tpdavis473 wrote:
Nice work on your rudder mods to eliminate popups.
Re: luff tension on jib. I ended up splitting the tensioner into two pieces. One at the top like it is normally and another one for fine tweaking prior to each sail at the tack. The tweaker is left loose on light wind days, but pulled really tight for bigger wind days. You could make it continuous by routing a 1/8" dyneema line all the way up alongside the forestay and back down to the head grommet (sorta zipper luff halyard). But I found I didn't need to adjust it that often to warrant that.
Thanks to your suggestion I have improved upwind performance by introducing a second line at the tack of the jib. Tightened more for heavier airs but be careful... Not too tight or else you'll rip out the eyelet(s) when you crank on the mainsheet.
The jib is now mounted higher where it can accelerate the wind through the slot over a greater proportion of the main, just where it's needed, again just like the Dart 18 where the jib is proportionally much higher. I'm now bothering hobie16s regularly upwind!