Experiment with a-kite

[STuma]

Does anyone know what the "typical" hit will be on PHRF if I added a masthead asymmetrical onto a fractional rigged boat?  I know all performances differ and on Canyon, many of the J29's are all running MH asym's.

thanks,
Scott

[Brad]

I had many discussions about A kites with the PHRF Committee (most being in 2010 - so pretty recent) when I had Triple Play.  Suggest you call Tim Broadhead or Rocky Miller since they were the most involved.

Good Luck!

[Keith]

usually 6-9 seconds depending on if you go out with the spinnaker size also.

i race on a J-29 out in california with an ayso masthead and it is a machine.

[Bee]

Here, my guess would be at least 9 seconds after some pretty fancy political footwork.  But, who knows.  Try it you will probably like it.

Flying from the mast head is much better then flying fractional.  Getting the head up with the narrowest part of the main allows you to rotate the kite around and go much deeper without a tremendous loss of speed, and that's a good thing.

Unfortunately for me, mast head kites on US rigged J105's are somewhat problematic.  Because the mast on a US 105 is tapered above the hounds, there is a potential for bending the mast there.  Simply because of strong winds, most of the San Francisco 105's have what I like to call the California Twiddle.  They are usually bent from excessive backstay. French built boats don't have the taper and consequently are much more capable when flying the kite from there.

What would be super is to install a retractable sprit and fly the monster from the tip of that. The further out you get it the better. I have seen kits for this but do not have any experience with them.  I do suspect that if the rudder can handle it the boat will be sweet off the wind.

[Scoundrel]

Bee - you could always put a carbon fiber mast on Stinger!

[Bee]

Only if I wanted to quite racing OD.  Rules, rules, and more rules.

I cold switch to a French built mast or one of the new US masts, but they are aluminum.  Radiance has one.

[hayesrigging]

The mast on Radiance is identical to the French 105's except that it is powder coated. Exact same extrusion hardware, etc. The "French/Sparcraft" masts are tapered the difference is the extrusion itself is stiffer than the Hall US spars. Many of the local 105's have the same "San Fran" bend they just don't know it!!!! 

As for the phrf penalty there are many factors like pole length and kite size that will determine the penalty. Remember phrf discourages modifications so they typically over penalize for them. You carry the penalty upwind as well eventhough it is only benefiting you downwind!!!

[STuma]

Thanks guys... It isn't anything I would be serious about, or spend money on.  I have the kite from my cat to use on a 22-25' boat.  It would be on a Rum Race as an experiment to see if the boat benefits enough.

[Bee]

While I certainly applaud your testing of that kite in a rum race and definitely would like to see you do it be careful of the PHRF Police.

BTW, my guess is that with two potential hot chute legs you would have a blast.

[STuma]

Well Bee, it will be interesting.  Of course many of my ideas give the PHRF police heartburn.  Much of the reason I don't take PHRF racing serious anymore.  My thinking is that it won't plane out like the 640, but give the boat a wider range of sailing, like the 80.  The design is probably like the J-70 will be like (& no I don't have an inside scoop)...

This small of a boat will probably not benefit as much at the 105, the Beneteau 25 or the ID 35 even.  It should defiantly be a percentage of downwind speed. I've wanted to stick a J80 sprit on the Ben 25; that would make that boat a lot more stable.  I will defiantly take pictures and post something.  I'll test sail it before I take it out in public.

[Bee]

You never know Scott.  Might be an enormous improvement and a hell of a lot of fun..

Go for it.  I promise not to say a word.