friction in running rigging
Printed From: myHanse.com
Category: Hints & Tips
Forum Name: 300 / 301
Forum Description: 300 & 301 Hints and Tips
URL: https://www.myhanse.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1411
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Topic: friction in running rigging
Posted By: sailingfree
Subject: friction in running rigging
Date Posted: 15 July 2007 at 21:31
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Hi, Having now had Dragonfly for a few weeks, and having enjoyed a few good sails - including a 19 hour bash from Plymouth to Poole on the delivery trip (we touched 12 knots off Prawle point surfing under spinnaker!), I am finding that there is excessive friction in the running rigging. Most of the running rigging is led aft via blocks at the bottom of the mast, through fixed turning blocks mounted on the coach roof near the mast and then aft to clutches by the companion way. I have found that when under load, most of the lines have a lot of friction, and looking more closely, it looks like all the lines are rubbing on the top of the coach roof on the domed top, between the turning blocks and the clutches. Hoisting the main, spinnaker, and putting in a reef all require far too much work for this size of boat. The friction is greatest when the line are loaded as they grip the non-slip on the coach roof. Does anyone else suffer from this? It would appear that I need to raise the turning blocks by several inches to clear the curve of the coach roof, but I would welcome any observations from other owners before I start messing around with the deck hardware. Pete |
Replies:
Posted By: Alex Faber
Date Posted: 16 July 2007 at 11:49
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Pete,
Honestly I do not believe that the difficulties you encounter are from the friction between the lines and your coach roof. Even when everything else is perfect this friction can only contribute a few percent to the total friction your lines have to deal with. If I were you, I would start with checking the friction of all the sheaves under load. In the past, when I encountered similar problems, mostly the halyards in the mast were tangled. But this is very difficult to find out. If the mainsail is hard to set, mostly it is the friction between the runners (not sure this is the right word) and the mast groove. Lots of success. ------------- s/y eMotion (H430e #24) |
Posted By: Tikatam
Date Posted: 16 July 2007 at 18:02
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Hi Pete, glad to hear you had a great run home from Plymouth to Poole - at least there's no unwanted friction under the hull! My experience has been that the clutches can introduce quite a lot of friction if they are not kept clean and free. Try checking the drag on the lines with the cluth right off? The single line reefing can be hard work at the best of times; I find that this is easiest to achieve if you pull the lines through at the mast, but that does somewhat defeat the point of it! I have never had any real problems beyond that. Graham ------------- Tikatam 300#258 |
Posted By: Mark Slocombe
Date Posted: 16 July 2007 at 21:45
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Pete, as Graham says, "The single line reefing can be hard work at the best of times; I find that this is easiest to achieve if you pull the lines through at the mast". This is the system I find necessary to adopt - I assume my limited use (maybe 6 weekends/year) is a contributary factor to running rigging stiffness - but those reefing lines do have a heck of a journey to make! ------------- Cheers, Mark Slocombe, New Rose, Noss on Dart |
Posted By: sailingfree
Date Posted: 23 September 2007 at 18:50
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Thanks for the replies. I decided that there was something not quite right, so I have been playing with the run of the halyards and have found the following which I hope will be of interest. I'll try to post some pictures later. With the turning blocks at the mast foot, the halyards needed to 'climb' over a curve whose vertical height was about 6 cm on their way to the clutches, and along most of their length were in contact with the non-slip moulding in the deck. Despite checking and lubricating all sheaves at the base of the mast, the turning blocks and the clutches for dirt, I was unable to pull the mainsail up by hand more than about 2m, when it would refuse to go higher and I had to resort to the winch. I have never been in a boat where the main needs to be pulled up by a winch - including 41 foot sigma, 34 foot feeling, lots of 26-28 foot boats etc, so I felt this was not right. Re-rigging the blocks at the foot of the mast and adding a temporary block to the deck mounted turning block and arranging things so that there is no contact between the ropes and deck, I can now pull the main all the way up by hand, and let it down as well. Obviously I still use the winch to tension things up properly once the sail is up. Doing some very rough sums, I estimated that I can pull a rope horizontally with a force of 350N without hurting myself, so lets say that is the force needed to raise the mainsail. Previously I needed to use the winch to pull the main up all the way, using considerable force - probably a bit less than I use to pull the sail up buy hand - say 250N. Using a 10 inch handle on a size 8 winch generally means that there is a power ratio of 8, so I estimate that I was putting a force of 8 * 250N on the halyard at the exit to the clutch, or 2000N. This is a long way off the breaking load of a 10mm braid in braid (>23000 N) but still a lot of force. It also causes wear in the deck and to the halyards as they rub against each other. Doing a similar job on the spinnaker halyard, jib halyard and reefing lines has transformed the sail handling. I shall be making a more permanent job of this during the winter by moving the tuning blocks further back and raising them on hardwood blocks. I shall also be swapping the 10mm polyester halyards for 8mm dyneema to reduce stretch and reduce the friction in the clutches and sheaves. One last thing, the spinnaker as supplied was 12mm rope which is too large to run freely through the supplied cluthces (max 10mm), and an 8mm rope runs much more freely. Just as a side note, at the Southampton boat show I was looking at the new Elan 31, and they have a similar design fault in the run of their lines. |
Posted By: Peter Wareham
Date Posted: 03 January 2008 at 18:04
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Thanks for this. As the new owner of Tikatak I found the same problem on my first sail. In particular it made the single line reefing almost impossible. I was about to abandon the single line and fit reefing hooks at the front. Have you done the permanent job now - fitted wooden spacing blocks. If so, could you let me know what thibckness you used and whether you used the same position or moved them.
