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F32 Gun Mount line clarification

Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2018 11:13 am
by JohnReinagel
I am going to be comleting the rigging for my gun mount later today or tomorrow, everything is pretty straight forward except for the way the retreival line should be run. Does it run on the forward (bow) side of the spin or the rear (stern) side of it? My thought is the forward side, my reason is it seems it would be less of a struggle dousing the sail working with the wind as oppoesed to against it. Thanks for any insight offered.

Re: F32 Gun Mount line clarification

Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 8:34 am
by Grimsby_Alan
Hi John, Have you seen this one............
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc1-AsMX8uQ

Re: F32 Gun Mount line clarification

Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 8:38 am
by Grimsby_Alan
Also this..........
http://freedomyachts.org/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=8551

Let me know how it works out. I have my lines run but have not attached the spinnaker yet. My sleeve is rather "Holey" and I'm not sure if it will work or need to be replaced before using the spinnaker.

Re: F32 Gun Mount line clarification

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2018 2:55 pm
by JohnReinagel
Hey Alan,

Thanks but yes I've read/seen those. Rick's writeup mentiones that he has tried both ways so I was hoping for some input from others who had a preference and as to why. I ended up setting it up with the line to the stern side of the spin. With little wind the sail goes into the water fairly quickly, with a stiffer breeze I was able to retreive it a couple of times and almost kept it dry both times. The biggest issue I ran into was with the sock which luckily looks brand new so should hopefully not be part of the issue itself. At first I tied it to the upper lifeline due to the sandpaper...er I mean non-skid paint that was put on my deck (it really is like fresh 80 grit sandpaper) but due to it being high the angles on trying to pull the sail in were too sharp and I did not have the mouth tied open properly. I fixed the mouth issue and tied the sock to the toe rail and made certain it was taught as to allow the spin to slide in with little resistance. I ran into a couple of snags as Rick details in his write up (which is very thorough and was very kind to share to everyone, thanks Rick!). Other than those I have been able to retreive about 85% of the sail at best so far. That amount has been plenty to keep the sail under control and the rest takes one minute forward to finish the task. It seems that when the sail is about 8' from being completely in the sock I am unable to pull the retreival line any futher and I cannot figure out why. It seems most of the pressure is from the halyard, yet when I go forward it is almost as free to pull as the tack lines are so I am uncertain. Each attempt is getting better however.

As for the sailing performance, breeze was 8-9 mph, dead downwind I only saw a small increase of speed (dropped camber spar) but once you put the breeze slightly off astern performance increases nicely. With the breeze at 120 off the bow I was hitting 6.5 plus and control was perfect, even otto had no issues steering. I'm sure as I continue to learn about it I will have even better gains, but I can already tell that it will make a stern wind something I might want to find rather than avoid now.

Let me know how it goes for you once you do try it, and good luck.