Yes, point well taken on slowing the turn. I have gotten fairly good at keeping an eye on the competition, chart plotter, headsail, and the trimmers while tacking. Overall it's much better to take the turn a little slower and limit the grinding. But, even minimal grinding with current winches is very difficult. I need to look into new winches for sure. ________________________________ From: Richard Bush via CnC-List <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2023 12:59 PM To: Jeffrey A. Laman via CnC-List <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> Cc: Richard Bush <bushma...@aol.com> Subject: Stus-List Re: Winch Size for C&C34
I second Charlie's points about the timing; it took my a while to learn to turn the wheel more slowly to allow the trimmers to get the line in! 1985 C&C 37 CB; Ohio River, Mile 584; Richard Richard N. Bush Law Offices 2950 Breckenridge Lane, Suite Nine Louisville, Kentucky 40220 (502) 584-7255 On Tuesday, September 12, 2023 at 11:39:43 AM EDT, cenelson--- via CnC-List <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> wrote: I still have the original headsail winches on my 1995 C&C 36 XL/kcb--Lewmar 50s self-tailing 2 speed IIRC--although I moved them forward for my local racing needs. I also added a set of Lewmar 44s to make kite handling more reasonable. If this combination of 'power' is not enough, I need to get drop my sails and get into port somewhere!! However, even these winches for the genoa can seem to be underpowered if the helm is not in tune with the headsail as it crosses the boat. I find it especially important to not turn the boat too fast during the tack. The helm needs to turn the wheel slowly, especially within say +/- 10-15 degrees of head to wind, before the genoa begins to fill on the new tack. This will allow most of the new active sheet to be brought in hand over hand with very little pressure on it so that when it fills, there is only a few feet to winch in with a handle. I have found that with a 155% headsail, a 'quick' tack is usually a bad one since the grinders have to seriously grind in too much line with the genoa filled. This is a good example of using better 'timing' during the tack to reduce the serious winching required otherwise. If you are racing, climbing back to close-hauled from a tack that was too fast with the genoa too far out loses a lot of ground to windward to your competitors on every 'fast' tack. BTW, if you add/replace any winches be mindful of where you mount them. My cockpit was originally set up more for cruising so the headsail winches were aft in the cockpit. As I did more club racing, in order to have room in the cockpit for flying a masthead symmetrical kite, I had to move them forward and add a set (44s) to handle the kite. I think the original thought was to fly the kite from winches on the cockpit bulkhead either side of the companionway which were Lewmar 30s. This turned out to be totally underpowered for my kite AND it concentrated too many bodies together at the companionway in each other's way most of the time. Further, even when I moved the 30s to the cockpit coaming aft of the headsail winches, I found the 30s to be underpowered for my kite--thus I replaced them with the 44s. Until I added the 44s, we tried to use the headsail winches for the kite which had plenty of power--however, moving the kite and genoa sheets during racing was much too confusing and time consuming. FWIW Charlie Nelson Water Phantom 1995 C&C 36XL/kcb
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