Hi everyone, am in the midst of working out all the little niggles on my new viper and just had a few questions I was hoping you guys might be able to help me with.

1. What size mainsail halyard are you guys using? I currently have a 6mm halyard but find it hard to get the sail to hook on, and if it does hook on, I find it hard to get it down after that.

2. What do you do to make it easier to snuff the spinnaker? I find that my spinnaker bunches at the opening of the chute and it gets pretty hard from there on to snuff it into the spin sock.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much in advance.

Dont have a Viper so the systems are most likely different..
I suggest you send off a note to AHPC for advice..

best of luck *s*

6mm is a lot thicker than you need for a main halyard. Is this what came with the boat?

There is a good thread in the main forum about kite retrieval lines etc.

4mm plain dyneema. Works well and doesn't seem to wear down any parts. It may feel thin when the sail is very hard to raise up the mast, but that probably means you have to clean out the sail track or clean/smooth the luff rope anyway.

I'm not think about changing this halyard for a thicker one, Have been using this exact halyard ever since 2004. It chaffed on me only once at the very end.





-1- good technique (quick full pulls in the beginning)
-2- a small spacer line between the top patch and the others about 200-300 mm long.

-3- Some also use a lubicant but I never have.


Best of luck.

Wouter

Grab me at the club next time you see me there. Can run through and check over things for you. Otherwise Scotty and Alice should be able to help if they are around.

Since mast is new it should be clean. May be a case of luff curve not quite fitting the mast, but easiest to check on location. Have you compared to the other Vips? And the standard rope supplied is rather thick, 4mm is good. Not sure if Constant Wind would have any dyneema, may have to order in.

And for spinny drops, the spacer between top point to first loop should be around a foot. This spreads out the lump making it easier to douse. Shouldn't need to lube up.

hey everyone thanks for the advice. Yes, I got the feeling that the 6mm halyard was a little thick for the ring. Will go and get myself some 4mm dyneema, which I too feel like it works better.

TaipanFC, yes, Scott and Alice are helping me with the boat, but these are really small problems that I didn't want to bother them with. Thanks for the offer. I'll change the halyard and if things don't improve, i'll definitely need your help.

Will let you guys know how the boat run once things get sorted. Ahhh the joys of a new boat.

The spinnaker gets easier with time, the fabric starts out pretty stiff. As others have mentioned, put a spacer in your retrieval line so that all the patches aren't entering at the same time.
Is the halyard diameter the real source of the problem? Consider your halyard ring and how the line/knots are oriented. Be consistent on how you connect it to the main. While unhooking are you forcing the mast to rotate?

I want to make sure I understand this spacer line. You attach one each to each of the 3 attachment points for retrieval. Are these 3 then attached to the retrieval line so when you pull it resembles something like a parachute?

Ok, thanks to all the advice. I changed my halyward to 4mm dyneema and now the sail hooks an unhooks like a charm. We're sending feedback to the factory to let them know that 6mm on the main halyard is too thick.

Now on to the spacer on the spinnaker, yes, i'm curious too as to how the lines should run.

Anyway, was out sailing today in 6-10 knots of breeze and the boats sailed like a charm. Am actually surprised how fast the viper gets powered up and flies a hull. I have a strong feeling the volume in the hulls help it to fly earlier.

Dropped the rake a bit further back and the boat now tracks better.

The spi downhaul/retrival line is passed through a plastic loop which is attached to a thin line to the bottom two spi patches (in my case, others may differ slightly) The end of the downhaul is tied off directly to the top spi patch. The idea is that when you douse the spi the top, middle and bottom spi patches don't all meet at the snuffer mouth at the same time which can be difficult to pull through the mouth. Therefore, the thin cord between the patches and downhaul helps spread the patches apart making it easier for the spi to go through the snuffer mouth. You might be able to make this out in the attached photo.

Thanks for the advice on the spacer line. Need to go try that one out. I couldn't really make out from the image, but are there knots in the retrieval line between the spacer lines?

No knots, the spacer lines are approx 200-250mm long. One end tied to the spi patch and the other tied to a plastic loop 25mm dia. The spi downhaul/retrieval line passes through each of the loops and is tied off directly to the top spi patch.

It works best to space out from the bottom up with the lines. This spreads out the patches more consistantly, but it extends the length of the snuffed spin. Most socks are pre-set for the supplied spin patch spacing, so you have to do it like on Mark's. If you are setting up the system from scratch, or have an extra long sock, go opposite.

Also watch going to too small of a halyard line. On the Superwing masts, we found that when we had a 4mm line and after a windy day where we ran max down haul, small bits of the halyard line slipped out of the mast groove. These bits of stangled line made it impossible to get the main down without flipping the boat and pulling it out by hand. We run 5mm now and it has not happened since.

hey Mark and Matt, thanks for the advice. will go give the setup a try.

Took the viper out for another sail today and found out I needed to understand the jib better. The last boat I had was a taipan 4.9 with an old style jib. Trimming the new style F16 self tacking jib has turned out to be trickier than I expected, so was hoping you guys might be able to answer some of my questions

1. The jib track controls the angle of the jib while the jib sheet control the twist. Is that a correct belief?

2. Is it possible for the self tacking jib to back wind the main since it doesn't overlap?

3. Where do I put the jib car going upwind? I normally put it around 10cm in from the edge of the track. Is this right? Is the jib car setting something that you guys adjust a lot on an upwind leg of a windward leeward race course?

Any info would be really appreciated. Thanks so much

I would not know about the specifics of the Viper, but getting the jib right is very important even for a selftacking rig.
Both the setting of the car and the sheet helps determine best angle of attack for the jib. We always looked at the two in combination as oversheeting and undersheeting is very easy while the perfect trim is hard to keep. The good news is that you can probably get away with three or at most four settings for the jib car. Very low wind, low wind, medium and strong winds. At least we did, and it is a very common way to do it. Hopefully some of the other Viper guys would know the "class standard" settings. Or perhaps we could get some values from the different boats and sailcuts? Usually these are measured from the center of the track as the tracks might vary in length between designs.

Not entirely. For the jib you have 4 controls although not everybody considers the luff tension to be a control. Anyway in addition to luff tension, you can and must set :

-1- position of the traveller car
-2- position of the shackle to the clew plate jib
-3- tension in the jib sheet.

All three combine to give you a particular draft, twist profile and angle of attack of the jib. Change one and you'll probably have to change another as well or accept sailing with a sub optimal jib for a while.

Typically you trim and tune the jib for upwind work and take what you get on the reach. On the downwind you are flying your spinnaker and then the jib is pretty unimportant and more often then not the upwind setting with a little less tight sheet is pretty good then.




Yes.

The jin CLOTH may not overlap but the flow coming of the jib still does.





That is something you must find out for yourself given the brand of your jib and boat. Not much prior experience here yet (Viper + Goodall jib). Personally I don't adjust the jib car position after I leave the beach. I set it is the right ball park on the beach and that is how I'll sail. I certainly won't adjust this setting when switching from upwind to downwind and back as I want the optimal setting for upwind back when passing through the gate. I simply takes to much time to reset car properly and even then you hope you have remembered it right.

Wouter

thanks Wouter, will try and find the right settings for the jib. but it's good to get an idea from you guys as to what to do with the jib

Found that the jibs on the Viper are found wanting in design. Really really sensitive to sheet tension. Too much and thing stalls out, too little and it has no leech tension.

These jibs are very high aspect will always be tricky to get right. Main thing is that correct set up in one set of conditions doesn't apply to all. Need to keep adjusting or changing gears.

Do you have an extra control line for the position of the jib car? With my setup the position of the jib car depends on the jib sheet tension.