Jib stick kits

[Stewart]

The Enterprise has just moved into the 21st century, and Pinnell & Bax have introduced a flyaway jib stick kit for it. This would be suitable for the Graduate I'm sure. See http://shop.pinbax.com/index.asp?select ... Enterprise Fly Away Jib Stick Kit Carbon. Theres an alloy alternative for a lower price. Special offer prices at the moment too, though the parts list is given so you can make up your own. Instructions on there too.

Stewart

[Ho Sec]

Hi,

I am a person who strongly believes that there is always an opportunity to produce items needed to kit out our boats at a price which my meagre pocket ( retired with two children at Uni ) would appreciate. To this end I have been researching for several months now how I could fit my boat out with a fly away Carbon Jib Stick without paying what I call silly money. I have now obtained all the required parts to put together my Jib stick and I will try to keep the Forum aware of my success or otherwise. Oh! by the way it only has cost me £60.00.

Hon Sec.

[Ho Sec]

My Version of a Fly Away Jib Stick.
By Dave Talboys.

I have always been the type of person who prefers to do things for myself rather than get someone else to do them for me particularly if it can save me money and I get some enjoyment out of doing it. To this end I have been researching for many months now for a cheap but effective way of producing my own Carbon Fly-away Jib Stick almost to the point of tooling and manufacturing my own carbon tube.

Fortunately I have not needed to go down that road as I found a suitable carbon tube in the form of a one piece Fishing Landing Net pole. I purchased this from Lathams Discount Fishing Store via the Internet on http://www.lathems-fishing.co.uk .
It consists of a 1.8m tapered Carbon tube costing £10 + £6 p&p.

When the Stick arrived it came in its own bag (useful when travelling) and complete with a metal threaded ferrule on one end and a screw cap on the other.

Both of these were removed by simply cutting them off with a small hacksaw, this resulted in the stick now being slightly shorter 1.75m and with diameters of 22mm & 17mm and a wall thickness of 1mm.
Following the principles detailed on the Graduate Dinghy Association Web Site for the Fly Away Jib Stick I now needed to resource fittings and fixtures to make this thing work.

The parts list for the Jib Stick as follows:

RWO R7105 - Micro Nova 19mm Thru Deck sheave
RWO R3610 & R3612 - Cleat Lightweight Grippit Small + Fairlead
RWO R4150 - Stainless Steel Ring 20mm
RWO R2850 - Eye mount 28mm
RWO R3044 - Bush Push fit Ferruled 8mm

I started by cutting a rectangular hole at the 22mm end of the pole to locate the 19mm sheave this by first marking the boundaries and then drilling with a .5mm drill along the marked lines and finishing off with a small file to clean up all edges.

Once inserted into the hole the screw holes marked and drilled and stainless screws and nyloc nuts used to fix in position. A slightly longer screw used at the open end of the stick as this would also be used to secure the ring traveller.
To facilitate the attachment of the ring traveller I used the 28mm Eye mount to retain the steel ring and fixed into the rod by means of the longer screw holding the sheave.

The 17mm other end of the rod needed to have something which would provide a smooth and free access to the rope which would eventually travel inside the length of the rod, this was done by fixing an Push Fit bush into the stick with epoxy resin and when the epoxy had cured any excess overhang of the bush was removed.

With the provision of a 4mm cord to eventually activate and control the Jib Stick this completed the work on the stick.


I now needed to modify my mast to enable the Jib Stick to be Fly Away.

On measuring on the mast where the Jib Stick would need to be located in its resting position I decided that this would be just below the Shrouds.
After marking the position to fix a spare Spinnaker type sheave I drilled with a 2mm drill around the marked area and smoothed the hole with a file similar to the process for the Jib Stick. I also at this time provided a fixing point for the eventual guide wire using a spare Eye strap just below the Sheave box.

Additionally an extra Eye strap was provided at the lower end of the mast where the bottom of the guide wire was to be attached. This was located below the Mast Eye as the Mast Eye would provide the stop point when the Jib Stick was deployed.

