I begin to think that the only real drawback with sloop JR, is that racing really hard downwind is not possible, because the rudder will be overloaded and stall too early.

I have found that even with the big rudder on my Ingeborg, I’d better reef downwind when the speed reaches 6.5kts, or the rudder load will build up rapidly (..together with a big stern-wave..). I have sailed in an original IF and touched 7 kts with mainsail and poled out jib, as this rig is quite balanced.

However, I am not planning any crazy downwind race, so am happy enough with dropping a panel to keep 6.5kt. After all, with a WL of 6.05m the theoretical hull-speed is just around 6.0kts.  Most of the time the wind is lighter than F5 in the summer and then my rig has a huge advantage.

Now, we may have different view on what is fun: If someone wants to push their sloop JR downwind until expensive things happen in the rig, then I suggest fitting a La Chica style rudder with 20% balance. Both the Rustler 36s and the OE 32 in that Golden Globe Race would have been much easier to control with such a rudder, instead of the originals.

Frankly, I would like to install an aux. rudder on Ingeborg’s transom (port side), just to see how powerful it is when sitting in free water flow.

My armchair guess is that the big Tystie, with her shallow, broad-chord, unbalanced (?) rudder, would be a challenge to any steering system, manual or automatic, in particular with the slop rig.

Arne

PS: See Paul Thompson's account on the new rudder for La Chica in Magazine 67, p.54.

Scott wrote:

When you look at Sir Robin's experience 50 years ago, it's not like he was particularly prepared, either.  His first knockdown emptied his cupboards on his body and nearly crushed him, and his steering vane gave him trouble from the start, failing entirely around Tasmania.  His cabin roof was weakly attached, leaking like a screen door, and his winches were apparently crap, though expensive.

30% of people who start in big-city marathons don't finish.  But that's not to mean they failed.

I applaud the dreamers - those who start huge, ambitious projects just to test themselves.  In the end, it's all some version of ego, but ego ain't necessarily bad.  Some climb Everest, some walk the length of the Appalachian Trail, some build an impressive ocean-going vessel with their own hands, some even sign 30 year mortgages on homes!  And nearly all discover something about themselves that would have remained unexplored had they been more prudent.

Oh, but he was prepared, in two important ways. He was already an experienced merchant seaman, and he'd already sailed Suhaili from India to the UK. So he knew his boat and had the experience of fixing things, or coping if he couldn't. And wind vanes were in their infancy at that time, so not to be compared with the commercial offerings nowadays.

These current failures are happening before they have even left the stadium, in marathon terms. No excuse for that.

Yes, dare to dream. I've climbed a lot of mountains, and made not a few ocean crossings. But I like to think that I prepared well enough, then pushed my boundaries as far as they would prudently stretch, but not beyond that point. There are old seamen, there are bold seamen, but there are no ...

When you look at Sir Robin's experience 50 years ago, it's not like he was particularly prepared, either.  His first knockdown emptied his cupboards on his body and nearly crushed him, and his steering vane gave him trouble from the start, failing entirely around Tasmania.  His cabin roof was weakly attached, leaking like a screen door, and his winches were apparently crap, though expensive.

30% of people who start in big-city marathons don't finish.  But that's not to mean they failed.

I applaud the dreamers - those who start huge, ambitious projects just to test themselves.  In the end, it's all some version of ego, but ego ain't necessarily bad.  Some climb Everest, some walk the length of the Appalachian Trail, some build an impressive ocean-going vessel with their own hands, some even sign 30 year mortgages on homes!  And nearly all discover something about themselves that would have remained unexplored had they been more prudent.

The Windpilot is the brand mentioned for the other two failures.

Steering a Rustler 36 downwind at 8 knots is going to severely test any vane gear, and would be well beyond the Belcher. I know, from personal experience. On Tystie, of similar size, the loads and control problems are enormous at that speed, and I generally kept the speed at under 7 knots. But then, I wasn't racing.

Would be interesting to know, what kind of brands theses failed wind vanes were. Just to avoid getting one of these for your own boat. The only one mentioned in the article is a Beaufort. Have not heard of or seen one before.

But that wouldn't happen for us, as we would build our own one again - a Bill Belcher OGT MkII