The RS100 Owners Thread

Originally posted by JimC I think its a suprisingly complicated subject... Unless a rudder blade is completely balanced with the pivot point exactly over the centre of lateral resistance then it will be tugging on the tiller if its taking up any sideload. If its not taking up any sideload then you are dragging a big foil through the water without it doing anything until you change direction, which seems a waste of wetted surface area... I've never understood how anyone can realistically judge what angle the tiller is at to the centreline from sitting out of the side of the boat - I'm sure *I* can't judge it accurately - but it seems to me that the optimum position for the tiller must depend on: the lowest drag angle of attack for the rudder compared to the centreboard: they are different sections so perhaps they shouldn't be parallel the angle of the centreboard to the boat if you have a gybing board the angle of leeway the hull is making how flat the boat is and probably lots more I haven't thought of!

Jim,

Interesting subject. What's the difference then (if there is one) between a tug on the tiller due to the centre of effort being behind the centre of lateral resistance (centreboard pivot point?) and that caused by, say, the rudder blade not being fully down (which I presume is not 'proper' weather helm at all)?

I think its a suprisingly complicated subject...
Unless a rudder blade is completely balanced with the pivot point exactly over the centre of lateral resistance then it will be tugging on the tiller if its taking up any sideload. If its not taking up any sideload then you are dragging a big foil through the water without it doing anything until you change direction, which seems a waste of wetted surface area...

I've never understood how anyone can realistically judge what angle the tiller is at to the centreline from sitting out of the side of the boat - I'm sure *I* can't judge it accurately - but it seems to me that the optimum position for the tiller must depend on:

• the lowest drag angle of attack for the rudder compared to the centreboard: they are different sections so perhaps they shouldn't be parallel


• the angle of the centreboard to the boat if you have a gybing board


• the angle of leeway the hull is making


• how flat the boat is


• and probably lots more I haven't thought of!

Hey to the RS 100 massive,

 

Question, what happened to the Gucci double armed tiller as featured on the RS website? The tiller in the photos of boats delivered looks like a Vareo one.

Did they bin that idea or is it an optional extra??

Heres my thoughts on how i would go about trying to tune the boat for
the first time.
Presuming the shrouds are pretty much useless.

The kicker and cunningham tension is just there to de-power the rig
upwind.

In say a force 3, when i can sail the boat full power, block to block on the
mainsheet and flat i would go out there with a neutral mast ram position,
i.e. the mast is sat in its natural position. if the boat wants to stall, the
strops are probably too tight, ease them, but dont ease them so much the
boom falls off the centreline (loss of height).
Now sailing flat when you let go of the rudder does the boat head up
quite alot or heaven forbid try and bear away (never really experienced
that). if it wants to head up, the draft is too far aft, you can apply
cunningham, lift the plate to equalise the COE, or wind the mast ram
on/forward to initiate prebend. I would suggest that the ram is the best
option. You are looking for a neutral helm ideally, ideally when upright
the boat tracks on its own.
That setting would be my initial basic fully powered up point and my
starting point to work from.
Next i would start loading the kicker as the wind comes on. to keep the
boat tracking in a straight line, use the cunningham to neutralise the
helm once more.
once i got to a wind state where the kicker is doing jack and i cant
actually centreline the boom without sacraficing heel, its past the time
when you need to start considering raking the mast back (ram forward) in
most boats you rarely rake much more than 4 inches so i would rake the
tip of the mast back an inch and try the process again.
thats just my thoughts on how i would do it.

My thoughts are what the effect of increasing the mast tension via the
shrouds would be. if you pull on the halyard and really drop the shroud
pins down, so when you let go of the halyard, the shrouds are tensioned,
what effects are that going to have?
obviously its initiating prepend and ultimately depowering the rig, but to
what extent.

im waffling now haha

Originally posted by Inland sea This image is very telling to me :- Great boat trim It looks like your kicker blocks are all most touching ie max kicker. In that wind ... does this mean you have enough range to be able to pull more kicker on  This is all laymens stuff here I could be well off the mark as it looks like the selden mast is a lot stiffer than a 300 mast and with the extra battern up top could make a huge difference.

I blew that picture up & it looks like the kicker blocks are only 1/2 way between the gnav roller & the boom - so a fair bit more to go