kicker attachment

Blinding!
Thanks craiggo, that could work, belt drive would do it, like off a Harley.

Nothing to stop you gybing conventionally, duck gybing as we proper sailors call it.

All though with my new drum system you wouldn't have to head up then have that nice sickening crash as it comes across.

You would just wind it round the front and get that acceleration as you sheet in on the new side.

You'll need a hell of a lot of mechanical advantage as the centre of effort is well behind the point of rotation but as with David I'd love to see you try it!

The big problem will come when the mast rotates forward and you begin to sheet on again after the windsurf style gybe. Now, in a windsurfer the mast cants around and the board stays relatively flat, the heeling moment of the sail isn't transferred to the board in the same way, not to the same degree anyway. If you have ever sailed a laser and let your mainsheet go right out and sailed heavily by the lee you will know it is a lot of fun but incredibly wobbly. I think this is where you will come unstuck, not the making it work bit, that's easy, people gybe A sails round the front all the time when its windy in big boats, two sheets is the answer there. Big boats are already doing outside gybes, so really this is nothing new.

Are you talking about the foiling V Twin? Why would that go on the bonfire? With it's revolutionary new invention of the inflatable mast head foil that will prevent it turning turtle and boost the power off the sail in the same way end plate effect helps the foot.

As to the hideously expensive EPS and it's gybing properties, I already get wet on windy lee running into fast gybes, precisely because of the flow reversal that has to occur. The difference will be that by the time the sail is on the new tack, so will the boat be, as against what can happen at the moment if the wind, apparent or direction change, happen as you gybe and the new heading is all wrong for the freshly crashed sail, it's over you go. The way I'm proposing the take up on the new tack, like windsurfing, is progressive, it's exactly for windy conditions I need to do something else, gybing 9.4 sq mtrs with only 67 kgs to counter that crash gybe is very very difficult.

I've spent many an hour postulating as to why boats are faster running by the lee and why they rock about so much, indeed I had a couple of hours to consider it running dead downwind running the Icon jib by the lee to enforce the thinking, so I do know what goes wrong and why.

Edited by iGRF - 29 Oct 14 at 9:27am