And how were the diamond wire tension and prebend changed ?

That info would complete the picture

Wouter

Tim, you miss my point. Matt was consulted by Jake and Kevin extensively before the first mast was even assembled. The mast on Matt's boat was measured carefully. They went off and did a pow-wow and came back with numbers that were then applied to the new masts. A great deal of thought appeared to go into this process, and each mast was set, changed, and then changed again. I assume, because it makes sense and I have been in Jake's shoes, that Matt's personal mast settings were taken as an extreme. Same is true of the mast rake. Rudder rake was factory pre-set and not adjustable.

I did not have a problem with the jib on the spreaders - not once. That has much to do with how you set the rotation limiter. My opinion is that the jib can hit the spreaders no matter what the mast and spreader rake setting. We found the boat to be really happy with the limiter set to where the sheeted-in jib was about an inch off the spreader. As breeze came up, we first increased the slot by moving the jib car out (not quite to the max) and then limiting mast rotation more and more, which is a critical setting on this boat.

So - you are off base, my friend, in asserting that Matt's advice was not taken somehow. For next year, I'll bet the trophy that is sitting in my living room that the same process will be followed - plus there is a pretty well-researched tuning guide already out for the Capricorn that will likely be used.

Remember - this event is about getting boatspeed out a possibly unfamiliar platform, and having consistency from boat to boat as the teams move through the rotation. You are taking misconceptions on your part, assuming them to be fact, and making conclusions. Perhaps if you were present to see the process (volunteer?), it might seem less opaque to you.

Again - glad you made it out to spectate.

There is a range of settings on every boat for any given weight range and wind range. We worked hard to hit the middle of that range based on polling different people and my experience. I made the decisions on where to set the spreader rake - which is a setting that I change on all of my boats for different weights I may sail at. The spreader rake for a 240 lb team is not going to be the same ideal spreader rake for a 310 lb team - I tried to hit the middle.

Same goes for mast rake. As far as the feel of the boat goes - if there was a setting that negatively affected it, it was probably largely due to mast rake. We had the masts standing up quite a bit because we did not anticipate 16 to 20 knots of breeze for the majority of the week.

There was no way possible to take Matt's settings and use them universally on the fleet - weight ranges were all over the place. I tried to get some good information for what the available range of each setting was and hit the middle on all of them.

Funny, I never heard one complaint about boat setup on the beach but I was getting weary of the complaints I was receiving about judicial decisions (usually from people that were not fully informed). I'm beginning to get weary of this here now.

In this tangent I copy some sailor reports about the Alter Cup as found on the forum at www.1design.net

The links to these www.1design.net threads are :

http://www.adventureonline.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=987

http://www.adventureonline.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=986

See the reply postings for the actual individual report copies.

Wouter

Source : http://www.adventureonline.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=987

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 8:53 pm Post subject: ***Blade 16 simply a good boat***


***Blade 16 simply a good boat***

<img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> The Blade 16 by VectorWorksMarine in Titusville is simply a good and well-made boat. There really are no complaints any different from what had been in essence said about the Inter (Nacra) 20 or Capricorn or Nacra F18, etc, etc when they first came out. At the end of the day of racing in the recent Alter Cup, speaking for Carla Scheifer and myself, all competitors genuinely liked the boat. Even in winds as high as 18-20 when she and I raced a local yacht club regatta, the boat handled well....ofcourse we sailed very carefully too, I would not recommend racing in that wind speed if you can avoid it.

The Blade 16 definately has "staying" power, and is versitle enough that a wide range of ages and weights of sailors can compete on her for either gender. The boat has very surprising upwind speed and WILL give a Nacra 20 a run for its money, plus it makes for a good option on distance races certainly in the 25-45 mile range for sure.

I highly recommend anyone or any family considering a good, well-made technologically advanced and cost effective catamaran consider the Blade 16...Matt McDonald at VectorWorksMarine did a fine job. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />


Mark Herendeen
_________________
Mark Herendeen
SpaceCoastSailCampaign.com
USA 850
321-863-4426

Source : http://www.adventureonline.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=986

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 9:20 pm Post subject:



Timbo - good seeing you there, bud. Glad we entertained.

Upwind regatta, all the way. Everyone seemed to be taking it easy on the downwind legs, with only a couple of teams trying to trap out. It was really lumpy with the fresh SE breeze, and too light once the breeze laid down and the chop flattened.

The trip up to A was awe-inspiring - boat was planing. I told JC once, after he asked how we were doing, that we only had the prop in the water. The wing mast and new daggers make the Blade a pointing machine, but with a sail plan of that size, it seemed that pinching was death. We saw Tomko short-tack the A-pin more than once only to fall back through our jib window - JC overstood everything and the acceleration was exhilarating (wheeeeeeeee!).

