Hey all,
I'm in the middle of completely redoing my deck as part of a major refit of my J/30. This presents an interesting opportunity since the deck will essentially be 'virgin' with literally every hole in the deck disked and filled, all bad core replaced and fresh awlgrip over everything. The existing layout seems reasonable, but I'm sure there are some innovative improvements that people have come up with that I'd love to tap into. Does anyone have any photos of really workable racing layouts that they can share?
Specifically, I'm interested in finding out if there are solutions to getting the halyards out of the cockpit and cleaning up the placement of the backstay (which leads to a cheek block and cleat forward of the traveler on my boat). My gut feeling is that there is too much rigging concentrated in the front of the cockpit - jib and spin sheets, halyards and controls from the stoppers on the cabin top, the backstay controls, traveler and mainsheet. These all wind up between the secondaries on the cabin top and the traveler bar!
Here are some of my thoughts, I'd love any comments anyone could offer.
Halyards:
I regularly race a J/24 and we do a couple of things that help the situation with halyards. Specifically, the jib and spin sheets cleat (cam cleats) on the mast so they can be jumped and cleated by the mastman. Plus, the entire length of the halyard can be dumped right at the mast with this setup. This doesn't preclude using the secondaries to add some tension, since the balance of the halyard still runs back to the stoppers. Does this work on the J/30, or are the loads too great to pull this off.
Backstay controls:
I'm thinking about moving these controls back from in front of the traveler to just aft of the traveler. My thinking here is that the backstay is the skipper's job and can litter the aft part of the cockpit with rope, instead of mixing with the various sheets coming off the primaries.
Alternatively, and more radically - I might look at rerouting the backstay down into the back of the cockpit (like the J/24). This puts the rope down and out of the way and routes everything along the floor instead of along the seat. Plus it keeps the cleats down in the cockpit and off the seatback. Thoughts? Am I a busting class rules with this one or what?
Traveler:
Windward sheeting car - this seems to be the standard move on these boats these days.
Also, if there is a ropes guide with recommended diameters and lengths somewhere, I'd appreciate a link to it.
Thanks!
Rich Miller
Tres Cosas
#294
[This message has been edited by 6degrees (edited 04-16-2006).]
