Anyone replace the roller on their Spartan bronze bow roller

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Apr 29th, '10, 14:50

You can certainly do self tacking without a boom, I have seen it on many european boats. I do suspect one would need to recut the sail though.

Personally, if already ditching the boom though, I would go the route of leading the sheets to the cockpit and doing away with self tacking. Its really not going to do you much good on the long voyages you have planned. Plus keeping the self tacking continues to crowd the foredeck space and limit your dinghy options.

As for a quick release innner forestay, I also would not bother. For local weekender cruising its handy and one can likely leave it detached most of the time for easier sloop style sailing. But in passagemaking you want it attached and ready to go. So in my opinion you are just wasting your money on a very expensive fitting. Plus, with a quick release inner you pretty much have to go with running backstays, where with a permanently installed one the aft intermediates do fine.

Ocean Girl · Post by **Ocean Girl** » Apr 29th, '10, 17:02

Russell, why do I need running backstays if I use a quick release with my staysail stay?
Erika

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Apr 29th, '10, 17:46

Ocean Girl wrote:Russell, why do I need running backstays if I use a quick release with my staysail stay?
Erika

Because tension is easily adjustable, which it is not with aft intermediates. Granted there maybe fancier quick release fittings that are tension adjustable (I only know the ABI one). But you will likely need to back off the tension of aft intermediates before snapping in the ABI style quick release, running backs would eliminate that. Does your boat have aft intermediates? I know some of the smaller CDs do and some do not, if not you need to add either them or running backs reguardless before taking off on extended offshore work.

Ocean Girl · Post by **Ocean Girl** » Apr 29th, '10, 22:43

Nope, I have the standard two lowers and one upper, port and starboard. Well that is a project for another day, I don't really want running backstays, too much stuff. I like a simple set up, so until the inner stay becomes a problem I'll leave it.

But back to the anchor stuff, the manual windlass can fit aft of the inner stay, and since I have figured a way to fit my chain further aft in the lower forefoot of my keel, I was wondering how much weight can the CD30 handle low up in the bow? 200 lbs? 250 lbs? can I get away with 300 lbs?

BTW- Bob, I walked over to the boats with my camera but my memory card was full, will get those pics this weekend. The windlasses look to be the old Ideals (?) I like the lofrans but havent even begun to research about the quality.

Cheers.
Erika