Chris Robinson with Gryphon

[david]

Congratulations on your win Chris.
Chris Robinson, Paul Ricketts and Jim Black, who won 1st, 2nd and 3rd places.

http://www.gaffrigsailinginwa.org/blog/

The report said the wind was 20-25. I do not see a reef in the picture? Did you reef, or, just fill the ballast and tear up the course 

D

[Rock Doctor]

Hello David,
Thanks for your comments. Yes I had a single reef in and also ballast. The photo you enclosed showed me single handed prior to the race. For the race I had an excellent crew and we did tear up the course. For a while we kept up with an S&S 34 sailing the same course but he had the momentum we did not have in the knocks. Great day had by all and a good turnout for the C Fleet boats (trailer sailers). A couple of Scruffies sailed but had mast and rigging damage. The Ougthred boats and Welsford Navigators had a good day. If you look at the OGA WA website again you will see the exploits of the two Navigators on their trip to Rottnest Island and return - a bit of an epic voyage across Gage Roads (11 miles) and back.

By the way, we sail in some fairly breezy conditions here, cold fronts in winter and also a serious seabreeze in summer. After the Rockingham event I detected a problem that my BR20 colleague in Kailani has experienced and that is the screws on the tabernacle pulling out (potential mast overboard). We are in the process of locating a 19mm ply plate under the tabernacle and moving to a bowsprit rig to reduce the play at the tabernacle, we think due to the excessive fore-aft movement caused by the cub boom arrangement on the headsail.

Happy sailing.

[Peter Cockerton]

Rock Doctor (Love to hear the origins of this handle)

I would discuss the tabernacle concerns with the builders first before changing the securing method to the foredeck. The short screws holding the tabernacle to the foredeck I'm told is to prevent the deck incurring major damage under rigging failure. If your tabernacle is moving, (and I have been out on my BR20 in some strong winds and it's not moved) I would think you need to look at the shroud tension balance with the jib forestay as the pair combined should keep the mast and tabernacle firmly down on the foredeck and no force being applied to cause either side to side or front to back movement of the tabernacle.

Peter Cockerton

[Matthew P]

Congratulations to Chris Robinson, Paul Ricketts and Jim Black.

I am interested in Peter's and others' advice on tabernacle and other mast problems. To enable a more detailed discussion on masts without diluting our congratulations to the above I have opened a new thread: "Masts and Rigging".

Matthew
GRP BR20 Gladys   

[Rock Doctor]

Matthew,
good idea to start a separate thread, there has been some discussion in the background regarding this and we hope that Matt Newlands will enter with his contributions. I will add further comment in the new thread.

For Peter Cockerton's info, the handle "rock doctor" is reference to my former profession as a geologist. I specialised in iron ore and was consulting to a range of clients in Australia, India, N and S America, Africa and Russia over the past 13 years. Happily all that and the consequent travel is finished and back to sailing.

[Matthew P]

Hello Rock Doctor

Long ago (1976) and far away (Labrador) I was an innocent student engineer on a 6 month work assignment with the Iron Ore Company of Canada.  The most common solution applied by most people to most problems (sometimes other people) was to hit them hard with a very big hammer or burn a ragged hole in it with an acetylene torch.  The geologists were definitely the brains  of the operation; they used smaller hammers more thoughtfully applied to smaller objects.  Happy days.

Matthew
BR20 Gladys

[Rock Doctor]

Matthew, what a coincidence, I worked for North Ltd, majority owners of Iron Ore Co of Canada, back in the dark ages and visited IOC at Labrador City on a number of occasions. Found memories of trout fishing in %$#@! cold lakes but what a wonderful orebody.

[Matthew P]

Hi Chris
When were you in Labrador? If you would like to swap IOCC war stories without boring the rest of the forum you can contact me at matthew.L.peacock at gmail dot com.
Matthew

[Rock Doctor]

Hello Matthew,
I will contact you via your e-mail address shortly re Labrador.
Chris