Jim, email me and I'll send you a copy.

sogncab at yahoo dot com

Sensational bit of information there.
You list heavy airs as 18kts + I live in West Australia where 18kts is more moderate and 20-25kts is very common and sometime we sail in excess of that Is there some furthur de-powering tips for 25kt breezes.
We find ourselves massively overpowered and pretty much out of control in these conditions (180kg). Do we hoist the spin or not??
We also find ourselves being washed overboard regulary in the heavy gusty stuff. Last weekend the wind was in excess of 25kts again and I found that boat a little more controlable when me(steering) stayed inboard and sailed high upwind. but the kite run was out of control and resulted in a spectacular nose dive and capsize (crew on wire and launched into orbit) if we dont sail in these condtions we will find our season is spent more on the beach than off.
Any help please on furthur taming of the tiger

Bevo

It's Gav here from Nedlands. Are you coming the states on the weekend? Send me an email to gavin@sunindustries.com.au and we'll have a chat.

BTW, Taming Your Tiger is the best document I've read for these boats. Has helped heaps. Re your problem in depowering, we were in 25+ knots a couple of weeks ago and had diamond tension above 43 on the small loos guage, rotator at the rear and downhaul 1/2" below the black stripe on the mast. We were just able to hold it down. If were at a full regatta I would have tipped the boat and racked back the spreaders some more.

The next step in depowing as I understand it to actually rotate the mast back to 90 degrees. It lays off the top of the leech and depowers that part of the sail. There's a discussion forum on it in here somewhere.

Hope to see you on the weekend.

Cheers
Gav

Thanks William,

I have it printed off for next season. I partially did the mast. Regarding your instruction for the spreader rake, do you measure from the wire or the tips of the spreader. On my 2002 spreaders the spreaders extend past the end of the wire.

measure from the wire

Greg, on my FXone, measuring from the wire and setting the rake for my weight, (which is way the hell back there at 2-3/4"), My spreaders are pulled up at an angle a bit. They are no longer 90* to the mast. I haven't looked at them for a while to see if they had worked themselves straight or not, but I suspect they haven't. I wasn't too concerned about it, as they were even, but a Viper lost its mast at the Alter cup because of a spreader being bent up for some reason. That case was waaay more extreme than mine, mine are deflecting about 1/2"

I would make sure the spreaders are straight. If they're slightly angled up there's always a chance they could slip up little by little while you're not checking and eventually see an issue similar to what happened at the Alter Cup this year. If the diamonds are tight you can try kicking the spreader down or using a rubber mallet to pound the spreaders straight.

On a side note, at this years F18 NA's on the last day or second to last day we were sitting in between races and noticed that the starboard side of the spreaders on Pete Melvins boat was standing straight up, not supporting that diamond wire at all. We let him know about it and said he wondered why he was going so slow that last race, anyway he ended up capsizing his boat and kicking the spreader down straight. We're pretty sure if he would've gone on to sail the next race with that spreader not working he would've broken his mast.

Since there's really no way to safety tie the spreaders in place we always make sure to check the angle of the spreaders before we step our mast each time we sail.

place a piece of wood between the spreader and the mallet. be carefull not to bend it. Also you can loosen the diamonds and then retention them.

I agree with Rich wholeheartedly. I would probably loosen the diamonds first. If you stressed the metal it might break later, when you are in strong weather far from home.

I suspect that you could lock them in place with either a nico press fitting on the Diamond wires or possibly a fitting that is used to secure telltales on bridle wires etc. or a piece of stainless with holes drilled in each end wrapped around the diamond wire and bolted in place through the holes. You can buy straps for holding wiring say on a trailor that has rubber inside to protect the wiring.

Naturally you would wrap lots of tape on it for abrasion resistance. A fitting would be put on above and below the spreaders.

Unfortunalty I can not download the document. I get a message that the URL is not found on this server. Has it been moved somewhere else?

I got it by going to the main address, then finding the link on the main page. Then had to keep hitting the refresh button after the download stalled several times.

JJ, can you post the new URL? I went to their home page, but can't find the document....

Here is the direct link
http://www.fhbsc.hobieclass.com/site/hobie/fhbsc/downloads/TigerTips.pdf

Thanks guys!