Photos of Cunningham Rig?

[Anstigmat]

Does anyone have photos of how they've rigged their Cunningham? I'm thinking of having one put into the main I'm having made, and I'd like to see how to set it up. I'm a bit of a visual learner so quick cell phone snaps would be awesome.

My very limited understanding is that a line goes from the sail down the mast to a block which exits to a cleat of some kind. You simply apply or loosen tension based on the shape you are trying to achieve. Is this roughly correct?

I'm thinking about going to a fixed Gooseneck since I'm having trouble finding a slide that fits my Proctor mast. Am I wrong to think the Cunningham will help compensate for lack of downhaul?

[tomodda]

Go to the Gallery Section, and search for Cunningham, you'll find several photos. The search "button" is just the linked word Search up on the right hand top side of the main box of photo gallery.

Answering your other questions:

Yes, the Cunningham was specifically developed (by Capt Briggs Cunningham!) to tension the mains'l luff without moving the boom (downhaul). If you ever want to race, you can't move the boom below "Band 1" anyway, so you'll be fine with your non-sliding gooseneck. Just out of curiosity, how do you get this gooseneck on and off the mast?

Yes, you tension or slack the Cunningham to move the draft around, and also to help flatten the sail (there's only so much you can do with the halyard). You'll notice from the photos that folks loop their Cunningham lines though the cringle, in effect getting a 2:1 purchase. In other words, the line goes from one side of the mast, thru the Cunningham hole (aka Cringle) then to a horn or cam cleat on the other side, either on the mast or on deck (with a turning block, etc). The other traditional alternative is a Cunningham "hook" (exactly what it sounds like), then some sort of purchase for the line coming off the hook, for instance a cascade. Advantage being keeping all the gear on one side of the mast, and less aggravation when boom all the way out (not really a big factor with our swept spreaders.,. boom never reaches 90degrees to the centerline).

Some thoughts:

-Mike is GREAT! I got my new sails delivered, am very happy. I'm waiting for a good wind day to go for first sail, hopefully tomorrow. Thank you for the tip to use him (MHBSailmakers.com, for anyone else reading this). I'll write a full report after I've flown my new MHB Sails. Ironically, my winds have been too strong lately! Just fine for actual sailing, exactly why I got reefpoints on my new sails, but too strong for first sail of the season with new sails, small rigging repairs/modifications to test, and rusty body. 18 gusting 25 today and I'm chomping at the bits! But my "prudent adult" side says take it slow....

-IMHO, the Cunningham should be as dynamic as possible, you should be adjusting it at least on every tack. It's not "set it and forget it." Why? Because ideally you don't want to change course (luff, also called feathering) on a puff. You want to "ease, hike, trim" your mainsheet. But the other mainsail controls (Cunningham, Outhaul, Vang) are also part of Ease and Trim, they effect how "sensitive" your main is to gusts. So, you'll want to tune them depending on conditions, which change quite frequently... Long winded way of saying I think it's worth investing in a stand up block and leading the cunningham line to a cam cleat on the lip of your cuddy.

-With that in mind, you may want to ask Mike about the low-friction ring (Anatel) setup he did for my leech-side reefing lines. Advantages, spreads the load better than a cringle, less friction (obviously), keeps the whole rig on one side of the sail, and allows you to attach the bitter end of the cunningham line to the boom (Vang will keep boom from riding up). I can't think of a disadvantage, and cost-wise it's a wash (Mike hand-sews his cringles, so a ring like I'm proposing should be about the same).

All the best, and I'll be up in Brooklin in July!

Tom

[jalmeida51]

I have my cunningham set up this way. Mounted a Ronstan swivel base cam cleat ( RF5 ) on the starboard side of the mast. the lines end is attached to the becket on the RF5. Runs up to a Harken 29 mm carbo block down to the block on RF5 to the cam cleat. I have a cunningham hook attached to the 29 mm block. I believe it's a 3 to 1 purchase. The cunningham also helps me reefing . With new sails I found very hard to get the luff cringle into the reefing hook due to the stiffness of the sail. I drop the sail with the halyard just above the reefing hook Cleat off the halyard and insert the cunningham hook into the luff cringle. Pull the sail luff down and the cringle. goes nice and easy into the reefing hook. Remove the cunningham The luff is tight and no scallops.

To be honest I got this idea from a U Tube Video I guess you could leave the cunningham in the cringle but ease the tension let the hook handle the load.

John

[Anstigmat]

This is all super useful info!!! Jalmeida51, I think I like the sound of your cunningham rig. I did have to do quite a bit of mental gear turning to visualize it but I think I have the basic structure in mind. The hook is literally attached to the block, then the rope forms a loop through the block to the RF5. Where exactly is your RF5 mounted on the deck?

I did actually search in the gallery section but that yielded no results.

Tom, I'm so happy to hear you had a good experience with Mike's sails. I am eagerly awaiting a refresh of material before he can start mine. I think they'll be a simpler set than yours. I asked for basics, a single reef point, and now a cunningham. Instead of a bolt rope I am going with slugs which I think will work better with my proctor mast. Admittedly I was a bit vain here. I picked a cream colored sail which I think will be beautiful next to my now white and black hull. (black below the waterline so maybe not visible). Mike is also making me a sailbag for the jib and a boom tent.

[jalmeida51]

The Ronstan RF5 is attached to the side of the mast. On my mast I attached it to the starboard side, you could attach it to the port side of the mast. The reason the RF5 is on the starboard side is my single line for reefing the leech is on the starboard side of the boom. Sorry I don't have any pictures of my setup.

The cunningham hook is attached to the Harken block with the shackle that came with the block. ( Harken 29mm )

My mast is a Dwyer with a sliding gooseneck, decked stepped.
John

[GreenLake]

Jim, I'm trying to follow along here as well.

