A few RS600 questions

 

Thats probably not all slippage - thats you pulling the slack out the halyard when you pull on the cunningham.  You really need to pre-tension the halyard on a 600 as they use windsurferish levels of cunningham once the breeze is up.  The main halyar cleat should be one of tehse http://www.clamcleat.com/cleats/cleat_details.asp?theid2=30 - I'd personally go for teh hard annodized one as it lasts longer.

 

A couple of ways to do it:

 

1) Tie a loop on the halyard below teh cleat once you think the sail is up and then run teh tail under the boom jaw and back though teh loop and pull hard - you'll probably get most of those extra inches.

 

2)  Tie the main helyard to the cunningham and pull hard to get that extra main halyard tension - your really mashing the mainsail head in to the mast now. 

 

3) use a windsurfing style grip cclamcleat and use some good old body weight  (http://www.clamcleat.com/cleats/cleats.asp?theid=35)

 

All those will work, No. 3 will be sufficient with a Kevlar halyard or somethig equally low stretch (creap), but remeber to geep moving that knot at the top every other weekend.

 

No.2 followed by No.1 are probably most popular but getting theknot out the halyard can be a right pig.  Some people now carry opposing clamcleat connected by a short strop - same cleat as the main halyard mast cleat, so you slot the main halyard in one and the cunning ham into the other.

 

Again with all these keep moveing teh halyard knot or your'll end up breakign the halyard, normally when your on your victory lap and round the bottom mark to pull a load of cunningham on.

 

We strated leading teh continuous cuningham over teh fordeck as its already a potential spagetti mess running along teh wings and seems to work well.  You don't NEED a continuous one, but it does make life easier.  Definatly a continuous kicker though!

 

Gybing - speed, the more the better.    You'll need to steer a s-curve through teh gybe so you don't come out too hot or you'll just chuck it in.  Practice really as teh 600 is a much easier boat to gybe than tack.  Some say you should have a little kicker on for teh gybe, but i only did that when it was approaching 20 knots, just make sure you control the mainsheet trhough the gybe by holding all the falls in your hand.

 

Ratchet block - what ever takes your fancy, something around 60 odd mm should be fine - you don't need and autoratchet so that will save some costs - I used a 57mm hharken job for 3 hard seasons and it was still perfect when i sold the boat.  I found finding a mainsheet you like made the biggest difference.  If the mainsheet is too heavy then you are not using enough kicker and cunningham!

 

The Yahoo groups are being phased out as all the RS classes are getting new websites.  The new forum can be found on RS600.org.

 

Cheers

Neptune