Balance

[wallo9]

I sort of understand balance but would like further info on it .

[AdriftAtSea]

It would help if you would elaborate on what kind of balance you're seeking information on. 

Balancing the sails?  Balancing life?  Balancing sailing and work? etc.

[newt]

How about balance when I try to make it to the bathroom in the morning...That and the proper fiber balance :)

[SV Wind Dancer]

Nature's Own Double Fiber Whole Wheat Bread...try it for the first time and you'll find where all those Legos, rubber bands and small change disappeared to when you were a kid... :^)

[wallo9]

Well i read alot in the blog about " if a boat is well balanced" since this is a boating blog i guess it would be about balancing boats since I'm still a land luber attempting to learn about boats i had to ask a general question-does it mean equal weight on both sides or a shorter mast so the boat will remain balanced etc. thanks ad when you you think of it once you start sailing your morning "def" becomes an issue.

[Lynx]

 OK, There is several "boat" definations of Ballance.
Sails up = if you have the wind on the side, beam, Your sails are ballanced if you can let go of the tiller and the boat stays straignt.

Loading your boat for voyaging. The boat should be even when in the water the same without the added weight. This is front, bow, to back, stern. and side to side.

Ballance also refers to electrical load, rigging tightness.

Please let us know if there is more data needed.

[newt]

I think I read this thread when work becomes too serious.  I need some balance...

[wallo9]

Well Lynx thanks for the sound info. They say their are two types of boat people those who enjoy building them and those who enjoy sailing them , i maybe of the former, i bought my boat ready to go even though it was old but i wanted something more than a production boat ( Not that there is anything wrong with that) So I set out to redesign it and as i build I'm out  their so to speak. i have opened up the for cabin so it is comfortable, I have built in a tabernacle that will give me more freedom I have built a new mast and the mast placement has changed and is slightly offset and am now laying up a redwood strip edition to the fordeck to give the cabin more height, i have built a sculling ore, and a new rudder to replace the one that was their,So you see things like balance is necessary for me to understand. , In my spare time i study charts and navigation so that when and if all this comes together and i set sail i will be able to go just about anywhere. In 1960 i was crossing the sea of Japan in a twelve hundred man troop ship during a typhoon the waves seemed to be forty ft high i use that to play my twenty two ft,er on. I believe Marlin Bree has become a good example for me  i go to his website often to study his boat and also Charlie. One thing i have learned so far is water has no fixed point! This could give some the illusion of freedom .

[Lynx]

Please do not get over concerned about the little points. You are not racing. You should be putting more weight in your boat that anybody shoud and will sail and motor into waves and winds that will change everything. Also the differance between a 130 Genoa and a Jib will effect the boat a lot.

I suggest that you get the boat fixed up and do a few weekenders with what you have. Study all options on a boat your size and see what works best for you.

Rules that I used.

Safety first. Anchoring is a big deal when full time on a boat.
How and where you sleep. This will be the most time spent below.
Cooking and head is next.
Moving the Boat. Lots to learn. A balance between water and study is best.

I did not try for perfection but my boat was a "work in progress" and still is.

Charts are good. Cruising guides can be better if they are the type that you want to voyage with (marinas vrs anchoring out). Check with Blue Water Books and get their recomendations.

Sailing video games will help.

Most of use on this forum have been inthe USA and Canada, Bahamas and more. Post destionations and routes and see what you get.

Fair Winds, James "Lynx"

[wallo9]

Thanks chances are i won't be sailing off to Borneo,and most of my sailing will be locally,whenever i post a subject i always get one or two things that i didn't know about their is a lot on the sailing blogs but i sort have liked this forum because they do discuss stuff that they really don't on some of the others and they say a picture is worth a thousand words and it may be so the Gallery is great,my boat is a retirement project so it is a lot of fun, the thing I didn't mention earlier that is important it is going to be Junk rigged and so a lot of what i do is set to a differant drum. But that's o.k.

[Cmdr Pete]

I do have some thoughts on a balanced boat, or a balanced sailplan.

My friend sails a 1964 Rhodes Meridian, like Charlie's. I've never been on a boat that is so well balanced. In other words, she will sail herself with little or no input from the skipper. When I'm supposed to be steering, oftentimes I'll forget and only wake up when the boat eventually wanders off-course. His tiller is only a thin toothpick, but he doesn't need any more than that.

Few boats are like that. Nearly all will have some degree of "weather helm." The boat wants to turn into the wind. You need to give the tiller a bit of a tug to keep her on course. Usually only about 5 degrees or so of tiller is normal and not a bad thing.
It could even be a good thing, if you happen to fall overboard.

In stronger winds, when the boat heels over, this changes the underwater shape of the boat, the part of the boat the water sees. The boat will want to turn into the wind even more. More weather helm tells you the mainsail needs less power and it's time to reef. The mainsail wants to drive the boat into the wind. The headsail tends to push the bow off away from the wind.

First you need to set up the boat as her designer intended. Which means the rigging is properly tuned, particularly the backstay. The moveable stores and tankage should be balanced, so much as possible, so that weight is distributed and does not disturb the boat's balance. The condition of the sails can also affect how the boat handles, and the sail trim of course.

It seems you're looking to buy a boat---a junk rigged boat, which I don't know anything about. I don't know how many such boats are available to choose from. Certainly you don't want to buy a cranky boat. Boat design seems to be both an art and a science. Even a good designer doesn't get it quite right every time. And every boat is a series of compromises. I wouldn't take anyone's opinion about a boat too seriously, except perhaps a former owner who tried different methods to get the boat to sail happily. Someone might be unhappy with a boat only because  they didn't realize the boat wasn't setup and sailed properly.

