Progression of some rig settings from regatta to regatta. Here is what I have planned for this weekend.

Karl,
We have a regatta this weekend also.
Since i am the only FX out this week end I will be racing with the Tiger fleet. We have 11 Tigers signed up and me on my FX One.
Will be interesting to see where i place in the fleet.
Make a note of your rigg settings and i will do the same. I am beginning to get an idea of where to set the boat up.

Last event I went with,(using a Loose LPT-1 guage)
Shrouds 15
Diamond wires 33
Spreader rake at 50mm
Mast rake-third hole down on fore stay(10 hole adjuster) and fouth hole up on shrouds.
The boat definitely performs beter when I increased the diamond tension a few months ago.

This weekend I am going with,
Shrouds ??
Diamond wires 38
Spreader rake at 50mm
Mast rake-2nd hole on fore stay and third hole up on shrouds.

I am trying alitle more mast rake because the helm is neutral or slight lee.
The sail shape seems to get better each time i increase the diamond tension. I'm sure there is an optimal position and soon i will probably pass it.

Oh one other thing, I tried the FX with my Tiger(F18) spin on Monday. It was 4-7, mostly light air. Any way it did not handle well. Very sluggish, somthing with the cut of the sail probably. Had to try it though.


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Ya beat me to it.

Adjusted the rake on the spreader bars to 2-3/4" and cranked the diamond wires back down to about where they were previously. The wind for Saturday looks at this point to be perfect. Running down the lenght of the lake at 10-15mph with the current. So really flat.

Just a note, those purple adjusters for the spreaders on my boat were just about seized up. Luckily a friend left all his tools at my house when he moved to Cali a couple of years ago. He has a VERY nice set of Snap-On taps & dies. I had to run a tap up both of the purple adjusters, and run a die down both of the rods. I'm never buying a salt water boat again.

For your notes, the threads are 6.0mm - 1.0 mm pitch.


I'll swipe someone's Loos gauge and make note of the settings.

I didn't get a chance to use a Loos gauge on the diamond wires. I'm the event chair for our Fleet's regatta and just didn't have the time. I really shouldn't even be sailing in my own event. Too much to do.

Conditions were semi gusty, and really shifty. At times I would be driving straight up to A-mark only to get knocked 30 degrees shortly later.

How high do you fly a hull with the chute up? It could have been the conditions but it seemed there is a sweet spot with only a few inches of the windward rudder in the water. And holy hell does it run fast and deep with it up like that!

We ran a semi open class. Basically a class for all the bastard boats in the fleet. i.e. a H17 w/ chute, 18SX w/ squaretop, and my boat. I managed to be ahead by who crossed the line first, but had it been handicapped I would've gotten my butt handed to me.

Sometime you gotta try this boat with wings. I haven't been trapping out with the chute up, just sitting on the wing. The last race today it really picked up. I was sitting all the way back where the back of the wing extends past the transom and it was still burying the bows frequently.

I also learned I can right my boat with a bag! I didn't drop the main traveller while dousing and the boat rounded up while I was dealing with some poor house keeping. Over she went, and straight into turtle. Which also taught me to keep it sheeted but dump the traveller and the boat rounds up on its own slowly while dousing. By the time the spinnaker is tucked away yank in the traveller while getting out on the wire and go.

I really need to get more racing in. I don't learn enough poking around the lake without marks, and other boats to gauge progress and screw ups.

If you are using the spreader arms that I think you are using then the salt was not a very large factor in this.

The proctor spreader arms use a stainless steel thread inside a aluminum bus. Those two materials will corrode in a Galvanic sense even when no kathelist like salt is present. This is always much more of a problem with threaded connections then say rivetted connections and the opening between the threads and the bus is just so small. Even a small sand grain can jam up a thread.

I found that the oxide formed can be broken down quite easily when heating the fitting in water or even submerge it in warm vinegar.

This may be worth a try.

But anyway, my main point is that it will happen again and there is nothing you can do about it apart from creasing up the threads really good before assembling, with waterproof crease or just replacing the turnbuckles with stainless/stainless. The first option only slows the creation of oxide down, only the second solution is a real solution.

Good luck !

Wouter

I greased the snot out of everything with synthetic grease when I put it back together. I'm pretty sure that the rod is stainless and the other part is aluminum. The aluminum is anodized, can stainless be anodized? I don't know.

Yep that is what I'm thinking.





No.

But remember that anodising is basically nothing more then artificially creating an extra thick layer of Alu-oxide on the surface of alu. The alu oxide is both hard and very compact, as such it delays or stops further oxidation. Sadly this is not enough to stop galvanic corrosion or to prevent threads to seize up under galvanic corrosion.

Of course stainless is iron based and rust (iron oxide) is neither hard or "compact" and will not delay further corrosion by any significantly amount. It may even accellerate is by retaining water in the pores.

Anyway what I really wanted to say here is that anodising is not a surface treatment to removes or prevents oxidising (rusting); in fact it IS oxidizing where we are lucky enough that Alu-oxide has such properties that further oxidation is much delayed. Steel is very different and the oxidating because of having these two material make contact is therefor also different. This can still be acceptible when riveting; the rivets will only sits more tightly, but for threads that need to be adjusted now and then this is not acceptible.


I feel that the company selling these spreader arms (and I have the same setup) has made an mistake in combining stainless steel threads with alu busses.

Wouter

I thought you were thinking the aluminum part was stainless as well.

Removing the arm would have meant removing the stainless part would have meant removing a special rivet, or at least a revit that I don't have and I don't commonly see. The threads were so corroded that I was concerned I was going to break the one side getting it apart.

Just something else to monitor and clean once a year..