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 Post subject: Pegged and then some.
PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 10:34 pm 
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Site Rank - Deck Hand

Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2006 2:47 am
Posts: 16
Location: Arizona and Ontario Canada
I has been a while since I have visited the site.

Just this last summer in my second season of sailing TF 88, I was out at Port Weller with WSW 18-20mph steady winds (measured) with full sails doing 6 or 7 gybes at a time while on foils hitting 35 mph regularly.

Over a couple of hours the winds built significantly (to over 25 mph). I decided to wait it out and stay out there as winds tended to fall near sunset in another hour. I did not want to beach in that wind with full sails up and lots of people at the beach.

With eased sheet I was hitting 35 to 38 regularly as seen on GPS. Note that my GPS Log of 10k points filled about 10minutes before the following event so I don't have exact data but here is what I observed on the analog (hydrodynamic) boat speedo that I find accurate to within 1 mph of GPS above 25 mph.

As I was making one of the high wind runs, the speedo was mechanically pegged at what would be interpreted as 37 mph on the 35 mph scale. Just before I was going to gybe, the wind increased a bit as did the boat speed. Then, as I was falling off to enter the gybe, the boat significantly accelerated and I held the "faster" heading for about 10-15 seconds. I picked up 5 to 6 mph in the first 2-3 seconds by conservative estimate (~43 - 44 mph boat speed) and really scared the stuffing out of me as things were really howling and creaking and I was hoping it would all stay together given I had the extra mechanical stresses of having full sails up. Rudder was intermittently mushy and needed a lot of input to maintain heading.... . possible ventilation? Falling off for the gybe this time did not increase boat speed and pulled over a G on a wide 180. I did anther dozen mile long runs with eased sheet with speedo just pegged most of the time. The wind subsided on schedule and I beached safely with the sun setting. Best outing ever in terms of adrenaline generated.

What I have learned from other TF owners is, that in the higher winds, reefed sails can actually get you higher boat speed with less stress on the boat. Amazing boat. I was real thankful that I had those rear stays secured by the heavy duty hardware.

Frank Neuperger

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Trifoiler #88
Trifoiler #95
HC 18 Magnum


Last edited by FN on Mon Jan 07, 2008 1:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 10:53 pm 
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Site Rank - Deck Hand

Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2006 5:12 pm
Posts: 3
Last summer I recorded a max speed of 34.5 knots, about 40 MPH on the GPS through a gybe - I find the boat accelerates through the gybes on many occasions.

As far as the stock speedo, I replaced it with a unit that has a maximum speed reading of 55 MPH as the stock unit was getting pegged regularly.

Thing is that when the boat gets really moving I don't really feel at ease glancing down to see the speedometer or watch the GPS much - 40 MPH is equivalent to almost 59 feet per second so two seconds of viewing covers a lot of water. The GPS has a maximum speed recording capability and keeping and I find that looking at it slightly after the fact is good enough.

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Dan Erlich
TriFoiler #87


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