Main Sheet traveller

warwicksail

warwicksail

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Carmarthen West Wales UK
wwc.co.uk
I own a westerly warwick and have just been sorting rope for the main sheet, Ive noticed that on other Warwicks the traveller is mounted either on the transom/pushpit or just a block in the cockpit floor which will be best ???
 
Not having experience of that boat I would still say that a traveller gives you more options in sail trimming than a fixed block in the cockpit.

Wouldn't the block in the cockpit require one of those hated "claws" on the boom?
 
Westerlys always had their main sheet taken back aft, to make best use of the cockpit space, though taking the sheet from further forward on the boom helps to resist bending of the boom. There is no reason why you shouldn't take the sheet down to the cockpit sole as long as the structure is strong enough for some heavy snatch loads. Having the sheet forward can make sail-handling easier when using a tiller, but may leave you with the sheet across the companionway. We had an arrangement like this on a Sadler and it was no problem as we got used to it. If it were me I think I'd leave it where it was.
 
Available Here for £197.

I moved one on my Foxcub and it was merely bolted trough a series of holes in the track with 6mm countersunk bolts with pads and washers below.

The one I had on my Valiant was the same as the Westerly one as I bought some spares for it from Trafalgar.

travellerl2.jpg


I don't know if you can access beneath the transom top moulding on your boat, but that's how you'd fit it I think. I wouldn't risk self tappers into the grp.

(I know my mainsheet isn't attached to it. I used a carbine hook to move it across to a backstay U-bolt when at the mooring to give a bit more space in the cockpit.)
 
As you say the boom is quite short and the standard floor sheeting point is almost vertically beneath the boom end so no claw is necessary. It will be in the way a bit in a small cockpit I have no doubt. It cannot be moved further aft without fouling the tiller.

There is no doubt that a traveller with control lines, or at the very least stops, to position the traveller can give much better control of sail shape but the Warwick is not exactly the last word in hot racing machines!

The transom hung rudder complicates the idea of a traveller a bit. It has to be a "horse" that will carry the traveller above the tiller. A very simple horse is shown in this sketch along with some ideas for an all rope system anchored to eye bolts on say the back end of the coamings

34bcd24f.jpg


If you have the position on the floor use that while you think about a horse an take a peek at a few others.
 
Ah well. As I say, I don't know the particular boat. Mine was skeg-hung with the rudder shaft coming through the rear of the cockpit floor.
 
O.K.
The horse solution is way to go, will get busy next week, it will make life alot easier, like you said the Warwick doesn,t have the worlds bigest cockpit and its definalty comfort cruising were after, Im sure it will make single handed easier aswell.
Cheers Guys /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Of course for best sailing you might actually want to pull the lower mainsheet block up to windward rather than let the boom flop down to leeward. In other words bits of string on something like LakeSailor's picture (but with two end stops) that can haul the traveller to windward.

On the Westerly GK24 there is a chunk of traveller track the full width of the cockpit ahead of the end of the tiller. It is mounted up on a piece of teak and it gets in the way of shins and bums.
But it means I can haul the boom up to the centre line when beating and control the twist in the sail from the mainsheet and traveller combined.
e..g
http://www.hamble.demon.co.uk/fore_cockpit.JPG
 
Consider your crew, and the safety element. A cockpit mainsheet is a dangerous peice of machinery in a gybe, well capable of inflicting serious injury. You could argue that suitable training and procedures will avoid injury. The yacht injury stats will show you're wrong.

Keep mainsheets out of the cockpit. Make that a safer place for the less experienced sailors who will travel with you.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Keep mainsheets out of the cockpit

[/ QUOTE ] That's what he is planning to do, by making and fitting a horse. I doubt, though, if a mainsheet in the centre of a cockpit of boat as small as a Warwick is as dangerous as all that, especially from a fixed point on the sole. Just a darned nuisance. It's main sheets on a traveller across the cockpit as on Forethought of Gosport that can be dangerous and the bigger and more powerful the mains'l is the more dangerous it becomes. On a racing machine like a GK24 it's done like that to maximise the control of sail shape.
 
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