Our Rigging session started with a good discussion of rig settings and the benefits of having a raking rig before progressing onto how the spreaders work with some real light-bulb moments for some of us in the way that Adam explained it - who'd have though of the shrouds being solid and the mast as the bendy bit! Once we had finished our coffee and our bums had just got comfortable on the sofa it we went outside to get Just Cracker's new mast up and look at the set-up of Tangaroa and Zaphod.
Raking Rig
While not essential it certainly allows you to really de-power if you are caught out by the wind getting up significantly, and of course allows you to power-up the rig to suit you and the conditions... all while on the water. (We were reminded that it isn't a substitute for getting our weight out of the boat and hiking hard! Much to the crew's dismay, the helms were taught the 'helm elbow' technique to assist the crew in this endeavour... uggh!)
For novices, until you have got your boat handling skills to a finely tuned level, fiddling with it while racing will probably lose more time than it will gain!
Without a raking rig you are just limited to having to set the rig for the conditions you expect to prevail. So like any other boat you just have 3 or 4 shroud-plate settings for different wind conditions.
Without a raking rig you are just limited to having to set the rig for the conditions you expect to prevail. So like any other boat you just have 3 or 4 shroud-plate settings for different wind conditions.
Static Rig Set-up
Putting up a mast from another boat demonstrated how different people like to set their boats differently and that Scorpions do vary from one boat to another, evolving and improving as time has past, within the class rules. The mast went up fine, but some adjustment of the raking rigging rope lengths needed some tweaking. But the good news is Just Crackers is back and ready for the last few races of 2013.Moving to Tangaroa, the mast was far to upright and needed to be raked back, while moving the foot forwards an inch or so. Various other small changes were also suggested to make her easier (thus more enjoyable) to sail.
Zaphod provided a particularly interesting discussion of how modern tuning guides don't necessarily provide you with the correct settings for your boat. Zaphod was build by two enterprising Scorpion sailors (Adam and Rick Bowers) pushing the limits within the class rules to produce a boat that was supremely fast for its time. The mast foot sits a good inch above most others so measurements needed to take this into consideration. Many thanks to Adam, Rob and Sandra for helping us with our boats and starting us on the journey to Scorpion enlightenment.
If it's too windy to sail tomorrow, we'll have a chat about hoisting, gybing and dropping the spinnaker to save those important seconds on the race course.
