J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Cabin Top Layout redesign

Mango,

Mounting the main halyard block on the deck may cause som issues since the deck was not designed to carry the halyard load. This may pull the deck upwards and cause some damage. I have seen some other designs with blocks mounted to the deck have a small stay from the bottom of the deck below the halyard blocks to a point on the mast to keep the deck from lifting.

Yeah, I thought about that but I'm only relocating the main halyard block there and It's got a monster backing plate and the deck seems ridiculously strong there. But A way to anchor the backing plate to the maststep might be a viable project. I bet I could just secure some amsteel to the backing plate and run it down close to the mast.

Has anyone re routed boom vang or cunningham lines to cockpit? Maybe double foreguy?

FYI, 38mm spinlock deck organizers are too small, even though the website says can handle 3/8 line. Go with t50's (50mm)if in the market.

Most people in the Ches_Bay J/30 fleet have converted to a double-ended fore-guy to control the pole. This lets the "pit" person work it most of the time. Also most folks have installed a cam cleat on the mast for the pole topping lift...in addition to the cam cleat on the cabin top. This means two cleats for the single line. That way it can be cleated either by someone at the mast or by the "pit" crew. I think most folks have their boats set up so that the one of the crew sitting along the cabin top can play the vang and cunningham. There's no need to bring more lines back to the cockpit.

For the eight years that I have owned the boat I have been interested in upgrading the reefing by being able to obtain greater foot tension. To this end I am planning to install Schaefer diamond-shaped base plates on deck in the area of the mast collar. To these bases I will lash Harken 57mm Ti-Lite blocks through which the reefing lines will be lead to the secondary winches. I have a question about the ability of the deck to sustain the load of the reefing system. Do you think that I might be proceding in the wrong direction with this? I seem to vaguely recall an owner in California who described (in an old forum thread) a similar installation as he was preparing his boat for a TransPac. I sail a good bit in the "longshore" environment and I reef enough to be quite dissatisfied with the OEM setup - I find it quite inferior in obtaining and holding decent foot tension, at a time when I want the flattest main I can get.

I decided not to mount the block there. Just because I realized P.O. had lines coming out of mast wrong.
However I would mount padeye's and high load blocks there because if your core is good, that area is friggin stout. I know because i mounted a padeye just forward of the mast to hold two blocks for the double ended foreguy. here are some pics of boats who have blocks there. Zephr and sonskyn to name a few. I've also seen many more j/30's with extra crap mounted there on my surfing the net looking for a new deck layout which is almost done and looks sweet. I also was wondering while surfing why does the foreguy have to be such a big diameter(recommended 7/16") It doesn't seem like it needs to be that stout. Has anyone had a foreguy break on them?

http://noyc.org/zephyr/image19.jpg
http://picasaweb.google.com/danresponsible/J30EtAl/photo#5048872820384413490

My boat has a large padeye just aft of the mast and to port so it is just out of the way of the vang. The reef lines run down to a double block on the padeye and then through the port deck organizer to clutches that are orientated so you can use the secondary to get clew tension. This seems to work fine on my boat - no issue with the cabin top. I would not crank like hell while the clew is loaded up but you can luff quickly and crank.

See the second picture in the previous post. This is what mine looks like.

David
#397

[This message has been edited by dbows (edited 08-29-2008).]

Thanks for the advice David. By the way, you may remember my boat - I was in Cuttyhunk Pond in '06 when you were there. Mine was the boat from Miami.

I sure do - did you make the trek up this year?

David