an opinion.

fast is fun and getting there first means the best mooring/anchorage, better chance of beating the weather, clawing your way off a lee shore when the motor packs it in?

In practice it's no worse than any other of 1,000 stainless to alloy interfaces on the average boat... your gooseneck is probably attached without insulators... the bales the OP was talking about deleting would have been the same, vang, reefing, outhaul fittings all likely even worse with the stainless fasteners tapped right into the aluminum. If you wanted to make it perfect you could just put nylon washers under the head of the machine screw and between the inside of the boom and the top of the straps, but again, since we haven't broken the anodizing this is really down the list of things to insulate imho...

ive used them a lot and ya, they don’t hold up like stainless, but they’re no worse than other soft solutions and cheap as chips so periodic replacement is reasonable

Better yet! I'm an ACCOUNTANT!!!

OH NOOOOOooooooo....... i thought it was a lightening hole! hehe... yes, in an abundance of caution mentioning that it is a cutaway diagram not the final product may be a good idea, although if someone actually executed it like that.... well, i doubt they'd have the reading skills to comprehend your caution!

ya Melges 24... people use the 57mm plain with swl 792# to turn the spin sheets no problem, but the ratchets are understandably lower strength. gonna be just fine with dinghies... the OP looks like he might be a viper guy, so keelboat but not as loaded as an M24...

I tried the regular 57 ratchamatics on my Melges and blew them up pretty much immediately... If you're using them for similar loads to that then unless they upped the swl on these from the originals beware...