[Rhodes22-list] highest comfortable wind speed

Robert Louis Weiss rweiss at siu.edu
Mon Sep 3 17:36:18 EDT 2018


Thanks Stan! I have made it a point to learn as much as I can about sailing this boat, but I always learn something new from you. Still love my 1998, recycled in 2014 beauty. Newbies in the marina still think it is a brand new boat.


Bob

Beach Spring



Robert L Weiss Jr.
Director of Music
First United Methodist Carbondale, IL
Professor Emeritus, SIUC
________________________________
From: Rhodes22-list <rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org> on behalf of Stan Spitzer <stan at rhodes22.com>
Sent: Monday, September 3, 2018 4:19:43 PM
To: The Rhodes 22 Email List
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] highest comfortable wind speed


I generally try to stay away from List/Boat discussions for a host of
reasons; including the fact that I am an undergraduate seat of the pants
sailor so most Rhodies are more technically positioned than I.  However,
in honor of Alex and as a dose of home therapy, I'll offer a few unasked
for comments re Rhodes sails and related hardware.  All with a little
selling on the side:

IMF masts (only available from GB) want to be straight and set
perpendicular to the water line.  You will note a minute extruded groove
in the mast's leading edge.  If you rest your head on the cabin top and
sight up this 26' long groove, you can adjust your stays to transform
this groove from a curved to a straight line.

The Rhodes has 9 stays, a record for this category boat. This eliminates
mast pumping. Adds a degree of reserve safety as in Chris's Med.
misadventure.  In most boats our size, if a jib stay (forestay) gives up
its job, there is nothing to stop the mast from falling back and
bruising the boat.  Of course, if you are fortunate, the mast will make
a soft landing on your guests. The Rhodes 9 stays also allow for the
straight mast, needed for IMF.

6 side stays (shrouds) need only a one time adjusting of their
turnbuckles, which should be done by *Hand*.  With the mast straight and
perpendicular, all 6 shrouds are tightened (worth repeating) by *Hand*.
When wind hits the sails and heels the mast, the 3 appropriate shrouds
automatically tighten the precise amount needed to take the hull along
for the ride.  Over tightening these 6 shrouds drives the mast down into
the boat, distorting hull shape, possibly even trapping a guest in the
enclosed head.

Adjusting the jib stay and double back stays, is another story.  For jib
sail efficiency you need the jib stay to be as straight as can be.  With
the Rhodes mast head rig design, this is quickly and easily doable by
drawing the two back stays together with its rapid tension adjuster 2:1
mechanical advantage built-in set up where its pulling line then secures
to one of the 2 idiot proof tiny cleats on each outer corner of the
transom.  "Idiot proof" because only one cleat is used.  Should you
attach the back stays in reverse at the mast top, no need to lower the
mast; the opposite transom cleat is ready for use. You undoubtedly will
come up with a creative use for the unused cleat.

The Rhodes points amazingly well.  Here are the issues a
boat-blaming-skipper needs to be tuned into:

The Rhodes proper, lasts beyond a life time.  Its sails of cloth, do
not.  Sail shapes, and thus efficiencies, change. Racing extremists get
new sails each year.  Relaxed Rhodies can let the next owner make a new
set decision. The point I want to make clear here is that saving a few
dollars to have sails made by a local sailmaker or a Doyle franchise
loft is fine, as long as you don't then turn to GB with furling or
performance faults.  The shape of the Rhodes IMF main has been designed
by GB and is manufactured to GB's specs. Rhodes IMF mainsail is
specifically designed to work with the IMF's internal furling mechanism
and it being hard connected to the Rhodes boom outhaul car; all only
available from GB.  If you bought a used Rhodes or had new sails made
for your Rhodes by a noted loft, you will not be getting the same ease
of operation or sailing performance of the collective original
manufacturer's IMF system... Just something to be aware of before making
any dollar savings trade-off call.

