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Christer´s latest invention - The
"Chris TR-Compass" means no more hesitations when split
second decisions are needed!
You know the situation where you in a fraction
of a second need to decide whether to tack to leeward of the bunch of boats
beating on the other tack or not.
In most cases your brain just won´t cope to give you the correct information
based on the compass readout quickly enough and the moment to tack is lost.....!
"Does a higher reading on this tack mean I am currently lifted or headed?"
The True Read Compass
Christer has given this problem a great deal of thought and
a few years ago he came up with the following ingenious solution. If you have
one clockwise scale on one tack and an anticlockwise scale on the other (see
picture);
a higher
reading will always mean you are being lifted
a lower
reading will always mean you are being headed
no matter if you are on port or starboard tack. Can it be more simple?
In case you´re interested in getting one of these compasses just drop
Christer an e-mail and he´ll
send you one.
With a "Loveday Loop" at the transom which
Christer incidentally had been using for many years on his
505s (sorry John - Christer
was well ahead of you with the loop!), he knew from experience that
he would get equally fast main sheet handling on the FD.
However, the tiller on the Dutchman presented some major problems, so
the contraption turned out more or less like some sort of a radio
mast as you can see.
Ridiculed at Kiel Week
Needless to say Christer and Pelle were the laughing stock at the
"Kieler Woche" when they first showed their new FD outside of
Sweden a few weeks after this photo was taken.
The brothers were really ridiculed until the racing began.
With a few top placings by Christer and Pelle the
laughter stopped.
As with the 505, transom sheeting on a FD gives better sail control the more
it blows (with the right handling that is!). Unfortunately with the Dutchman,
transom sheeting in Force 3 and above only works in theory since the luff of
the genoa starts to sag, thus hampering boat performance. Unlike with the 505
you need the extra tension from the main sheet to keep the luff of the large
foresail straight.
This was a technical set back for Christer. To overcome it he thought of having
movable shrouds, thus creating the necessary luff tension on the beat, but he
scrapped the idea in the end.
Yet another invention by
Christer Bath
Christer thought new and constructed adjustable genoa sheet
blocks instead. These blocks were controlled
by the crew from the trapeze x).
He knew that in sudden gusts it would be quicker for the crew
to open the
slot between main and genoa than to rake the mast
from a position outside of the dinghy.
This genoa sheet system of Christer worked beautifully, but not until some ten
years later did it become commonly used in the Dutchman class. Of course an
American FD sailor with a good sense for marketing got the credit for Christer´s
invention.
505 sailors trying their luck
with the FD - a reflection
The Bath brothers, Krister Bergström and many more prominent 505 sailors have
all tried the Dutchman, only to find they were underfinanced! While the Diesch
and Vollebrecht brothers plus the rest of the top shots all had two FDs to play
with plus a third on order, the Swedish FD projects (apart from Hagander maybe)
had to rely on one boat and the performance it could offer.
Those of us who seriously have tried the Dutchman knows how tricky
this was. Not only did you need to be lucky with "the built in"
performance of the FD you bought (at least this was the case in the
sixty- seventies), the dinghy was also, let´s face it, not so easy to
tune.
In retrospect at least the Bath bros. would have thought three times before
giving up 505 sailing in favour of Olympic campaigning if they only had known
what they know today. Besides the 505 is a vastly superior dinghy to the Dutchman.
We can all agree on that, can´t we.
x) (see how the helmsmen constantly tries
to increase the work volume for the crew, something ITWU never has or
will accept!)