David,
I must admit that I've tried this "clip it to the shroud" option on my prindles and they have some robust shroud chainplates. I had no problems with them. The Taipan chainplates may well be less robust.
I wil be faced with the same problem in a few months. So I've started thinking about it. One option is to fit an eyestrap directly onto the hull just in front of the chainplate. You can use a small rod or something to reinforce the inside with just bolt or screw the eyestrap to the rod on the inside of the hull. Your footbands are fitted to the hull in much the same way although they only use washers on the inside.
An alternative would be use a three block sheeting setup See drawing attached to the post ! click on attachement on teh left hand side. Red is the 3 block setup and gray lines are the old current setup.
This setup adds another micro block to the trampoline or alu profile in the gunwhale that hold the trampoline.
This micros block should be directly in line with the shround and the clew of the spinaker. Now it is this block that is taking up all the load and the microblock at the shroud is only there the deflect the sheet by a few degrees. Result is that the block at the shroud now only experiences a much much smaller force than before and mainly in the upward direct in which the chainplate was designed to take load.
Personally I'm thinking the place my ratched blocks to the trampoline in this manner and have only micronblocks with springs fitted to both my shroud and mainbeam. This setup allows me to make a almost full 180 degree turnaround my ratched block (=holding power) and in the wildthing procedure the ratched block is right under the crew on the leeward hull so he can switch the ratched on and off easily.
Maybe this is a better setup on the Taipans which the given chainplates. Also when still using an eyestrap, this eyestrap can easily be fitted to the hull in the properplace for your spi coz in this setup the eyestrap is only experiencing minimal loads and reinforcements will not be that important anymore I think.
>>about having a sail built, but for those of us that already have sails is it possible to get the design dimension from pole end to sheet location from Goodall?
That would be very smart. Bear in mind that length of pole plays a big role here. So you might also improve the spi by adjusting the pole length (but not past the F16 rules ofcourse)
>>Practice, practice, practice!
Are you beginning to feel comfortable with setting and doucing yet ?
Wouter