The jib sail should be connected to its furler so that its end pressures
allow a smooth leading sail edge while not causing a crease in its
fabric slightly aft of its luff. Rhodes furling jibs have some sort of
an additional filler strategically positioned along the luff to help
reduce excessive sail draft when being used partially reefed.  Using a
175 reefed to 130 vs a 130 fully deployed, the 130 is the better sail.
The downside being it can't get bigger for lighter airs. The bottom line
is probably for non racers to go with the sail size that would get the
most use based on the more prevalent wind velocities they sail in.

Your Rhodes should have 3 separate jib sheet leads hardware systems as
part of your boat and readily available for either tack. This unique 3
leads availability is what contributes to greater pointing ability by
allowing the jib sail to be trimmed progressively closer to the boats
centerline. When employing a genoa size that has to pass outside
(beyond) the end of the mast spreaders, the sheets can only be routed
outside of all 3 shrouds and used with the gunnel genoa cars on the
genoa tracks. While delivering maximum driving force, pointing is
limited by the limited degree the jib can then be trimmed towards the
boat's center line.  With the jib reefed so its leech falls just short
of reaching a spreader, the in play sheet routs inside of the mast-top
shroud to a cabin-side fair lead and cam cleat, for markedly closer
pointing.  But wait.  If you act right now the Rhodes offers a third
lead positioning for amazing pointing ability.  The sheet routs inside
the upper shroud *and* inside the aft lower shroud to the large fair
lead and cam cleat on the aft cabin trunk top.  In all of these
different lead positions you should take note of a diagonal stripe on
the sail itself, that runs to the sail's clew.  This is your guide for
having the angle of the jib sheet being set as close as possible to
being a continuation of this sail marker's angle.

In response to the coming about jib thinking, mine is, the wind is my
friend. I do not release the jib sheet until the boat has come about far
enough for the wind to have stated backwinding the genoa so that wind
force is now great enough to propel all that material past the mast. To
aid my friend I slacken the released jib sheet so at no point will the
sheet itself be working against our common goal of aiding in the big
guy's struggle to make it to the other side. Of course if an
enthusiastic helping deck hand prematurely starts pulling on the
opposite sheet, there is the lazaret brig. This is a job for the wind.
If the wind is not up to it, then the calmer situation allows for simply
partially furling the jib and unfurling it back to its full splendor
once on the new heading, where you will appreciate its huge size in the
calmer breeze.

A General Boats IMF mainsail's clew is designed to remain close to, and
continually parallel to, the boom. This is critical in making the clew
hard-attached to the outhaul car so that space between sail and car does
not vary (as it does in other systems).  This unique GB design insures
that no matter the draft size you set in the main sail, the sail remains
in the same plane as the boom.   This improves pointing even more since
it gives more meaning to the basic value of a traveler, which is to
provide as straight as possible downward force on the sail's leech to
remove as much twist in the leech as possible.  The GB new traveler
system works with the latest GB outhaul car design to advance the IMF's
revolutionary closing in on sailing perfection.  The IMF internal
furling mechanics are so simple and bullet proof, it requires no
maintenance and will last a life time.  If the sail or its mounting on
the IMF furler is not an issue, an errant IMF system invariably turns
out to be the result of external expert intervention, luckily reversible
by internal experts.  We had a call for a mast replacement from a yard
that had inadvertently bent a customer's mast. I explained to them that
if they bent the mast to that degree, they needed to replace its
interior.  They insisted the furling parts were OK.  No need to tell the
rest of the story.  You can't have one without the other.

One of our slogans has been, and remains, if something on a Rhodes does
not work easily, best to look first at all crew hands (or feet).
Furling the main isn't working?  Release the quick outhaul release that
is so easy to release it is forgettable. I know. Taking out the main is
this time beyond your strength?  Take your foot off the black outhaul
line you left on the cockpit floor.  I know. I know.

Of course everyone knows how delightful it is sailing with the pop top
up.  But sailing with it down does increase /all aspects of sailing
performance/ by allowing the lower level of the boom to position the
sail's center of effort closer to the water line.

I know you all know all of this stuff, but if there is one sailor out
there who finds one thing new to her or him, all this verbiage was
probably worth it.

stan






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