soft or hard vang

[ebb]

Vang is by definition a kind of preventer.
Seen on a cruising Ariel found recently on yachtworld,
the boom is rigged with double soft vangs with bottom blocks on the port and starboard side-corners of the doghouse - the leads aft to the cockpit.

Better with a picture.

But the rig is intriguing. I have been thinking recently whether the Garhauer hard vang is absolutely necessary for a cruising Ariel. It does do away with a topping lift and can harden up the boom in other applications. But it takes a lot of cabin deck away in an important area.

How indispensible is the hard vang for reefing sail in rising wind? Singlehanded.

Anybody have pros and cons on this?

[Tony G]

Ebb

The rigid boom vang is absolutely necessary for any degree of happiness. Of course I base this not on acutual sailing experience but on the wonderful customer service experience I had received from the Garhauer staff. I bought one way back when they just over 200 clams-about the same time Bill added one to Maikai (?) Ol' Yeller?

Yes, dual softies would work as a preventer given you have something stout to attach them to. I don't know if there is a stantion base in the right spot on Little Gull to accomodate a couple of shackles. Surely you wouldn't consider defacing your toe rail!:eek: Add to that you have another hurdle to jump on your way forward.

Cabin top space? You did say you have an Ariel, right? Just kidding. But if you are actually vanging your boom on anything but a reach or run wouldn't you need that space on the cabin top for the soft vang? It's gotta swing through that arc whether its a soft or rigid vang right? You wouldn't want to ease it, tack, run forward and lift it over something on the cabin top, then run back and tension it again. A guy could easily spill a baverage doing that much work!

Again, I base all of this on nothing remotely close to sailing on an Ariel.

P.s. I nearly bought the dutchman boom brake them caved to the lust of shiney, well machined stainless steel. I'm bad like that.:(

[ebb]

Hey Tony,
later for discuss, I'm working.

Boat in question as of 6/9/08:
Yachtworld.com
go immediately to 'Advanced Search'
Type in to the 'Length' box: 26 to 26 (nothing else)
In the Boat Type choices highlight Cruiser/Racer (nothing else)
Cursor the Search box at the bottom

Search results should start with a '26ft 1978 Albin 79'
Go to blue page 5
Second boat from top is 26ft 1965 Pearson Great Pearson Sailing Cruiser - Ocean Veteran.

Has about 80 photos. About 21 pixs in is a shot of the vang system I'm talking about.
(There may be a better shot somewhere)



Trying to understand why this boat chose this system, What if any are its advantages?
My Garhauer Rigid resides in its box waiting, waiting.........w a i t i n....

[Tony G]

Ebb

Yeah, I'm pickin up what you're puttin down. I can't see what you would gain by switching to that system from what you currently have. A bunch more blocks, holes, and line. It does look every bit as useful and maybe even a tad more flexible. We're gonna have to think out loud on that one.

Your point about the rigid vangs doing away with the topping lift is probably not a strong enough argument for most people to plop down that kind of coin. Although with the price of 0.084" wall stainless tubing going up a good old fashioned boom gallow might not be much less expensive. Zoiks!

I did spot the self steering gear (photos 2,51,52) and I would like to know a bit more about her set-up, but, that's another thread.

Oh yeah, if your RBV is still in the box and under tension you might want to pull the line out of the cams and ease the tension on the spring.

[ebb]

www.boatus.com/goodoldboat/vangprevent.asp

True preventers (themselves dangerous if not released in time during a planned jibe) described in this article should be led somewhat forward then back to the cockpit. I'm unhappy with such unforgiving control. Who can stand up for them?

What is shown on the Kiwanda has to be merely for leech tension because they are not rigged positive enough for preventers. But yet they might allow for a controlled jibe if tension was on both lines, port and starboard.

Tony, I'll check that spring tension NOW on the Garhauer. Thanks, It's only been a couple years!


We've talked of Vangs on the vang threads. And we've talked of mainsheets and travelers on those threads...

But I don't know that we've talked of double main sheets - rigged like the Kiwanda vangs - as an alternative to the sheet traveler. Maybe, But recently in Good Old Boat an article appeared that seemed to show double sheets being used as vangs. It was unclear to me but appeared to show the vang setup being used to control the boom as main sheets. Try to dig it out. Maybe it's worth a thread of its own. I like line triangulations. And I still have my suspicions about high tension gear like the hard vang.

A boom on a traveler is a dangerous thing!

[Tim D.]

Che' has a ridged vang and (perhaps the old vang) as a preventer.
http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussion/attachment.php?attachmentid=4058&stc=1&d=1178510582You can kinda see it in this older pic

Putting a second on in order to prevent having to go forward on a jibe is intriguing, but I am loathe to crowd a small deck. My ridgid vang does not waste space as the solar panel is located underneath it.

