Princess Sharpie 22 - Sprit vs Boom rigging

[motscg]

Hello folks. This is my first post so allow me to introduce myself. I hail from Long Island, NY and do the extreme commute to Jersey City, NJ each day, so my boatbuilding time is limited. I have an inherited and restored 1967 16

[Charlie Jones]

No - but I've gone the other way. I have an 18 foot sharpie that was originally rigged with regular booms. We cnverted it to Sprit booms and oh boy is that SO much simpler. Easier to rig, and we were actually able to drop a part on the sheets. The use of the sprit unloads the sail SO much you wouldn't believe it. It's self vanging, so that rigging was also taken off the boat. No head knocker sweeping across either, since the end of the sprit is aft of heads.

On boats of that nature, I'll never go back to a boomed sail. I've watched a Princess 22 sailing, in sort of heavy air- he was reefed main and mizzen. Not a problem in the world.

I'd say- once you rig that way, you'll not go back, on that type of boat anyway.

[Guest Oyster]

If you are comparing a sprit rig to a sprit boom rig, I think also you will loose some sail area. I think also your mast height will need to be increased to gain the additional area, and may change some handling characteristics.

[Brent]

Many of us on the forum have extensive backgrounds with tightly wired racing sloops, and have been won over by the cat ketch sprit boom rig. Before you get to serious about booms I would recommend sailing with an experience sprit boom sailor, and see what you think then.

[Tom Lathrop]

What Brent said.

[motscg]

Thanks for the enlightenment. I'm not so set in my ways that I'm not willing to try something new (I'm always tinkering around with things that already work, trying different ideas just because). Perhaps I'll try a sprint boom rig with the Caravelle 14 I'm building (when I get to that point!). Any good links to articles and/or diagrams of how to do this properly?

[Charlie Jones]

Google "sprit boom" and settle back to read- LOTS of info there.

[mustangermatt]

I use regular booms on my cs17. I was able to put about 10% more sail area on a mast 1' shorter than the plans, but I do have a head knocker and some visibility lost. Works fine and definitely an option if you like the more traditional approach. The sprit rig is pretty cool though :-)

[motscg]

Yep, lots to read on sprit booms. Given its endorsements I will consider what I had previously dismissed. I do have a follow-up comment / question though. When I'm sailing keelboats in the LI Sound I am always mindful to watch the telltales so that I maintain good sail trim. But the sprit boom would place a big dent into the arc of the sail, so it has to affect performance. In a cat-ketch with the sprit boom on the mizzen placed on the opposite side of the boom on the main I can see that the detrimental effect would be dampened. I am assuming that on a boat such as the PS22, that the trade-off is negiable?

Thinking about this further, I am wondering why wishbone booms like what are used on windsurfer boards aren't used (except that they aren't as easy to create as a simple pole). Seems like they operate in similar fashion to a sprit boom, but they also allow the sail to keep good shape. Come to think of it, I think I have seen this on some large catboats. Never fully appreciated why they had them except for attaching lazyjacks to, but now I get it.

[Brent]

My boat has slight difference in sheeting from tack to tack that I attribute the sprit influence. The difference is subtle; when on the tack which puts the main sprit to lee of the main I might sheet in at most an additional two inches of main sheet - equivalent to moving the sprit maybe a half inch. I can tell there is a difference by movement of air across the sail, but I see no measureable detraction to boat speed.

My boat is FAST under all points of sail. I could provide substantiating data to support this statement but will hold fast. :wink:

[Tom Lathrop]

Having done most of my sailing in one design racing sloops where we are almost obsessed with sail shape and constantly search for a slight advantage in rigging, I was just as skeptical of the simple sprit as you. Since my first cat ketch was looked upon as a daysailer with no pretense to racing, I decided to go the simple route. Another BRS was built at the same time but built with half wishbone sprits. Graham and I may be better sailors, but our otherwise identical boats were always faster.

The complexity of rigging and maintaining control of the wishbone made launching take at least twice as long. Full wishbones must remain on the mast since they loop around it. You can't take them off and store them away without taking the mast down. Full wishbone sprits would undoubtedly make for better sail shape. Still, I will stick with the simple rig until I see some necessity to change. It's kind of like high tech (read very expensive) Kevlar or carbon sails. Until I see someone beating me and can honestly blame it on sails, I will stay with my old dacron.

[motscg]

Well now that I have been introduced to the virtues of the sprit boom I have to admit that is quite interesting. I've actually never seen a sprit boom or sprit rig in person; no one seems to have them around Long Island - appears to be mostly on smaller lake boats. The wishbone boom I have seen on yachts without realizing what it was and now that I understand what it is actually doing, I do find it appealing. Thanks to all for helping me see the light

I have some other PS22 questions that I will post under a new thread on another day.

