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swivel block cam cleats


W. Micawber

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Are you asking if a wooden base to mount it to will work? If so it most likely is fine, but depends on what line it is for and the size of the sail, and what fasteners you will use and how the block is attached to the boat. A little more info would help.

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Dave, I ran across a discussion about alternate mainsheet rigging on the CS 17 by PAR, who made his own out of stainless. I thought such an arrangement would work on my CS 15. One of the problems I have with the CS 15 standard rigging lay out is that clam cleats and other gear clutter the washboard where you want to plant your butt to hike out. Further, when you have crew along, the crew is sitting in the way of the mainsheet cleat and makes it difficult to get at with dispatch, especially in a good breeze. So, I thought I would try to make a swivel block and clam cleat out of red oak. My concern is strength. I don't want it disintegrating under a load. The main on the CS 15 is 59 sq ft.

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Tom Lathrop rigged his Lapwing with swivel blocks w/cam cleats as well. And I will do the same when I build my next day sailor (probably a Lapwing). I just like it better for control. I have never assembled my own from scratch, I have always bought the hardware. I use a simple one for my Spindrift. As far as making one you have me confused as to what you are asking. You want to make a block out of oak? and a cam cleat out of oak? Seems like quite the whittling project to me ;)

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I think you'd have better luck making the swiveling arm out of stainless. If made out of wood, I'd think that eventually it would break unless you made it very thick. The base could still be HDPE, though, which is a good idea because it would eliminate any concerns of the swiveling arm scratching into a wood base and needing to be re-epoxied/varnished periodically.

If you want to go with wood, then I don't know that you need to make it swivel. Just cut a wooden wedge that can mount on the thwart and angle up toward the rail. Mount a fairlead at the base and a cam at the high end of the wedge. Angle the wedge so it is pointing at the location you normally hike out on the rail. The only downside would be that since the wedges wouldn't swivel, if you ever want to release the cam on the lee side, you would need to reach across and pull at a slightly awkward angle to release it. But that's no different than with the original clamcleat set-up, and you'd be reaching across to a much closer location (the far side of the thwart, instead of all the way to the lee coaming).

I've been thinking of making this switch myself.

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post-304-0-87900000-1342212179_thumb.jpg

This is the swivel, standup block/cam cleat setup I used on a horizontal surface (CS-17 thwart). It's pretty much the same as Tom's, but I used 1/8" 6061 aluminum bar stock, instead of stainless, which is easier to work with. The photo's lousy, but you can see how it works. The disk is a HDPE hunk, stolen from the other half's old cutting board (Wal-Mart, $15). A center hole and bolt, permits it to spin 360 degrees, while the standup swivel block permits fair leads. The same can be done on vertical surfaces (like a transom), just be inventive about the bends, so you can get fair leads.

post-304-0-31734700-1342212612_thumb.jpg

Again a lousy image, but you can see whats going on. This time using 3" angle stock and more 6061 flat bar. The cam cleat arm, which does pivot side to side, was bent to get it up and closer to the block after this photo was taken. It was mounted at seat top height (non-B&B boat) and the "to hand" lead needed to be raised and angled a bit for comfort. Both work well and don't cost much to make.

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Wes and PAR, thanks for your replies. I will have to consider the matter further. One of the challenges of rigging the cat-ketch for the CS 15 is to make the sail controls easily accessible while providing optimum space for crew. The set-up detailed on the plans is fine for single handing, but room and accessibility are concerns when sailing with a mate.

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