Finally a sailing report!
First I did one more noodle test on the mast. (I have a stock spare to compare them). I put the two-part masts together, laid them horizontal on a deck, supporting the bottom tube and hung a 3 lb weight on the tip of the top tube. The stock mast bent 4 inches and the garden post stiffened mast bent 3 5/8 inches. Again, it shouldn't hurt, but I don't know if this stiffening is going to show dramatic improvements.
I put all the sails in place and here's what it looks like:
I use the rock in front for weight when I sail solo.
The figure 9s worked great for the shrouds. When I started sailing, I found they also were in a great location for attaching the jib, which made line management much easier. I just needed to wrap the jib line around once and it held...very quick. I used a slightly thinner line for the shrouds than for the jib, so this allowed me to use them for both purposes. I could make the jib line even thicker, as this figure 9 supports thicknesses up to 3/8 inch. The figure 9s are rated for 50 lbs, which I think would be enough...it's hard to imagine these bending. Time will tell!
I had two lines for the jib, one for port and another for starboard, so that I didn't have to try to reach around the mast when switching sides.
The gray line is the shroud line and the white is from the jib.
Using a Skymate wind meter and Garmin foretrex 101 for GPS, I took about an hour run. Overall I was pleasantly surprised!
To note, I also had the boombat in the main.
The winds were a constant 5-6 mph (some gusts to
. Close hauled using the jib, I was sailing around 3 mph. When I released the jib, I dropped to around 2 mph. I repeated this several times with the same results.
Sailing with the wind, there was slight improvement, increasing from 2 mph, to 2.2-2.3 (wind was 3-4 mph).
Here are some pictures:
I think the jib could be a little wider to overlap the main a little. The experts out there may be able to take some of these pictures and fine tune it...but I think the bottom line is that this mast can support a jib in 5-8 mph winds and it will improve your speed!
When I got back in, I noticed that the strap had peeled away a little from the sail. I used goop and sewed it a little, but I think I need to sew is with many more stitches to reinforce it, as my thread broke. (It's hard sewing through goop!) I don’t think I attached it in an ideal way either, as all the stress is on the top edge of the strap. I maybe should have glued the strop to the front with the loop facing down, so that the pressure was distributed more across the entire strap (I think that’s how the i14 strap is set up).
The shrouds and the jib are attached to this strap, so it's a high stress area.
With the shrouds attached lower on the mast, the mast behaved much better. I am hoping to get some 10-15 mph wind in the next couple of days.
-Tracker-