Thanks Peter Wareham pete.wareham@virgin.net ------------- Peter Wareham - Tikatam |
Posted By: Gulliver
Date Posted: 07 January 2008 at 00:21
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Just another thought re the friction problem-I lightly greased the mainsail slides with a waterproof grease and this made raising the sail much easier.The only drawback is they do get dirty so you need to clean them with a rag when removing from the mast track.Re the single line reefing system i have made an improvement by removing the turning blocks at the boom end and reducing the thickness of each by about a mm as they were too thick for the aluminium slots and were jammed in them.In fact they did not turn at all but were merely fixed turning "curves" and under load the friction was enormous.
david ------------- David |
Posted By: Scorpio
Date Posted: 07 January 2008 at 00:28
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Better than any sort of grease is an aerosol silicon lubricant such as Sailkote. Works really well and doesn't attract muck or need cleaning off.
We tend to apply it twice a season whilst slowing hoistiing the main. Spray each slider on each side as it is hoisted up the track, immediately lower main and then rehoist.
Ed ------------- Ed Essery Scorpio GBR 9824T Hanse 342#465 - Solent Based |
Posted By: sailingfree
Date Posted: 07 January 2008 at 13:24
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Hi Dragonfly is now out of the water and I plan on doing the mods in the next couple of weeks. I'll try to get some photos of the end result. |
Posted By: Peter Wareham
Date Posted: 07 January 2008 at 19:11
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Thanks - I am planning to put teak blocks under each end (clutches and turning blocks) I reckon 1 1/4 thickness at each end will be the minimum. ------------- Peter Wareham - Tikatam |
Posted By: Peter Wareham
Date Posted: 20 January 2008 at 09:48
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Hello again - I've made some teak blocks up to go under the turning blocks and the clutches on my boat. I then simply removed the old bolts and bolted them back with the blocks in place, and using longer bolts (M6 x 75).Obviously with lots of new sealant. The good news is that both these items fix into captive nuts and so no need to remove head linings to fit them. I've not tried out the haliiards and reefing lines yet - its been too windy, even in the marina! Photos and sizes avaialble on request - (Pete.Wareham@Virgin.net) Also, I will report back when tested out. ------------- Peter Wareham - Tikatam |
Posted By: sailingfree
Date Posted: 09 March 2008 at 21:28
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Ok, I've finally got round to taking some pictures of the before and after deck fittings. Like Peter Wareham, I have made two hardwood blocks that fit under teh turning blocks on deck. Although I was going to move the block back a little way, using the existing tapped aluminium plates seemed a lot more sensible that drilling new holes. The blocks are made form some greenhart that I had lying around, which is very rot resistant. This change means I can now hoist sails and tweak the control lines wihout needing to use the winches until the last few centimetres. The first two pictures show the run of the lines before the change.   The second two the blocks fitted.   Pete |
Posted By: Peter Wareham
Date Posted: 28 March 2008 at 11:05
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Hi - I have put teak spacer blocks under the turning bloks and the jammers - big difference - I can send photos if anyone interested ------------- Peter Wareham - Tikatam |
Posted By: holby
Date Posted: 10 April 2008 at 19:00
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so after these mods you now find that you can raise the main without the use of the winch???? ------------- Hanse 301, tiller steering, Volvo 2010 (10hp) 
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Posted By: Peter Wareham
Date Posted: 13 May 2008 at 15:37
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I put the blocks under the turning blocks and cluthces but have since found that blocks are needed under the winhes also otherwise the angles are wrong and riding turns are the result!!!!!! ------------- Peter Wareham - Tikatam |
Posted By: swnymor
Date Posted: 15 May 2008 at 23:38
| I have used an alternative method to reduce the friction in the running rigging. I have placed a row of bullseye faileads mounted on a hardwood block half way down the deck. This has worked really well for me. I can now raise the main all the way by hand, usng the winch just to tension the luff. |
Posted By: Milkoc
Date Posted: 16 October 2008 at 21:18
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Hi there,
Is it possible to put a picture of your solution?
Regards,
/Miko
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