[Travis Votaw]

Hi George...You can see some pictures of PILGRIM, my Princess 22, under sail at my website http://www.votaw.org/gallery/albums.php. There quite a few pictures there that show her in various wind conditiions.

You don't have to worry about the quality and strength of sails as provided through B and B. They are bullet proof, and the clew attachments with the webbing loop that holds the clew to the end of the sprit boom is super strong. You will notice that the luff of the mainsail is cut a little full for the stiffness of the mast. We were unable to get the wall thickness of aluminum pipe specified by Graham, having to settle on .125 thickness, and consequently the mast does not bend enough to fill out the luff as I would like. I haven't talked to Graham about it yet, but I might be able to have some of the fullness taken out by a sailmaker. However, this has nothing to do with the sprit boom rig.

The boat sails on her feet very well; "steady as a church" to quote Charlie Jones, her builder.

All of my previous sailing experience before Pilgrim has been with boomed sails, so the sprit boom was a new experience for me. I really like the simplicity of the rig, for all the reasons already stated. I have toyed with the idea of a wishbone rig, though, and if I were going to keep her in the water, I would give it a try. I think it would be very handy to have the sails drop down between the sides of the wishbone sprits and be captured in a "hammock" of lines running under the foot of the sails from one side of the wishbone to the other. This would appeal to my style of shallow water sailing on and off the beaches, etc, where I had to drop and raise the sails several times in a day.

The simplicity of the sheeting arrangement on the sprit boom rig is enough to sell me on the rig. I don't think you would be disappointed in it.

[Garry]

If you use travis's link, you will have to delete the final period.

Or use this one:

http://www.votaw.org/gallery/albums.php

[Joe Nelson CS#35]

Travis,

There is a way to test flex of the mast with weight and supported by saw horses. Then you should be able to get the exact sail shape for the actual mast bend. I cant remember where I saw the infomation. Maybe someone else knows and can post.

[Charlie Jones]

Joe- the problem was that the sails were ordered on the assumption that the mast would be a certain wall thickness and thus a certain flex. When we weren't able to obtain that wall thickness we wound up with a stiffer mast AFTER the sails had been cut and finished.

Now what needs to be done is to remove a slight amount of luff round to compensate for the stiffer masts. I don't think it's really hurting his performance all that much, except dead to windward, strapped in tight. We all try hard to avoid that point of sail anyway don't we? OFF the wind, even a little bit, and it gains back anything lost upwind, for sure.

I mentioned needing to take that into account in another thread on sails and masts, just a short while ago. Just a warning. Also, I've talked to Graham about it and he is aware of the need.

[Designer]

Charlie, have you or Travis tried over tightening the sprit slightly. This puts more compression on the sprit which puts more load on the mast and hence more mast bend and it helps to flatten the sail as well.

[Charlie Jones]

Don't know Graham. We'll have to see what Travis says on that. But that should help, if even just a bit anyway. It's not really all THAT bad, but if I had had the chance and or thought about it way earlier we could have compensated.

[motscg]

Graham, good catch on the URL problem. Saw your post right after I clicked on the link and got zip.

Travis, I took a look at some of your pictures - thanks for sharing. I appreciate hearing your comments on the PILGRIM, especially about the strength of the clew attachment to the sprit boom. My wife was happy to hear that the boat is "steady as a church"!

I'd very likely start off with the basic sprit booms when the time comes, but those wishbone booms would be great (well, they look great on a Tanton 43 anyway ) I am suspecting that my use of the boat would be on off-island trips where the masts would be up for days or a week at a time, so the extra bother of set up would not be so cumbersome (?) I think. If I was trailering to a lake for a quick evening sail, that would be a different story. But that's not likely going to happen here on Long Island. I'd have to keep the boat moored to do a quick sail (which I might do).

I was going to save these follow-up PS22 questions for a new thread, but since I'm already here with a great audience of knowledgeable folks I'll seize the moment and take advantage, so here goes ...

1. How good is the OB engine well? I always thought that they made sense if there was room for it, but some designs apparently work better than others in regards to exhaust fumes coming into the cockpit. Do 4-cycle engines improve on this problem at all (in general)?

2. How high does a de-masted PS22 sit on its trailer? Reason I want to know is that I would want to move the boat on its trailer through my standard height garage door into my backyard (years ago I installed a second garage door on the back of my garage so I gould push my pop-up camp trailer through).

3. Having many years of experience with a pop-up trailer and seeing the great pop-top on a Rhodes 22, I have often wondered why more small boats don't have them. People in small cabins would like to stand up just as much as people in yachts! (The Marine Concepts web-site shows a guy who pitched a tent over the forward cockpit of his Sea Pearl Tri 21 so he could stand up in his cabin.) I was happy to see that the PS26 offered a pop-top as an option and wondered if the PS22 had it as well.

[Joe Nelson CS#35]

Take a look at the pic below...note the heel of the boat the photo was taken from and the heel of Pilgram. She does sail upright!