To allow the Stick to travel easily and accurately up and down the mast I decided on providing a guide wire which could be tensioned rather a length of rope which could stretch.
To provide the tension I acquired a mini rigging screw from http://www.tecni-cable.co.uk which took a bit of searching for but is the ideal size for the job.

The guide wire I had made for me by Kevin Butler of http://www.kevinbutler-rigging.com I supplied the measurements, size of wire detailing what thimbles I required and that I wanted it to be plastic covered and they provided exactly what I wanted with a next day delivery.
I have used them for all of my new rigging so far since I restored G1745 last year and have been very pleased with what they have supplied.

The deploying of the Jib Stick is the same as the process detailed on the Graduate Dinghy Association Web Site for the Fly Away Jib Stick except for the method of attaching a pulley at the base of the mast as I have attached mine the front of the Mast step.

The method of retracting the Jib Stick is also the same as the Graduate Association Web Site with the 4mm elastic bungee being attached the Steel Ring to allow it to return to the top Eye strap and being fed down the centre of the mast via the Sheave near the shrouds and then fixed at the heel.

Stick Application 009.jpg (6.03 KiB) Viewed 1152 times

In testing I have found that with one exception everything work very well and it was very fit for the purpose it was intended for. The one exception being the rope being held gripped in the camcleat, the rope I used was the Marlow 8 Plait Stretch 4mm type it has very little give or flexibility and it would not hold in the cleat. This has now been changed for the Laser XD Vecklock 4mm cord and so far works much better.


In conclusion I am very pleased with what I have produced and I believe that it should give me as much effective usage as any commercial product, it may not look as good but at around £60 it is a darn site cheaper.


If anyone needs or wants to follow what I have done and the above does not contain all the required information please either ask a question via the Forum or PM me.

Hon Sec.

[diplome]

Hi, I am very new to the Graduate dinghy and I am very interested in any information relating to the fittings and those which you can make yourself. This is a really good article perhaps we could have some more from the more experianced owners who would like to share their experiances or is the Graduate one of those dinghys which no one shares anything?

Please can we have some more?

Diplome.

[Stewart]

Welcome to the class! I think you'll find Graduate owners very willing to share experiences on boat maintenance and fitting out. The restoratuion forum is a clear example of this!

What subjects do you want information on-and we'll try to help.

Stewart

[diplome]

Hi,
Thanks for that Stewart, the first question which puzzels is with reference to the gap between the jib and the mast. I have read the items relating to the 'inboard' fairleads for the jib and wonder if there is a specific measurement relating to the size the gap should be say at the foot of the mast when you are beating as close to the wind as possible?

I have noticed on the boats nowadays that the transom does not have a main sheet traveller, has it been found that it does nothing for the perfomance of the boat?

Dip.

[Stewart]

The boat will point much better if the jib sheeting position is well inboard, See "Inboard sheeting" on the tuning pages of this website. Still relevant with old or new rig sizes.

As regards travellers, these are history. Sheeting with a transom horse allows the tension in the leech to be adjusted as this arrangement pulls down and in; travellers pull down only. Old thinking was that you pulled the traveller to windward after each tack; believe me, life (or the beat) is way too short!

Graduates point very high, so the main should be pulled in well inboard upwind.

Hope this helps

Stewart

[ifoxwell]

Hi

Not sure but I think Diplome was referring to the small traveller bars that you used to get across the transom.

I'm no expert on the class but I suspect that these were dropped at about the same time as inboard sheeting was adopted. As you bring the jib closer in you need to bring the main in more to keep the slot between the sails from choking.

This also controls the amount you can bring the jib in board... as there is a fair bit of jib/main overlap if you bring everything in to much you just choke the slot and kill the boat speed.

When I re-rigged Skybird I followed the advice on the website re inboard sheeting that's and it proved to be a very good starting point.

Ian
ex 2887

[diplome]

Hi,
thanks for the info will follow the guides on the web site but still need to know how small can the slot between the mast and the jib go when maesured from the height of the boom?
diplome