Hey, congratulations on finding the love of your life and my sincere best wishes for the future!

Dont forget to take care of yourself in the middle of marriage, building your home etc.

Congrats on the marriage! As a "survivor" of 22+ years of marriage, I can say, enjoy it now! Put a jelly bean in a jar every time you...

OK, back to the Center Sheeting thing, I have a question.

Someone who has this and has used it quite a bit, please talk me through a tack. I do not really like my mainsheet coming off the rear beam as to trim it from the wire you have to bend, twist and pull across your body with your front hand, not good for my old back. I have seen some center sheeting set-ups on A cats and thought about it, but on a tack (or gybe) you will be facing backwards passing the tiller stick behind the blocks while your butt is pointed at the mainsheet, so how do you cross it over, behind your back, while you are on your hands and knees looking aft? The only good thing about having the mainsheet on the aft beam is that it's right there with the traveler and tiller so when you tack or gybe you can see what's going on back there and try to maintain some control. I wonder what's going on behind you if your center mainsheet comes uncleted while you are crossing under and you can't see it because it's behind you.

And then there is the spinnaker sheets to get hung up on the mainsheet clete if it's in the center of the tramp, that's not going to help you gybe the kite fast.

Can't speak from center sheeting experience, but I have been working on tacking on gybing without facing the back beam.
On port tack for example, sheet in left hand, tiller in right. Helm gets pushed over, and as you move to center of the boat the sheet gets eased and you flop the tiller over, now holding the crossbar/tiller slightly past the blocks. Now as you complete your "roll tack" release your right hand and regrab the tiller. Move forward (facing forward). The left hand is sheeting in Main and the right has the tiller. Do a counter-clockwise pivot, placing your right hand/tiller behind your back. Now do the hand swap, final sheet/course trimming.
I can picture this working with the center sheeting, as I walk through it. Go ahead, get up from your computer and walk through the tack. Focus on keeping your eyes forward.

It is much the same gybing, the eyes can be forward. I tend to just set the tiller down on the far hull as I gybe so that I can grab the lazy spin sheet as I cross and hand over hand it in.

But this could all be cr*p. With the new handicap, lake racing against a monohull fleet, I have dropped 10 positions. I need to find approximately 5 minutes a race.

I have sort of raised an issue which I discovered when trying centre boom sheeting, which nobody has really replied on. That of the problem of the angle of the sheet from the centre point to your hand when wiring from close to the front beam, it hits the side stay and forces you to pull the sheet around the stay or drop in and pull the sheet through in front of the stay. The position of the sheet is so comfortable though that it is worth trying to work a solution on.

If possible could someone post a picture of a center sheeting setup. The only one I have seen was on a Capricorn and it did not even have a cleat. I assume the A cats must use a cleat.

Your assumption is wrong. The A cat I've seen with central sheeting didn't have any cleat anywhere.

Firstly Centre sheeting (Sorry if I'm re-covering somethings but this is how we (AHPC) do it):
We have been putting these onto Aclass, Taipans, Tornadoes F18s and F16s for the better part of, well forever, so we have it down to a fine art.

1/ Connecting to clew of sail; this really isn't an issue as the main sheet is attached in the exact same fashion regardless of the system. That is with a loop of webbing/dyneema through the shackle on the main sheet block around the boom and through the clew of the sail. The outhaul either attaches to the clew or the loop.

2/ Usually you need to go to a larger boom section due the the central loading of the boom.

3/4/ Our tramps are reinforced, you never pull the block out. The tramp will rise up a little but the material (chickpea) has a little stretch and has absolutely no effect on performance.

Using it;
Cleat;
A what?? I have never used a cleat in the main and never will... oh and most of the A guys don't. One up sailing with a kite I guess you have to, so you'll just have to single ratchet with a cleat (http://www.ronstan.com.au/marine5/product.asp?ProdNo=RF46121)

Tacking / Gybing is done just the the dingies boys do. Move into the centre, without turning either direction. As you pass through the eye of the tack, flick the tiller around the back and catch it in the same hand and move to the new windward. Get the boat moving, yourself in position and then swap the tiller and main sheet into the correct hand . The trick is that you complete the second part of the tack "back handed", sounds tricky but have a look at how the laser guys do it.

There is one more thing to consider for centre sheeting, that is if you have a crew that takes the sheet, they can take it through the tack. We have been doing this for the past 5 years and it is clearly faster, it simple shares the workload of tacking the boat. The only issue is that the crew needs to pass the sheet around the back of the centre block during the tack to avoid the sheet getting twisted up.

It's worth noting that I had this conversation with allot of very interested top F18 sailors at the world titles this year including Cohen (the world Champion), but my conclusions is "try it, if it works for you keep it".

Sorry if that is long winded but I've tried to cover all the common questions.

Oh and Re the actual thread... Clearly I'm going to say Viper but as long as you'r on the water, keeping the class strong and going fast I can't complain.

While you can do it no problem, even single I have found I did not like the sheet connecting to the tramp as it was but another obstacle keeping me from getting to the other side. (I have enough hinderances just with lines wrapping around my extremities and tillers hooking through my jacket or croakies)

I have not run it on the 16, but on the A class we rigged up a lot of center sheet systems running off the boom. It is done basically the same but uses the Ronstan pivot lead block with a cleat.. RF62175. It uses the same sail connections and can easily be run as an 8 or 9:1. I would use a bigger boom diameter due to the loads, but otherwise there are no hardware/boat mods to be made.

On the A the center sheet really made it nice down wind. I was going back and forth between boats and I am much more used to the rear mounted system, and being comfortable is more important to going fast.


It does not matter your poll not working as you left a lot of choices off the list anyway. For my vote I would have to say Falcon obvoiusly...

Just came across a center sheeting systems for those of you interested: http://www.f18worlds2009.com/244, picture 4 of 71.

Gill

Say ahhh how much weight difference are we talking about?

What is the minimum weight for the boat? Is there a crew weight minimun?

Minimum weight for F16s is 240 lbs. There is no minimum crew weight, but they must be able to right the boat.

1.3 Boat weight
The minimum weight of the boat ready to sail, excluding non-permanently fitted wings, is fixed at:

1.3.1 Singlehanded mode (cat rigged with gennaker): 104 kg (= 230 lbs),

1.3.2 Doublehanded mode (sloop rigged with gennaker): 107 kg (= 236 lbs).


1.9 Minimum weight of the crew

1.9.1 There will be no other restrictions on crew weight apart from the requirement that the crew weight must be sufficient to right the boat unaided under all encountered sailing conditions.

F16 Box Rule

oops.

Matt,
I was looking at the picture on your site of the Falcon with the 9 to 1 sheet. How do you rig that? It looks like a washer on the side of the blocks, with the sheet tied through it. Thanks.

Si. An additional 40 on the becket of the lower block and just run the tail through the standard quad upper with a knot to tie it off. The washer just makes a smaller hole so the knot does not pull through. If I had a bigger dia sheet I would probably not need it.

M