I’ve seen speculation elsewhere and heard on the beach that JC was vulnerable in lighter airs. I wish we’d had the chance to address that question on the race course. We took a fourth in a lighter race that saw 30-degree shifts (RC-recorded – I’m not guessing). It was nuts how fast positions were changing constantly in each leg. About 2/3rds of the way through the race, we decided to stop trying to do our own thing – we got lucky that Johnny and Katie tried to cover after we sailed a mere 20-yards into a bad shift and dropped three boats on left-side flyers (where the heck did they come from?!). We glued ourselves to the Lovell’s line and shopped their transoms for the remainder of a loooong race (Modified Course 9; Start-A-C-A-C-A-C-finish upwind). Ask some of the hotshots how easy it was to get flushed in that race. JC did the smartest thing he could have in abandoning his pride and not going for a bullet in iffy wind. By sticking close to the second-place guy, he saved his week. Lovell tried to put a boat or two between us, but he couldn't do that and still effectively cover - our positions remained unchanged and both teams took it as a throw.

There were some spectacular stuffs out there – I’m told that Roy caught one of ours and I sincerely hope he did. We buried it and JC went flying forward – ‘chute was off and I even uncleated the jib – we were on our nose for what seemed like an hour. I finally realized that Casey was in front of me and mostly submerged. I managed to climb the hill and uncleat the main – the boat sat down and leapt forward again. JC just reached up, snagged a shroud and swung back onto the boat as it shot past him, a la Spiderman. Tomko said he saw the stuff developing and just wrote us off as swimmers - he was only slightly more surprised than we were that we saved it and kept on rocking. That was our very first downwind leg – we started laughing then and just didn’t stop for the rest of the week.
_________________
John Williams
Capricorn USA 70




Eyewitness responses to JC and John's stuffing :



Robi:

John, funny that you posted that. We witnessed it from roughly 500 yards away. You guys pretty much broached huh? It was crazy, you were flying a yellow spinny, and this happened on the first day.

Yeah, that was very cool!



Terry Back :

Yep,

Everyone on the spectator boat said "pitchpole"! The spi' was flogging and next thing you know the Blade flattened out and rocked-on.

Awesome job JW/JC.



Timbo :

JW, that was an amazing recovery, we all thought you were toast! (wet toast) I was thinking there would be much more of that type thing with no foot straps. But after talking to Matt, he said when it's blowing like that, it's much faster to stay on the tramp and go deeeep.

Question, did you guys pull the boards up prior to that stuff? From where we were watching it looked like only about half the teams were pulling the boards up.

For those who were not there to see them, the new Blade daggers are much longer and skinny. They look a lot like Inter 20 boards, but are much lighter, being foam and carbon.

As you can see in that picture on the Catsailor forum, the boat has PLENTY of volume in the hulls, especially in the aft sections.



John Williams reply to question of Timbo :

Tim,

Never touched the boards - it just didn't feel like we were tripping on them at all, upwind or down. And it seems like they're built very well to take the speed and pressure we put on them. The up-hual needs to be looked at a little - I saw that some people had ripped the small fairleads off the deck. Maybe longer screws or a backing plate?

j

Source : http://www.adventureonline.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=986

Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 3:04 pm Post subject:




I thought the best part was sailing them in big breeze, they are a lot of fun! Its a fine line downwind in deciding how much to push vs. the stuff factor, but they sailed really well. Upwind if you get your weight back you can really skip off the back of the hulls, really fun!

I wonder about how much trickier they would be in more chop. With the wind direction we had a fair about of fetch, but the Melbourne intracoastal chop is nothing compared to the Tampa area steep, nasty rollers they get. I think that would be even more interesting to try.

Matt, Jake, and Kevin did a great job in getting the boats ready and keeping them running. A number of teams were not used to the crab pots being in the way, and with the speeds we were running, the boards took a bit of a beating when snagged.

Biggest points for me:

Upwind - Dont pinch, dont pinch, dont pinch. And if I may quote Chuck, "Brian, stop pinching".

Downwind - Matter of how conservative to run.


Congrats to JC and JW. Awesome performance again.

[quote
Tim, you miss my point. Matt was consulted by Jake and Kevin extensively before the first mast was even assembled. The mast on Matt's boat was measured carefully. They went off and did a pow-wow and came back with numbers that were then applied to the new masts. [/quote]

The purpose of what this event is supposed to be about was upheld to the extreme. Jake and Kevin did an awsome job of organizing, coordinating and making this thing come off. All the boats were the same and moving from platform to platform I could not tell any difference. With very limited exception everyone getting on these boats were new to them. My hats are off to the guys who immediately got on and figured out how to make them go very fast. Being it was an unfamilliar boat to almost all, it was probably a more true Alter cup judge than a platform that some of the people may have sailed for years.

The F16 is not for every condition or everybody. In talking to the other competitors, I do believe that it supprised quite a few for the better. It is not a light weight team platform, especialy in how it was rigged.

Jake and Keven did consult with me about settings. When we went to pick up the second load of boats, they measured the mast on the spare boat. This was NOT my mast and had been set to the extreme opposite of how I set up mine, based on the reccomendations of Jay and Pease Glaser. They then made their settings even more drastic from this mast. The end result gave a mast with no pre-bend and prevented the controls (downhaul and rotation) from having very much effect in tuning the sails.

