Sail trim with a sliding goose neck?

[bumblefish]

My Elizabethan has a sliding goose neck with a tackle system to tension the luff, a bit like a cunningham I suppose. When does that come into play when trimming the sail? If I hoist the main I can achieve full luff tension with the goose neck tight against the top slide block, should I have this block higher and rely on the downhaul to tension the luff allowing me to set the main baggier if required?

 

[VicS]

I too have a sliding goose-neck.
Do you have a halyard winch, I don't so the only way of getting a tight luff is to use the tackle on the goose neck. If you have a winch then I don't see that you need bother about the goose neck tackle.

Can you clamp the goose neck in positions other than up against the end stops? I can't. That's a real pain because when lowering the sail or reefing the tackle has to be slackened, together with the kicking strap, so that the goose neck can be raised to the point where a pin can be inserted to support it. My goose neck slides in the bottom section of the sail track not in a separate track and has no stops.

If you can clamp the goose neck in position or limit its movement why not do so and adjust the luff tension with the halyard. (Who adjusts halyard tension anyway?) Alternatively adjust it with the tackle. If you cannot, like me, clamp the goose neck perhaps you can find , or make some stops to limit its travel. That's what I intend doing, but its been on the "to do list" for best part of 30 years!

Otherwise you hoist the sail with only minimum tension using the halyard and apply the tension you actually want with the tackle provided it is a powerful enough.

I am not so sure that you can consider it like a Cunningham, maybe you can. It will certainly provide a means of tensioning the luff if the tackle is powerful enough.

Sorry rambling post ..... thinking while I was typing!

 

[bumblefish]

The goose neck can be locked between 2 adjustable sliders. I can get full tension on the luff with the goose neck against the upper lock and no tension on the goose neck down haul, not really sure if I need it!

 

[VicS]

You have all the options open to you. Experiment a bit and if at the end of the day you find you have no use for it take it off, but keep it.

 

[orizaba]

i have a sliding gooseneck as well and found that i could pull it up with the main but it used to stick abit and so the sail often seemed to tight,the kicking strap would pull down ok but i still had the problem of the pins etc .i got a gas ram of reasonable pressure.you could push it in with reasonable force. and made a sliding bracket to fit in the mast track and fitted the ram to it the other end goes on the kicking strap slider on the boom,a length of inner tube over it all to protect it and it seems to help,it has just enough lift to ease the gooseneck up and hold it there but its still easy to pull the boom down with the kicker.the adjustment for the bottom of the gas bracket is with the removable splitpin that normally would hold the boom at a fixed height.

 

[William_H]

The sliding gooseneck with 2 stoppers should theoretically be an ideal system. Yes the idea is to pull the sail right up with the halyard. (no winch required) Then apply required tension by pulling down on the tackle at the gooseneck. Higher luff tension brings the draft forward and coupled with outhaul tension and vang tension it makes the sail flatter for stronger winds.

However on boats I have sailed on perhaps because there was not a bottom stop or it wasn't used, the boom tends to creep lower with application of mainsheet and vang tension. That may be because on these smaller boats a stretchy rope was used for halyard. When a wire was really needed. Also often the mainsheet joins the boom about midway from gooseneck to aft end such that there is a lot of down pull component on the luff when the main is sheeted in.

So my experience on other people's boats is that sliding goosenecks are aweful but then as a typical sailor I love my own boat best. (fixed gooseneck wire halyard and halyard winch)

good luck olewill