You want a boat that is easy to sail. Wrestling with the tiller or wheel is taxing and slow which is why many people dread "hand steering" I think. I like to steer, I'll steer all day long and half the night as long as I can take a brief break now and again so I don't feel handcuffed to the tiller. I use a tillerpilot for that, when solo. But, I don't make particularly long passages, where you really need some form of mechanical self-steering, such as sheet-to-tiller or some kind of autopilot, like a windvane, which is a wondrous device I'm told.

I do self-steer my boat on occasion. For example, I may let her "for-reach" at times. This works best on my boat with a reefed mainsail in strong winds. The windage and waves drives the bow off and the mainsail drives the boat into the wind. The boat will jog along happily a 2-3 kts. that way with the tiller unattended. I never had much luck trying to tie the tiller off with bungee cord or otherwise.

Or I might let the boat self-steer with both sails. In about 15-20 kts I'll use the full 135 furling genoa and mainsail with 1-2 reefs. The boat is quite happy with the tiller unattended and very fast, although technically I might have too much foresail and not enough mainsail. Or I might play around with one sail or the other and make them over or under trimmed. You can sail the boat just using sail trim if you're rudder should fall off.

You wan't a boat that is easy to steer, requiring only a gentle nudge with your knee on the tiller in most conditions.

Some owners feel it necessary to move the mast forward or aft or add a bowsprit to make the boat happy, but that shouldn't be necessary on a well designed boat. If you're thinking of an improvement project on your boat, you should consider the boat's balance before you change its weight distribution or windage. Even little things. Sometimes when my boat is self-steering I can change its direction a bit just by standing on one side of the companionway or the other.

Well, that's some of my thoughts. I don't have any special knowledge of any technical aspects of sailing, just trial and error. You have to experiment with any boat and they all behave a bit differently. I like a happy, fast boat, even though my little old boat is slow by objective standards. Few boat pass me by, except my friends in the racing fleet, whom I never see except when they are going to and from a race. I like to race, on my friend's boat, since I found campaigning my own boat to be too much work and stressfull. But, I think getting a boat to sail well and happily has always been, and should always be, an important part of good seamanship. Unfortunately, there are so many other parts, and becoming the complete package will take longer that our lifetimes.

[wallo9]

Well that was some good info. I already have the boat and well into the work of redesigning it so their is no going back at this point but i keep learning as i go, i chose a junk rig for many reasons one of them being it is often referred to as an old mans rig because of the simplicity of handling, i would post some photos of it but do not want to do that until i sail it. Am waiting now for warmer weather because i have a lot of laying up to do. i am very happy with the way it is turning out so far and i hope king Neptune will be pleased and allow it to sail on his waters.

[wallo9]

Thanks Haiden, Ya my Venture had a perfect CE but now the mast has been moved forward rather than burying the mast i put in a tabernacle so it is set in place but i built it so that it can be removed if i need to make adjustments and i offset my tabernacle a few inch's to port since i enlarged my forecabin and there by widened the forward berth a few inch's, Bolger was big on offset masts and many of the junks use them the thing i need to keep an eye on is my weight up front, Dereck stresses this in his book so it has been a matter of" putten some their and shaving some here". A questamation is somewhere between 400 & 450lbs. will sink my hull about an inch after that the no. drop quickly so i must be frugal and yet i need the weight to keep the stick up. thanks for the Web sites one i hadn't heard of so will check it out. And one for you ( Junkrig forum) if any one See's my calculations are off please feel free to let me know.

[Mario G]

Sorry to bring this back on subject.(like I could ever do that) I learned balance because I have no steeping room between the base of my shrouds and the rub rail.

I was less worried about falling over board then grabbing the shrouds when the starboard rigging failed,  I'd like to say I had balance then but the black &blue marks from my head to toes says other wise.

I would think a boats balance for ease of handling and comfort was a main thought in the design of my boat ...that and selling as many as possible.  (no facts to base this on other then the 1st mate and I think so)

[wallo9]

Sorry Mario if i sound confusing I'm new to this stuff as i stated before , well production boats are just that, i guess these guys need to make a profit and they design the boats with the bottom line in mind and so if you want extras ya gotta do it i can't see your boat that well in the small picture but it looks pretty neat. my own thread is I'm getting pretty old and i may not have seven years to build a boat nor the capital so restructuring one ,working on it has given me a lot of appreciation of the craft and working on it in my garage is teaching me a lot like how to move about the boat, one of the first things i ran into was when i was in the teardrop the thought came to me "What would happen if i was pooped i couldn't get out of here" so i tried to get out of the midship hatch and couldn't " I'm a goner i said to my self" so when i decided to extend my fore cabin roof i put a hatch in that i can climb out of, this may cause other problems but at least i know their is more than one way out i can also use it to get to the bridge deck without walking along the gangway (if that's what is called)and in reality it's all about balance.

[tomwatt]

The wiki folks indicate a gangway is the entryway passage onto the Quarterdeck.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deck_(ship)
After reading the entry, I think I want a spar deck, a bridge deck and a gun deck for my boat. I guess I'll have to settle for the little I've got... don't think I could float many guns.

[wallo9]

Well i just bought a book in the used book store it was written in the seventies and it has a good section on balance so with that and what I've gathered from you guys I'm going to work with it , I downloaded a view of my stick for you, thank you for helping me this far