This is the first ridgid vang that I have had and I have not used it enough to judge its merits.

[Tony G]

Good read. Unfortunately I let that subscription lapse also. Not that I didn't like their product. Just so little time and I wanted to do it instead of read about it.

Preventervangtravelermainsheet? That's a lot of eggs in that there basket. If it was really that simple don't you think someone would have been doing it long before now as standard cruising equipment? I am probably wrong here, but it looks to be another variation of a preventer. One that doesn't need to be moved to the toe rail with every jibe and operates on a continuous loop much like some travelers do. It sounds like it works great for Karen and Jerry and I certainly don't fault them for sharing their idea with us. Their's is one of very few periodicals I would recomend to anyone. I'll reread it again(and again and again ) but I didn't get the gist they were suggesting folks ditch their travelers and such. Were they? I know the type of traveler they desribed in the piece and, well, piece is one of three words I'd use to describe them.

The set-up on Kiwanda is probably suficient to work as a vang and preventer. Our's are smaller boats and if we're attentive there shouldn't be the absolute need to run a preventer line very far forward. One of the books I have shows a diagram with the line running all the way to the bow! Hicarumba a lot of fiddling!

Now that you have that beefy new spar, Ebb, you could use such a system without worrying too much about all that stress right there in the middle. I, sir, am too chicken. Recently I gave thought to using a chunk of my ensign mast extrusion for a boom, but, I fear it would prove to be too heavy for my...rigid boom vang. Wuddya think?

[ebb]

Good Old Boat, March/April 2008
Is a four page argument for double vangs written from a practical point of view.
"Not only are these vangs more effective than a centered vang at pulling down the boom. they also act as preventers and help steady the boom in a seaway."

The argument against the generic Garhauer is its weight, is that it is jamming the boom into the mast.
The argument for is that the center vang does not impinge the movement of the boom side to side as the boom can be sheeted at any angle.
Not necessarily a good thing as the boom can still bounce around in a seaway - and the further downwind you point the greater the danger of a jibe.
[The same danger of the single sheet to the traveler, I'd say.] More of a concern on a cruiser because the helm is not always tended.

The article talks about loads and purchases and the security of having vangs to each side. Graphics emphasize the tackle used on Bernard Heise's Mason 43. For ease of illustrating the graphic does not show boom sheeting.

I at the same time have had the problem of where to place the traveler on Little Gull if I had one. All Ariels originally came without, and was sheeted to eyes that have prominent molded pads on the back of the cockpit in front of the laz. hatch.
I have seen and read of booms rigged with double sheets - to similar port and starboard points without a traveler.

Double sheets are exactly the same - to my amateur eye - as the double vangs illustrated in the article above. In fact the vangs are rigged with inexpensive nylon strap around the boom, no bails. The same could be done with sheets if not in the way of reef and clew functions.

And as I finished the article and turned the pages my end boom sheeting problem - sheeting was NOT covered in the article - became one with the author's double vang system.

In fact I can not see why the double vang at any point in the aft half of the boom cannot be used as the boom's sheet system. And IF the mighty boom on Little Gull was rigged with both double vangs and double sheets, I'd have all the control I'd need. Lot of line ends.....or maybe no ends at all. right? The vangs would be aft of center somewhere over the companionway as shown in the Good Old Boat piece - and the sheets off the boom end.

What am I missing?
Would someone clew me in on this?


It would be 100% easier to talk about this interesting point of rigging if the magazine piece were here to examine. But the concept seems clear.

I do have a natural predilection for more logical and natural strings instead of show gear. A hard vang and main sheet traveler - both awkward machines born of racing not cruising - might be better rigged with 'softer' more adjustable and safer double tackles. It would be great to dispense with fashionable expensive gear promulgated by expensive fashionable wallet bandits??? Imco.

[Tony G]

I'd like to read the whole article. Then maybe it would make more sense to me. I have allowed the pocket bandits to run rough shod over me a couple of times. But then again, I've often 'made it myself' for 2-3times the cost of simply buying an item:mad: Oh well.

Just say youre on a port reach and you draw in the starboard vang line to flaten the main a bit. Oops, too much. You ease the line only to allow the boom to raise. Crap. so you pull the starboard line back in and counter it with a tug on the port line. Sail flat, boom where you want it. Great, but you are still adding force to push the boom into the mast. Isn't that just the physics (which I admittedly know little about) of controling sails. It's not a binding force, that's bad anyway you cut it. It's merely 'containing' the forces or counter-acting them to use them in a way we prefer-to move our boat.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not implying this system is wrong or flawed or will not work as good as, or anything like that. It looks like just a different version of...It very well may be just the right thing for Little Gull given your traveler dilema. That's a good thing! The sail control that a properly used traveler/mainsheet system offers is undisputable. Include in that sytem a cunningham, outhaul, vang...all parts of a system to better control the main. It can, and has been done with less than all of these. The choice to ditch your Garhauer RBV is yours and no one else can prove you wrong for doing it. I think the double vang, double sheet would give you a lot of control. Arguably all the control you'd need given your outhaul is included.

