I will take some pictures thie weekend ... old track removed , new track attaches to the center of the rear beam and arcs out and attaches to the tramp tubes ( Nacra ) ..works amazing .. will post pics on Monday night
Track was ordered from local marine store ..

Sail trim in YT video was poor because the main wasn't sheeted in enough, not because it needed a curved traveller, although the curve is nice. I'm sheeted down hard in my vid - the wrinkles are because I don't have the downhaul enough on. I am looking up at it and mentally bewailing that issue as we were sailing along... and we're both way too far back on the boat, but then I'd never really sailed the boat with another person aboard. It being a singlehander and all ;-)


My main, which is most excellent, was built by Jay Glaser when he was at Ullman, and Charlie Ogletree was kind enough to measure/weigh my boat as a service as the Ullman rep. I would now be torn in telling you whom to go for a sail, in that Ogletree is now still with Ullman and Glaser is now on his own...

Tami , is your 18sq a NACRA ?? are you using the standard mast ? and agreed , the curved traveler would not have helped him one bit ... LOL ...

Yes, my Sq is a NACRA.

The mast in the video isn't an original Square mast. It's a stock aluminum 5.5uni mast that I've added a foot to. That said, though, you could prebend an original 'bendy' Square mast - just tighten the diamonds.

Charlie suggested I go with a prebent rig so I ended up with the 5.5U mast, it just worked out that way. I did, before the pictured sail, have a Kevlar Elliot-Pattison main with my original bendy rig. Which I had added a foot to that mast as well - it is a common modification for the old Squares. That is, to have a sail built that's higher-aspect than the old pinhead main, thus you need to add the mast height.

The bendy-rig Kevlar main wasn't as high-aspect as this 'new' Ullman main is, although it was higher-aspect than my 30' luff pinhead Dacron main. (I keep saying 'main' like there's another sail in question. Duh, that's what I get for buying a trimaran. Too many sails.)

LOL ... I'm still sailing on the old pin head dacron main .... still its a real fast boat .... But one must always want to go faster !!!!!! Do you add to the top of the mast ???? I bought a 34 foot Sori wing section a number of years ago from John L ... maybe I should put that on ..... but I was saving it for a Formula-20 sq trimaran project ....
what trimaran did you buy ???

Nacra SQ,
The Sori is a nice lightweight for an aluminium mast.
We had the Sori masts back in the 80s. As this was before the square top main sails the masts were tapered. Had they invented square tops there would have been no need back then to taper the mast. Just wondering if your Sori is tapered?

Regards,
Phill

Add to top of mast. Use a section of another mast for a sleeve between the mast and the addition.

34' is a bit tall. I'd hold off for the 18sq unless you're going to be in light airs.

I have an F-27GS trimaran.

Hey Phil , my Sori section is not tapered .. and its a virgin stick , not a hole in it yet !! I bought it to us as a plug to build carbon masts over .

The F-27 is great boat .. I sail on my friends Dragonfly 25 thats been re-rigged with sq top and sceacher on the bowsprit !! total blast doing 20 plus knots in a boat 19 feet wide ..

Hello Square sailors,

we have 7 nacra 18 sqares at our yacht club

Catergory 2.

2 of them are sailing new skip elliott square top sails

see attached pic

Scott

Another pic of squaretop

Nice looking sail !!!!! any chance anyone has an old sq top for sale ???? Which club are these sailing at ??

That looks like Lake Norman Yacht Club in North Cackalackie.

Curved Traveler pics added ...

The orange one that went to Houston was (largely) destroyed while (by?) being doublehanded by a 190-lber and a 6ft 6 225 lber (on the wire of course) in 15-20 and Galveston Bay chop. The main beam is broken, the port hull is holed, and the starboard hull broke in half at the daggerboard trunk. It's sitting on a trailer in my yard; I bought it because I coveted the rig and the curved traveller.

Thanks for the details. That boat won a couple of 18 sq. NA's and at the time was a real experiment in construction. Many said the plywood/honeycomb/plywood sandwich would never hold up. I guess 20 years of sailing isn't too bad. The mast was a Nacra 5.2 with a tapered carbon tip. Did it survive?
I'd like to see an 18 square with the new LR2-ACAT hulls.

Here's a link to Tilley's tilting trailer design

http://www.thebeachcats.com/index.php?module=pictures&g2_itemId=11313

Here's pix of what I've seen in curved travellers, this is why I say, that traveller looks small to me. Every other one I've seen goes the width of the beam. How well do you find yours works? Are you seeing mast-rotation pressure at the outboard ends of travel? How is your leech tension?

The short track is really only about 4" shorter in travel than the straight track on the rear beam set up ( via. the arc. ) .. it works amazing .. leech tension is great , sail control is perfect playing the traveller and the downhaul ... a great improvement over the standard set up , mast rotates nicely ..the boat tacks without having to release mainsheet tension as on some other cats .. this all may change if I try a newer sail ... but for now it works awesome ... and I'm really happy with it ...

Tami:

Like the new Avatar!!! That you in your younger days?

Doug

frogs on squares

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xadyiN8seIY&feature=related