The RF5 is cleat and block in one - as far as I can see. I don't see a becket on it (I looked it up here: https://www.fisheriessupply.com/ronstan ... -mount/rf5). If your 29mm block is single sheave and floating (just hooks in) then you should have a 2:1, "rigged to disadvantage" as the term goes, because you're pulling from a fixed-location block, not the moving block. (That is, if you have two parts of the line between the two blocks).

Alternatively, you could have mounted a cheek block and lead the tail to cleat on the cuddy?

I agree with your choice of starboard side. You want starboard to be the windward side when you heave to for reefing. That way, even among sailboats, the others are the give way vessels under the Rules of the Road, so as long as you don't heave to in the path of a freighter, you should be left alone.

Much of the time, my truly expert friends tell me that there is too little wind to even bother with a Cunningham. That's dampened my enthusiasm about making it easily adjustable. What winds to you start adjusting it?

[jalmeida51]

Sorry people for giving you the wrong information on Ronstan RF5. I went down to the dock today and checked and I have a Harken 29mm Pivoting lead block with cam cleat Har2156, SKU 434042 Fisheries Supply. The becket is built in the body of the unit.

I use the cunningham when the winds get above 10 kts. When I flatten the sail I get scallops at the luff so I come in with the cunningham and the scallops are gone nice smooth luff. After that I don't usually make any more adjustments. I also use it when I reef to get the luff tight. I can't get the luff tight just by using the halyard or pulling down the boom.

John

[pbobbitt]

I recently bought my first DS. the guy that had it before me really wasn't a sailer, and had actually rigged it with clothesline. I think he bought it from an original owner who had it stored in a barn... the hull was actually pretty clean.

Attached, you can see how I've progressed in rigging my DS2:

The boomvang is the green line, pretty straight forward.
The downhaul/cunningham is attached to the same ring as the vang, I pulled the factory installed cleat to make room for the fiddle block.
The guy had wire jib, but no obvious way to tension the jib. I installed an additional cheek block, and then added a hook, with another block attached that I keep hooked to the padeye on the mast, until I need to crank it down, then put the hook through then alpine loop in the halyard to really crank it down. I'm pretty sure you can do this set up and still keep it class legal as long as it's below the boom?

I'm running all these controls through to cam cleats at the foot of the mast.

Weirdly the boat has never been rigged to have a spinnaker.

[pbobbitt]

Jib tensioner detail... Note that the hook is now on the alpine loop in the halyard.

[GreenLake]

Thanks for the photos.

The rule about halyards in the bylaws refers to "halyard hooks and latches". A latch would seem to me like what bigger boats call a clutch, which is something like a cleat. The reason for limiting them to near the bottom of the mast is (according to my guess) that mounting one high eliminates stretch in the remaining halyard. A halyard hook is often used with wire halyards. You have a hook that's mounted on the mast (or an L plate with a slot in it) and you hook in the end of the wire halyard into that.

Again, the advantage of having one mounted high is limited stretch from shortening the halyard.

Perhaps our class measurer will pipe up here with a clarification whether your style of hook, while placed on a halyard, is or isn't technically a "halyard hook" in the sense used by the bylaws.

[pbobbitt]

I started sailing when I was 18, mostly self taught, reading books. In the last 5 years or so, I started hangin out with guys at a club that have been sailing/racing since they were 5. Rightly, or wrongly, they referred to this setup as a 'latch'. I have no idea if they were correct, all I know is that you can now get enough tension on the dang thing to sail it

[pbobbitt]

Apparently, there's a pretty large fleet of DS in the area (Annapolis) the next river over (Severn River)... I suppose one of these days, I'm going to have to venture over to their lair and see one of these boats in the wild.

[GreenLake]

I usually keep an open mind about terminology -- there are so many usages out there. Even on our lake there are "dialects". And sometimes there are the distinctions between traditionalists vs. "moderns" with the latter tending to use updated terms for some items found on small boats that have a traditional name, but that to them doesn't feel right.

However, I just went and searched a bit. It looks like the terms "latch", "hook" and "lock" are used interchangeably for the same kind or type of device: it usually has some kind of slot for the wire and is intended to capture a ball swaged at the end of a halyard wire and to hold it in a fixed position. Functionally it works like a cleat or clutch, but it holds the wire by the swage, and not by using friction, and it is usually at a fixed position or has a small track to allow adjustments over a small range of then fixed positions.

In some boat designs these can be mounted quite high on the mast, but that's prohibited under the DS class rules. I can imagine that mounting the lock at the top reduces effective stretch, giving an advantage to boats rigged that way.

What you are showing is something different; effectively replacing part of the halyard with a purchase. I can see no inherent advantage in using a longer purchase, in fact, making it longer would add weight, and making it go all the way up would add weight aloft, where it's not wanted.

With these factors in mind, my understanding of that clause in the bylaws would not cover your application. But the class measurer would be the authority on that.

PS: I found the terms "latch" and "clutch" also used interchangeably, but unlike the other cases, not in the context of a catalog or website for selling hardware, and it seemed to be informal or minority use. Which means, I'm not 100% sure what the bylaws intend to say about mounting a rope clutch for the halyard. Also unclear from the existing language is whether mounting a V cleat half way up the mast, for example, is considered a "latch" or not.

[pbobbitt]

I agree, placing the purchase higher just burns rope and adds friction.

[GreenLake]

Apparently, there's a pretty large fleet of DS in the area (Annapolis) the next river over (Severn River)... I suppose one of these days, I'm going to have to venture over to their lair and see one of these boats in the wild.

Nothing better than an exchange with people who are familiar with your boat.