Skerry rigging changes

The Skerry is a wonderful boat, but there are some changes I made to the rigging so it would work better for me.  Many of the ideas were inspired by John C. Harris and "Lazlo."

The first problem I ran into was that the jam cleat kept catching when I tried to release the rudder.  I replaced it with a cam cleat from Harken, shown here:

Cam Cleat

 

John pointed out that I could have placed the supplied plastic jam cleat below the tiller yoke, but I had already ordered the cam cleat.

I found that I wanted to be able to reef more easily and quickly when a wind suddenly came up, so I installed a cheek block at the top of the mast and a halyard.  The only problem was that the sail lashings caught on the sprit's fairlead, so I fashioned a fairlead out of wood that allows the lashings to pass over it nicely, as shown:

 

 

Now the only problem was that the boom drops when you drop the sail and the sail itself goes all over the place.  Lazlo pointed out that all I needed was lazy jacks to solve both problems.  Nothing fancy about the ones I made, i.e., no blocks, just knots.  The bottom sections of the jacks pass through fairleads at about 35% and 75% along the length of the boom.

  

 

The lazy jacks hold the boom up and the sails self-furl fairly well with only a little work to get them all smoothed out.

  This end view shows how they "accordion" into place:

(The pictures don't appear to be working in my view during composition of the post.  If they do not I'll post the link to my album.  The rigging pictures will be on the last page or two.)


6 replies:

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RE: Skerry rigging changes

Hmm, no pictures.  Here is a link to my album that shows construction of the Skerry and the re-rigging pictures.  I just uploaded the rigging pics today so they are at the end of the album.  There are several pictures that were not mentioned in the above post.

http://www.photoshop.com/users/DanaDCole/albums/ee47836436214fce96c6140be470e0f3

You'll have to copy and paste it.  Sorry I can't figure out how to add pictures and links on this forum.

RE: Skerry rigging changes

 

RE: Skerry rigging changes

Looks good, glad the lazy jack suggestion worked out.

Meryy Christmas,

Laszlo

 

RE: Skerry rigging changes

Hey Laszlo, thanks! and sorry I've been misspelling your name.

Any idea why my pictures didn't post?  Is it perhaps because I didn't put anything in the dimensions fields?  Do you have to fill in every field or what?  I hate to use up forum space but may do some experimenting.

Thanks again and Merry Christmas to you too,

Duck

RE: Skerry rigging changes

Here are the names of some images Laszlo didn't include.  You should be able to right click on them and go to them then return to the forum topic.  This is mostly just an experiment.

Cam cleat for rudder release line

Horn cleat for halyard

Lazy Jacks

Lazy Jack fairlead under boom

I'm going to try one more thing. After inserting an image I will click on it again which enables the link icons and try adding the link again.

furl

RE: Skerry rigging changes

OK, a slight improvement on that last one.  All you have to do is left-click it and it takes you right to the picture.  On the others you have to right-click and then left-click View Image.

Help!

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