Yesterday Jack N and I took Martin #2 out for a sail.
We had trouble opening the top sliding acrylic companionway hatchslide, it would not move forward. After a few hits with the palm of my hand I managed to push forward a couple of inches just enough to slide the door up and out of the way. The top would still not move, only after a well placed kick it move forward enough to be able to slide it all the way forward. Inspecting why it would not slide we noticed the head of the screws holding the track in place have the top of the screw sticking out and jamming the slide top.
Sailing on a Starboard tack we began to hear a rubbing noise when we moved the tiller. When we docked we found that the bolts holding the gudgeon had come loose.
Sailing downwind we found the main sail resting against the spreader and the shrouds even by letting the main out very little, we quickly abandoned that point of sail. Checking back in the Martin website they show a picture of it sailing on a run with main resting on the shroud and spreaders I guess it’s OK to do it. However past experience has showed that this type of set up damages the main sail.
Looking at the spinnaker pole in the boat we saw that the line used to pull back the piston is too short and prevents the plunger from traveling all the way to the end.
As the wind filled the jib the halyard holding it up become loose and the sail sagged. Since the halyard does not come back into the cockpit there is no way to adjust it also the location of track with the fairleads is mounted too far forward and does not allow the sail to be properly shaped as the corner of the sail comes to rest against the fairleads.
Under the present set up the advanced bridle type traveler system prevents the boom from going past the center of the boat. As a racer I like to be able to get past the center since I found that doing so increases the boat speed by about .5 knots.
This plus my previous experience on it is giving me a very bad opinion of this boat.
I would expect that a new boat delivered to a new customer would be flawless.
I have read the glowing review their web site reports and wonder if we are talking about the same boat.
Apparently Cooper is working on a solution for the fact the acrylic sliding hatches expand in the heat and then jam. The exposed screw head may be a contributing factor.
ReplyDeleteDon't like the gudgeon problem either but it is also being investigated. I'm not keen to go into the tight quarters aft to tighten / replace these bolts - especially without someone standing by to haul me out if I get stuck back there (snicker).
Re: sailing downwind. Can't we still sail downwind (effectively) even without the main plastered against the spreader & shrouds? I don't believe that this mode is necessarily kosher even if its caught on film on a Cooper website.
Re: trimming the jib halyard and trimming the jib - have a look at the Ullman sails tuning guide for the Martin 242 elsewhere in this blog. It has some tips - including using the mainsheet to "tension the jib halyard".
Are you sure about the traveller? I could have sworn that I had it past centre to windward. I'll try again to confirm.
Re: spinnaker pole etc. I'd appreciate it if you and other spinnaker-flying knowledgeable folks could shakedown the spinnakers and related gear so we can iron out these kind of bugs.
Flawless boats? Dream on buddy - we haven't been getting such from Hunter or Catalina. Why would you expect to get them in a situation where we are within the first 2 dozen hulls that have ever been built.
It'd be interesting to hear from Don Martin, the designer, if he is ever in town. I have a feeling he'd be telling us that we need to learn a thing or two about how to sail these boats properly to get the most out of them.
It may even mean that we have to re-learn some of our techniques honed on our vintage J/24's.
I'm hoping you'll get more chances to bond with the Martins. C'mon - you know that you want to!
Dave
I am very sorry that we experienced some bumps getting these boats out on a very aggressive schedule. We had to re-work a lot of things because a number of our suppliers didn't survive the economic downturn - most importantly our spreaders were not available and that caused a lot of work that nobody expected. Most of dealing with that caused backups on other areas that would otherwise be quite easy to deal with. We appreciate the patience of the sailors at Humber and would have liked nothing more to have not had these challenges - but with certain things on a leading edge, sometimes one can fall off that edge.
ReplyDeleteThe gudgeons are being remedied right now.
The companionway slider was changed from acrylic to Lexan, which is stronger, but the expansion rates are greater and it looks like we will need to trim #2 back further. We should be fine with the other boats as they were all re-set and cut slightly smaller on the last two boats.
The keel is a very narrow cord section, inspired by the Transpac 52 and a number of other current designs, so weather sheeting the traveller will cause the boat to just go sideways quicker - the boat might well be faster, but in the wrong direction. This boat has a large mainsail and small jib so what worked on boats with a large genoa and small mainsail won't necessarily work on this configuration.
The most important thing about this boat is to understand that she sails on her mainsail, which in higher winds may be above the jib. Put another way, once the wind pipes up, we sail the boat based on how much heel she has, not by the jib telltales. The designer intended the boat for about 22 degrees of heel and if you are heeling more than that, head farther up wind (beating) or downwind (reaching). If the mainsail is working, don't worry too much if the jib isn't perfect.
As to the spreaders, letting it out so it wraps around the shrouds is bad, but having it touching the shrouds is pretty normal... Don Martin is sailing the boat in the photo on this site.
I hope this helps. Our boats out west have been a lot of fun to sail although an adjustment for folks that are used to the designs of the 70's and 80's that one commonly sees in programs such as these.
Fair winds... Colin