My tactician and I have a friendly disagreement on which winches to use when doing dip pole jibes with lazy sheets and 'guys' on my masthead rig C&C 36 XL/kcb: On Water Phantom, I have moved the initial primary winches (Lewmar ST 50s) forward on the cockpit coaming and added another secondary winch pair (Lewmar ST 44s) at the aft end of the cockpit coaming. Thus my secondaries are hardly secondary in strength and power ratios, etc. All our races have port roundings and most are W-L. Thus we are on starboard tack at either the windward or leeward mark. I am no expert on dip-pole jibes but as I thought thru the sequence of events at the turning mark on starboard tack, it seemed intuitive to me to rig the kite with a starboard pole always (we never do jib sets!), using the aft secondary winches for both the sheet and the guy on the kite. This leaves the forward primary winches committed to the headsail as we make the turn at the mark. After the turn, the primary winches can be cleared of the headsail sheets and the other set of kite lines (sheet and guy) can be rigged on these primary winches. When it comes time to jibe, the aft secondary kite lines become lazy and the trimmers use the primary winches--note the primary and secondary winches are only about 2 feet apart. For the next jibe, the trimmers move to the aft secondary winches and so on... At the leeward mark, always on starboard for port roundings, the kite is back to being controlled by the aft secondaries (as at the windward mark) and the forward primaries can be loaded with the headsail sheets in anticipation of the beat to windward just as they were positioned at the windward mark. I like this symmetry (but then I am mostly a left-hander!) and think it involves less line switching, less time and might be faster than using a forward set of winches for both guys, etc. OTOH, my tactician races mainly in a one design Beneteau 41S fleet in Chicago where the primary forward winches have both guys on them, the aft secondary winches are used for both sheets always. (I think this is because the secondaries might be pretty small on the 41S and they and/or the crew may not be able to handle the guys on the secondary aft winches). Since I have no problem with using Lewmar 44s as primary winches, I have the option to do the winches ala the Chicago way or the Water Phantom way. Before I commit to having the crew learn how to do these winch swaps as we go from jibe to jibe, I want to choose the best way to handle the winches and stick with it through the season. What do the list racers think of these alternatives? Thanks in advance,
Charlie NelsonWater Phantom1995 C&C 36 XL/kcbNew Bern, NC
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