Dream Weaver will start with something more conventional like Che has on her. Of course that's not to say we wont change the whole ball of wax if someone builds a better mouse trap!

Just as a side note I fired off an e-mail to the yacht broker of Kiwanda hoping to flush out the owner and get a direct response from him or her.

[ebb]

Don't wanna steal yer wind Tony.
Please come back at me - the exchange is a breath of fresh air.
But the vangs shown in the article do not go forward, at least not essentially,
but have the deck block aft of the shrouds. In fact that is a good point, because the tension forward or back can be experimented with. For Ariels with foresail tracks, the tracks might be used for fine tuning. There is no pressure forward on the gooseneck that I can make out with this system.

Though I don't remember mentioned in the article, both vangs can be hardened at the same time to position the boom, not just one. I imagine that would provide great fine tuning as the boom can be put anywhere by double vangs alone.

I'm in the same boat as you Tony. And the wind may be blowing up my backside.
Rules and conventions are MEANT to be broken!!!!
I've always been consistently lousey at sports......

[Ed Ekers]

On Pathfinder we have used both a vang and a preventer for years. Our rig was similar that that of Che and the one shown in the Boat US article. We tried to use the preventer as a vang and found that the results were excellent when we were off the wind but not near as efficient going up wind.

I have also been on boats that use the vang for sheeting but I must confess that they were ultralights and it was under race conditions.

As far as how Pathfinder is rigged now we have settled on just a rigid gang. Reason, we don’t race her any more and the one thing we don’t need is more lines to maintain and frankly get in the way. Although I must admit on those light air days that we are running down wind I do miss the preventer.

[Tony G]

Well let's just stretch this thread all out of shape, just for fun.

One of the books I have show a preventer rigged from the end of the boom to a spot waaay forward. I think Yves Gelina even had his preventer rigged that way in his movie. Is it the Chapman book that shows the soft vang being shackled to an aluminum toe rail there by allowing it to be used as a preventer as well as still being a boom vang? I wanted to sail for the freedom! This is all starting to sound very restrictive!

Seriously, isn't the GOB article talking about something very similar to the set-up on Kiwanda? GOB has blocks on the deck aft of the shrouds running line to about midpoint on the boom? Even if the boom is eased all the way out the geometry still makes a triangle doesn't it? If you harden the vangs (both) it pulls the boom forward as well as down. With the blocks out on the toe rail you would get more leverage when misfortune requires it to act as a preventer. Kiwanda has the lower blocks inboard so the leverage isn't as great. But does it need to be? Even if you moved them to the toe rail the windward side lines would pretty much be rubbing the cabin top anyway so it wouldn't be that much of a hurdle to jump. (Gawd, I can't believe I said that as much as I stumble and bump!) The vangs appear to be attached to the original vang bail or at least in the same location on the boom. There's that triangle again.

Hey, Ed, did you ever have an incident where the preventer did its job? Not so interested in how it happened as much as how the rigging responded to the events. Any moaning, breaking, etc.? Just trying to learn something from all of this.

[Ed Ekers]

Tony
We had many incidents when the preventer did the job. The most common cause was when we would be wing and wing in a real sloppy sea. I confess it was racing and we were trying to shorten the course and maintain speed with very little rudder movement. So we would let the boat sort of steer itself, if you get my drift.

The seas would sort of punch the stern off and we would be by the lee. The main would end up getting back winded and over she would start. And this is where our little trick would kick in.

Instead of a rigged connection to the boom I had wrapped a large rubber band around the boom and connected the preventer to it. I think you would call the rubber band a dock line snubber. By using the snubber to make the connection to the boom it gave you maybe 2-4 seconds of stretch to get the boat under the sail again. Without the snubber I am sure we would have tweaked the boom many many times.

What I just described were under heavy wind conditions. Under light air say less than ten, it would do the same thing in terms of the jibe but the real advantage was presenting more sail surface to the wind on a run. Again sorry it was racing but it did improve the performance. I can recall times where we had the preventer on so hard that if you looked down the boom you could see a slight bend, even with the snubber

The one thing I am always looking for is the weak link. I want to make sure it is in the place I want it to be. In this case it was the “snubber” (and maybe my head). But after I got ice for the head, the boat was still intact and we could still sail her. …..ed