I ordered a Canterbury J boat from Berger Boats. I was wondering what sails and sail winch you use?

Ed

I'm thinking about doing a Canterbury J build right now. Ken Bauser has been doing alot of their sails. I was at his shop and he had many orders for sails on the bench.

I have bought a set of USOM sails from him and they are an excellent product with good value.

That is a very good kit for the money and a will never go out of style.
The servo investment depends on your budget and how long you plan to keep your boat.
Servo City is the mainstream of servos and sailwinches now.
I'm using a better quality servo and sail-winch in my sailboat but I have been sailing mine for over 20 years.
I use PQ12 Firgelli linear servos paired with a Pololu JRK 21V3 servo motor controller.It is a digital pc programmable controller and is easy to connect to a data-logger.These are used for rudder and backstay tensioner.I build my own digital sail-winch with a geared clockwork drive system.
Regards,
John

Jaguar75,

Some builders are using the RMG Smart Winch; this seems a little over kill for the size of the boat. So what are they gaining, is it the speed of the winch? I am sure a geared servo will move the sails OK but are they too slow?

Ed

Several of us in the Sierra Model Yacht Club have the Canterburys, and I think most of us are going to use the Hitec HS 815 with an arm, like the Odom. These are excellant quality kits and Hans is excellant to deal with. Ron
PS
We have the Ken Bauser Sails also. Very good value and good looking sails.

I have an Infinity-54 sailboat (1,000sq.in. sails) that has a ProBar W-75 sail-winch.They were made up until 2003 when, the manufacturer, Don Prough died in a traumatic car wreck.It is one of the best sail-winches in a boat our size.The RMG is over-priced and can be troublesome.The W-75 is a geared double-arm winch and has never given me any problems.
I am building a short run of these winches with an extruded aluminum chassis, updated Pololu digital/programmable motor controller, digital potentiometer and all metal gears.It will be oz./in. torque rated for sailboats 40" to 100" in overall length.I'm also offering a short run of Firelli PQ12 linear servos with Pololu programmable motor controllers.

Will it also be an arm or would you consider a drum winch? There are some multihull builders who would prefer a strong drum in order to fit in narrow hulls. The 815 is fast and strong enough - it just needs the hull width to fit. I'm using on my 1 Meter trimaran, but had to install with a double arm above the deck. Works great - but looks .... well there could be an "improvement". Getting ready to see if I can fit to my F-48 trimaran .... definitely will NOT fit in my F-48 catamaran hulls (too narrow). Might wind up with 2 GWS 1 turn drums - one for main and one for jib to help split the work - approximately 1400 sq. inches of sail area.

What would be ideal - is if someone would be willing to rework the 815's so they retain current speed, but make either 1 or 2 turns. I've corresponded directly with GWS and they understand but are not sure their labor would be repayed for the modifications with limited market for sales. Unfortunately, they really don't understand the sailing market having "modified" aircraft stuff.

Dick

Dick,

The width of the Canterbury J is 8.5 inches at the deck. Not sure if a double arm will work further down in the hull, may have to use a single arm.

Hitec has some servo's with drums, but I don't know how many turns are needed for the sheeting. Looking at the New Zea land Canterbury site they use a HS-725BB with 4.25 turns, which is too many turns; so the servo and radio has to be modified.

blckgnx,

Are you going to use the Hitec HS-815 with a single arm?

Ed

Does anyone know how much line the servo has to let out/ pull in? I'd imagine it's only around 10-12 inches. If that's so, you could use a double or triple purchase pulley system on the arm and adjust length as you need to. With the Canterbury being difficult to access a continuous system inside the hull (?), you could also put the loop on deck maybe?!

Hi Ed -

thanks for suggestions. Basically the RMG is "the" winch of choice for the big multihulls, but the current Hitechdrums are way to slow. Closest is the Futaba 5800 series but then we are in same price range as the RMG winches - or darn close. The main hull on the trimaran is slightly more that 4 inches.... and my little RG65M has hull width of just about 2 inches. I would prefer to keep everything "inside" the hull, but a "pod" might be my only answer to house all electronics between hulls.

You may want to experiment with the larger Firgelli linear actuators.
Regards,
John

At or about the $100.00 - $130.00 cost, they would work for my neeeds at about a 12 inch stroke, but size wise, I wold be better off to get the much smaller 815 series and have it modified by some electronics guru, me thinks.


Jaguar, I had looked at them in the past, but dicided to take anothe rlook - thanks.

Mmm, don't know where you get the idea that RMG winches are troublesome in fact nearly every IOM in the world use them for there reliability and superb quaility (no connection with RMG) being a programmable winch you can decide where the end points are on the drum they have a built in battery monitor and failsafe.
I cannot understand why if your going to build and sail an expensive yacht that's took time to get onto the water to buy a cheap low budget winch.

I agree with you.Most sail-boats have a very inexpensive sail-winch.
I would rather use a geared double-arm sail-winch.My opinion is that the drums are more complex to set up in the hull and troublesome because the sheets can become fouled during the spooling.I have been using my Probar W-75 sail-winch for over 20 years now with zero issues.My redesigned sail-winch is programmable.It has all-metal aluminum-anodised stainless steel gears and shafts with a digital motor controller and potentiometer.The chassis is cnc machined out of solid aluminum and has ceramic/stainless steel hybrid ball bearings.It is made in the USA.
Regards,
John

Ed Crowell,
I plan on using a double arm on the 815. My Odom is 8 1/4" across, where the 815 is mounted, so there should be plenty of room. I believe in the "KISS" method of doing things, in the long run its always worked for me. Ron
PS
The attachment point on the Odom is 11" aft of the mast on the main sail boom. I run the Odom on a 4 cell pack most of the time, and have never had the servo stall on me yet (knock on wood).