Again, my comments are not about anything to relative to this event. Big winds and waves are not a problem, but it is about what you want your sailing experience to be. If your goal is to do big offshore distance stuff, you could do it, but it would be a much more comfortable ride on a 20. For ME (read not everyone else) this makes for one of the better buoy and fun sailing boats.

John, that mast rotation causing the jib on spreader thing is something I was wondering about as well. Obviously you can do it wrong and have trouble, so like the broken mast, was it more operator error causing the jib to hit the spreaders or were the crews not rotating the mast correctly? Since you guys had no problems I would think the ones who did have problems didn't do it right.

Can you tell us what caused the mast to fail? When did that happen? Was the boat upright and racing or was it on it's side with the mast stuck in the sand?

Jake, no disrespect, as I am not aware of what goes into getting all the masts set the same, I know it is a huge job.

JW, I would much rather volunteer to help than take my 4 kids to yet another horse show, but that's where I was on Both weekends. You have only one kid, I never did, I started with twins, and then she wanted 2 more! So although I would love to volunteer more, and sail more, as you know, wife and kids seem to prevent that most of the time. I was lucky to get that one day to watch!

I admit that I was not aware that mast was not setup as per your settings...that would have changed my decision on spreader rake.

Gary:

Ashleigh has a REAL good attitude and a real trouper. She has 7 years of sailing, two years of trap time and is learning to helm now. Does not get scared if hull goes high as attached photo shows with a friend of mine on a 16.

Question:

When racing one up on Blade (or other F-16), do you race with just the main, or main and spinnaker? I bought a Mystere 4,3 to learn spinnaker on till I can get the Blade.


P.S. How about all the experts after all this get together and do a tuning guide for the newbies considering gettting one while it is fresh in everyones memory. You had a lot of different wind conditions and would really help.

Doug

Main + spinnaker

Tback:

Thanks. So it was real good I bought this little boat to learn spinnaker on before I get the Blade in 2008. Think it wll have a carbon mast by then?

Doug

Doug,

I think you could sail this boat solo at 230lbs and do just fine. The boat is very powered up.

Don't even worry about the carbon mast. This boat has an awesome aluminum wing mast. It's very light and yet durable. I was very impressed. I would not spend the money on a carbon mast for this boat.

Mike Hill
www.stlouiscats.com

Here an overview of the Alter Cup crew weights distribution.

John initially wrote this in another thread :

http://www.catsailor.com/forums/sho...umber=106518&page=0&vc=1

Team Layline referred to would probably be Peter Nelson and Mike Krantz (overall 11th)




For any metric system sailors out there.

285 lbs = 129 kg
360 lbs = 163 kg
310 lbs = 140 kg

340-350 lbs = 154 - 163 kg

Wouter

Both scenarios should be fine. In fact, I've even raced with my 10 yr old, although I had to hoist the spin

In regards to jibs and spreaders: Jake set the spreader rakes after discussing it with Matt, I set the diamond wires to what Jake and I had agreed on. On practice day one jib got about a 5 inch rip poked in it. This sailed was patched by a local loft with dacron sail tape. I made dacron patches for the remaining jibs the following morning and the competitors were warned to be aware of this issue, Matt suggested that the jib really should be sheeted inside the spreader ends. On the 3rd (last) day of racing one jib was poked thru very similar to the first incident. This is the extent of the damage to the jibs.

Doug,
When sailing one up you fly both the main and spinnaker.
It is a real fun boat two up and a real adrenaline trip,
if you want to sail it on the edge, one up with the kite flying. Just the best fun you can have.....

Anyone sailing with a youngster should consider teaching them to steer the boat.
That way they are fully involved and fully committed to making the thing go.(and they get just as upset if the crew fouls up and cost them time).

The most enjoyable sailing that I have done was when my youngest son steered. Started him steering at around 8.
He would rib me for weeks if I stuffed up and it cost him in a race. Really good fun type of light hearted banter.

With the self tacking jib you can work the mainsail upwind and the spinnaker down.

Like Gary said with double ratchets you can also put them up front or swap around during the course of the race or outing.

It is quite versatile, you're not stuck in one mode of operation. You can change for conditions or just your mood and still enjoy yourself.
If you haven't done so already you should take one for a sail so you can check what I'm saying out for yourself.

Regards,
Phill

Phil:

What I have done on the 4.3 is tie a figure 8 in end of spin sheets. I have a cleat on each side of rear crossbar. Spin blocks are mounted on the corners of the crossbar (Ronstans). When wind picks up I am going to grab figure 8 and put it cleat. That will gieve me a doubler, without to much resistance. Do you think this would work on Blade? I was told a doubler would make popping chute hard. I have yet to fly it. So just going by what I was told.

As for helming I have already done some. When racing in the Wednesday nights. Rudder would not go down on one side on 17. I gave up on race and went to end of lake. Gave the helm to Ashleigh and told her to watch TeloCat and keep it under vane arm. To push and pull. Half way back she said "PAW PAW, I can feel it. I don't have to look anymore"!!! She will be a natural with a little time.

Thanks for the advice. I can wait to get a Blade!!

Doug

I always thought stop knots in the spinnaker sheets was bad juju. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />