Rocket Launch Pad

Thought I'd share what I've cooked up here for dry sailing the Rocket from our in water slip.

Our marina does not have a lift. We can dry sail the boat but it involves using the boat ramp. The ramp is not too bad but sometimes can get clogged with fisherman trying to get in and out with their boats.

We finally got a slip this year but even a month in and out of the water cleaning the gelcoat every week has left some algae coloration on the bottom which will have to be cleaned off this fall.

I'd been researching lifts a bunch because it just seemed like an ideal solution. Jim Lanter had his on a hydrohoist which looked pretty cool except that the height the boat would sit out of the water would not work here at our marina.

Instead I decided that I wanted a lift I could sail into with the keel down. I would leave the keel down as well. We had our keel bottom painted this Spring with white Petit Vivid ablative paint. It's been very easy to clean this season.

I saw that some powerboats in the marina are already using the airdock system and love it. www.airdock.com. However, the airdock does not work with keelboats.

So I concocted a system where I got 4 old windsurfer masts. I created 2 sets of spreader bars using the masts. They are bound at the forward keel end with ipe wood spreaders and stainless steel hose clamps, making a tuning fork like arrangement where the aft end is open to sail into.

Now we simply sail in and out of the bag when deflated. I take a sail tie and bind the masts at the aft end BEFORE inflating the bag which makes the arrangement quite sturdy as the bag inflates.

I couldn't be happier. The system is very fast up and down. It can be easily deinstalled for the winter and rolled up and stored in our basement.

Rocketing Videos

Here are some videos of Rocketing in the Gorge.

New Owner Hull #3

Dear All,

My name is Richard Sharpe and my wife and I have just purchased #3 and shlepped her down to Southern California. We have started the process of changing out the old aluminum spreaders, because they are deformed and listening to the horror stories from owners, we decided to get the fix from Forte Carbon as a first priority. I have two questions (only two I hear you say) 1. Has anybody ever put the mast up on the hard with the keel in the up position? If so how the heck did you do that? and 2. What methods of locking down the keel have you used? This one is not locked down.

I see this boat as a big challenge to us, but hope that it will give us lots of fun. We were a kick ass team in an Olson 30, 3rd in the recent Nationals and killer on the coast, but the handicap here is going to kill us. 102 W/L, 75 RLC, 65 OWC. Any help you can give in weight saving, running rigging and sail setting will be welcome. I will now go home and read the blog from the beginning.

Seaweed, Trailers, Engines and other Sundries

No wind yesterday but since we needed to put the boat back on her trailer after my trailer modification spree, we went for a motor, anchor and a few beers at sunset.

New Tohatsu 3.5hp 4 Stroke. Not idling very well unfortunately, probably bad gas. I really need to get on the program with getting the right gas and treating it etc. These 4-strokes are so finicky.

Anyway, get to the anchorage, anchor up in a kind of weedy area. Realize, oh darn, that full tank of gas is almost empty, wow that was not very far on a tank. So now we have to go against 2 kts of current on the way back which ain't going to happen on what we have left.

Luckily some incredibly tiny cats paws start touching down on a few spots on the river so we decide to try to milk it with the sails. We catch a tiny zephr and the boat takes off sideways. Uh oh, weeds. Try to back her down, no difference. I jump over and see that the whole keel is covered in eel grass. Rip it off and voila, we are a sailboat again.

Anyway, we did get back. Reminds me why I like sailing and hate small engines.

Now for the trailer part. Got the boat on the trailer but it's dark. Backing into the spot is pitch black and tricky tight to back up. My buddy calls me on his cell from behind boat, I have hands free in the truck. What a great idea, 2 way communications and she snaps in perfect.

I just wanted to followup on the trailer. I moved the Axel in previous post ahead 14" whole inches. Wow what a difference. I have turning radius that makes sense, the empty tongue weight of the trailer is perfect at like 80 lbs. With the boat on it, it's now still too heavy for me to lift and I can stand on transom without boat tilting back. If there is still this much tongue weight, what was it before?

This is a huge improvement. Only other possibility is that it doesn't like the highway like this but I doubt there will be any issue at all.

Getting Dialed

Finally had a chance to test out the new rig tune on our wed night race. It's a success!

Night and day difference by being able to properly flatten the main, especially down low in a breeze. This was with a very light-weight crew.

Now we have a main that is responding to all the controls as it should, traveller, sheet, cunningham, vang both upwind and down. The upwind is balanced and getting effective helm. Downwind is better too with ability to adjust twist properly with vang. This is what I wanted it to feel like. Zero helm zen thing, letting the boat take the waves and move the helm itself with no corrections.

When we started the upwind leg I was sheeting in too hard with traveller too far down I think and we were not pointing or driving properly. Eased a small bit of sheet to induce some twist and pulled traveller up and the boat just responded very well now that the main is flat. I could put top to sleep in the big gusts or sheet in slightly and drive with it properly twisted. So driving with the bottom or all of the main but not luffing.

It is like only 3" of main sheet difference. With the old tune, we definitely did not have that setup at all. The old setup was like a bucket and wouldn't depower.

Even control on the start line is better. Using the vang when we need to make big moves in the breeze, also flattening the boat before the turn.

We did a slight recut on the leech of the main a few weeks ago. We moved the clew in 2.5 in so we could get more outhaul and took MAX 6" out of very broad mid section. 2" off #2 batten. This is to take the edge off around here and push the main slightly higher wind range. Added #1 reef. Thing is, with the old tune, it made no difference. It wasn't till this week that we could properly sail it.

We did try the #1 reef last week in 20-25 and it's really a nice option into the mid 20's and up. Was fast downwind too since it let the asym pull. Did not seem underpowered. We pretty much have to have this as we definitely will have races in low 30's at least. #1 reef setup was a lot flatter than full main even with old rig tune. I'm hoping we take the full main up to 25 in gusts and go with #1 reef if we are higher than that or are not racing and want to chill the boat out.

Lots to learn. Having fun though.

Hey, does anyone read this blog or am I talking to myself?

Trailer Modifications

Finally got around to modifying the trailer to fix the tongue weight issues.

The tongue weight was extreme and add to this the fact that the trailer jack was loose and prone to slipping made it just a matter or time before someone lost their foot.

So I jacked the trailer up on both sides in back to get wheels in the air, loosened the u bolts on the axel and moved it forward 14"!! It's still well in back of the keel and should be fine with the boat on it. We'll see soon when I put the boat back on.

In the photo you can see the 0" mark way back. This marker the forward u-bolt which is now at 14" forward. The brake line had enough slack to make the move and I only had to reangle the bracket slightly which was pretty simple.

I also moved the forward winch post aft 2". With the boat all the way forward, the speedo was halfway under the bunk which was not great. Boat seems to want to sit a few inches back anyway.

Lastly, I fixed the trailer jack and moved it in front of the winch post rather than behind.

New Rig Tune

So I decided to go back to Alan's advise to make sure I can get the main board flat, especially down low at max tension. The way our rig was tuned still had shit tons of shape in the main at 10 screws on the jack and it was already maxed on. The tensions were like so.

Headstay 20
D1 21
D2 25
D3 14

The problem here seems to be that the D2's were too constricted and not enough bend into top of rig. I decided to start loosening D2s and D3s to try and get the main to flatten considerably while doing a dock tune.

In the end I ended up taking 8 turns off the D2!! and 5 off the D3.

This pushed my MAX to 11 turns on the screw rather than 10, however, it actually reduced the tension on the D1,D2,D3 yet increased my headstay tension which is awesome. It also flattens the sail board flat down low and nicely flat up high. I won't be able to tell until we actually go sailing in a breeze, but I'm optimistic. If need be. we can moderate the settings easily. The D3 might need a few more turns depending on how that works out, especially at the moderate breeze settings.

Here are my numbers at the moment in detail.

I think it also points out that the numbers themselves do not tell the whole story. The tune that I had and this tune are very very different, yet I probably could get to the same numbers as before by just going to 12 turns.

11 turns MAX

11 turns
28 headstay (MAX)
D3 7
D2 21
D1 22

10 turns
24 headstay
D3 6
D2 20
D1 22

9 turns
23 headstay
D3 0 - just loose
D2 17
D1 22

7 turns
20 headstay
D3 0
D2 8
D1 20

6 turns
17 headstay
D3 0
D2 6
D1 18

5 turns
D3 0
D2 0
D1 16

I can't wait to try this setup out. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

You can also see our new #1 reef in the photo. We have a reefing hook that drops on a line through the aft middle hole at mast base and goes down to a block and tackle. On outboard end, there is a floating block and a jammer mid boom. Pretty simple system.

Rocket Report #10

Well #10 (Ex Shark) has successfully moved to the Pacific NW. Hood River to be exact. This will be the NW heavy air testing grounds. Indeed, this is one powered boat in a breeze.

First of all. The boat is amazing. The deck layout works fantastic. The build and rig, keel arrangement and everything are spot on. Now we need to learn to sail it.

We've been out now maybe 6 times. 3 races, although we were 8-10 min late on our first race and missed the start completely this last wed. Yeah bad form but I don't know, we are messing around a lot trying to figure it all out.

Race #1 : Light air 5-10. Late to start by 8 min. Boat was so powered in the light, we catch up to and passed most of the fleet and even corrected to 3rd (108 rating) after such a late start. Flew the sym chute which was ideal for the lighter breeze. Our rating though started at 132, was rerated to 108 on the spot for the race results, since dropped to 90. Fun night, the boat is a true rocket in the light. Definitely sails to its rating here.



Race #2 : 5-28 kts. Yeah, this is classic late night gorge. One minute it's hold on for dear life, next it's where's the wind. Then it's game on again. And lots of big gusts and shifts. Upwind, we totally don't have the heavy air trim. Cruising great in the lighter, getting flattened in the gusts. can't depower enough. We have 10 turns on the screw. Not sure yet how to find the heavy air groove. Downwind with the sym in gusty shifty breeze...challenging. Fall off a puff in a gybe, slow down, get slammed with another and bye rudder. Also, cruising with pressure and cavitated the rudder when the boat was feeling no helm and quiet. That was a surprise but apparently common with Melges 24s, so lesson learned. So two wipe outs downwind. Dropped halyard both times and quick recovery.

Race #3 : Weird stormy weather which is never good here. Big dark thunderheads, squally stuff blowing through and some rain. This usually doesn't mean big wind for us, more like bad rotten unpredictable wind. Go out early to practice and get hammered in 20-25. We are not being fast, we can't depower. Thinking that our max bend is not flat enough on the rig. Go upwind and try to throw in our new #1 reef to try it out. Mess around with it for too long since there is no specific reef system and have to move cunno and outhaul and safety manually. Already too committed to stop...so basically this makes us late for the start. We are successful though and it looks pretty damn good. The boat feels good too and our upwind is fast in the breeze. Breeze drops...arg! Screw it, lets pick up the fleet and sail the course. Paced a J35 pretty well upwind. Asym set downwind, start pulling. Nice drop back upwind again, set into maybe 18kts. 11s and 12s peak kts boatspeed downwind with the asym and reefed main, Oh that feels good. Finished mid fleet again after being many minutes late for start.

Lessons maybe learned so far.

#1 Sym kite is sketch in a gusty or strong breeze. Asym better choice for higher wind. Sym great for light.

#2 Rudder is tricky bastard. Learning a few things already though to deal. Like flattening boat heel before big turn. Fear the quiet neutral helm downwind. Asym is better for rudder in a breeze.

#3 We don't have a heavy air upwind groove yet. We need it badly. Will be retuning the mast this weekend in pursuit. I know it's there, we just don't have it yet.

#4 The boat is fast. The potential is so there. Rather to squander potential than to have none at all.

Best thing is that everybody is having fun including my wife who is a beginner sailor. It's a great boat for sure. Can't wait to figure her out.

Trailer Balance

First post as new Rocket owner. Hull #10.

Wondering about the tongue weight on the trailer. It seems awefully high. Maybe that is because I've been towing a boat half the weight, but 2-3 guys can't even lift it.

Has anyone tried moving the axel slightly forward on the trailer? That would help tongue weight as well as turning radius.

As long as there is still decent tongue weight and axel is behind keel, should be good right?

Thoughts?

Rocket #10 is for sale

Well, the day has come to do something different, and our Rocket 22 is now for sale. Ours is one of the last fully equipped boats to leave the factory, and comes complete with assymetrical and symmetrical spinnakers (both very "crispy"), Quantum sails, carbon spin pole and all spinnaker controls, mast pad, extra rudder and tiller extension, Nissan 4hp outboard, trailer, like new running rigging, HydroHoist, deck cover, TackTick T075 system, anchor, paddle, fenders, docklines, etc. The boat is in excellent condition, having only been sailed about 10 times in the last two years.

Broken Boom

Raising the keel on Monday the boom broke. The gooseneck fitting, which is mounted on a plate that slides into the boom and is glued in place, let go. The result cracked the carbon fibre for a short distance on both sides of the boom. The boom is 2 years old. Rocket Boats refuses to replace it or it seems, to do anyting about it. In fact, Ivan has yet to reply to my emails. In terms of support, that attitude dooms the boat as a class in my opinion.

Thought the group would like to know.

Brian

Spiinaker and jib together

Have others experimented with launching and recovering the A-Spin while leaving the jib up? Also what about sailing with the jib and spin up and if so, in what conditions? I have seen pictures both ways, particularly with other sport boats, and wondered what others are finding is best, from both a launch and retrieval basis, and from boat speed with the jib up or down while the spinnaker is up.

Craig Berg
Hull #5

Traveler purchase

I've followed Jonathan's lead and added additional purchase to the traveler. I changed the singles on each side to fiddles, adding two parts per side. So far, the load is lighter in a breeze and is still smooth to adjust, making it easier for the driver to adjust on the fly. It does involve more string though.

Furling

I have been out a few times now this sping, made new mistakes every time out and am having a blast learning this new boat. I am having some trouble with the jib furler and wondered what others have done with theirs. In particular, the furling line going aft to the cockpit comes out of the furler at a fairly sharp angle, so at times is quite hard to furl the sail in, particularly with the wind up. I was trying to think of an arrangement to get the line coming out of the furler at the correct angle (ie: going down at an angle towards the keel) then back to the cabin rooftop to go through the fairlead. It only has to come down maybe a foot. Perhaps a block attached by a line to the small bulkhead at the front of the boat will angle this line down. Anyone else with this problem? Any suggestions?

Secondly, when we unfurl, the jib will generally not unfurl all the way. It seems the turnbuckles on the top of the forestay stop the furler from turning easily. The forestay leads into a fairly large turnbuckle at the top, then to the fitting that goes into the mast. It will turn under high pressure, then does not want to turn back as the turnbuckle lays against the mast and is under too much pressure to easily turn. Anyone else address this issue? Maybe I need a new forestay that goes straight to the mast fitting, without the extra turnbuckle at the top?

Thanks for any comments.

Craig Berg
Hull#5

I gave the following answer to the new owner of 2214 about how to tune the rocket rig, and I thought I might as well post it here so everyone can enjoy. Understand, that what follows is what I have found for my Rocket, and the numbers maybe different for yours.



It is fairly straight forward to rigging the boat, but getting the boat up to speed takes some finesse. I would recommend acquainting yourself with some literature out there on carbon masts, if you haven't already. Getting the mast into column using the cap shrouds is probably the first thing. Do this on a windless day! I keep the D2 shrouds loose until you have enough turns on the mast screw to induce about 4 inches of pre-bend. Put a few more cranks on the screw until the lowers are still loose and there is enough turns on the mast screw to give the D2 about 10 on the loos gauge (22 on the Caps). Once you start cranking the screw, when you get to 24 on the caps, the D2 should be about 14, and the lowers about 5-7. Recheck that the mast is in column (measure from the top of the main halyard to the same point at the deck - port and starboard). I hope that helps.

CODE ZERO

My Assos fom Doyle are the 110 and 70. Because of the amount of light air we get in midsummer I am toying with adding a Code Zero to the inventory, which will fly in 35 to 58 apparant. Because of the shorter foot of the Code it would require adding a set of tweakers. I am looking at options for that with Harken's technical department and it will be ineresting to see what they come back with.

I was just wondering if anyone else is using a Code Zero with the boat and what their experience has been, or what the group thinks of the idea?

Rocket on the launch pad

As some of you may know, we keep out Rocket on a modified HydroHoist in a slip. This allows us to "dry sail" the boat while keeping it in the water and avoid using any bottom paint. It is tied to the hoist with four dock lines. It turns some heads as the deck is some 8' above the dock!

In the two years we have been using this hoist, the boat has survived sustained winds of 60 mph and recent storm burst of 70 mph with no problems whatsoever. Every time a bad forecast is issued, the marina manager gets real sweaty and I cross fingers, knock on wood, throw salt over my shoulder, and say my prayers, but so far so good.

The floats can be stood on for any bottom maintenance, and it is quickly lowered with the turn of two valves. The hoist offers a great way to "dry sail" the boat.

Jim Lanter has asked me about my traveler arrangement.

The photo to the right shows the line and block arrangement under the deck. The line goes out of the block at the top, and across the deck and pod to the other side (see below). This allows me to travel-up in light air (from the leeward side) and gives me the mechanical advantage in heavier air.

lifting point photos

Fred Chasey with hull #14 has asked me about the lift system that I use to lift my Rocket. The following photos show the method of my madness. The left photo shows the lifting points at the top of the keel (orange) and hull (yellow) straps.

This photo shows the stabilizing blue line P & S to the jib cams.

This photo shows the 1/2" 316 ss bolt with 3/16 SS plates on both sides of the keel trunk as the lifting point. The plates were epoxied to the trunk and butt up against the UHMW top of the trunk.

Northwest winter sailing

We had a good sail on Sunday with mild temperatures at the first Goosebumps Series race on Lake Union in Seattle. This is an informal race with one start for all boats and is just first to finish. There were three Rockets out and a Pocket Rocket. We ended up with a few extra people showing up so we sailed with 6. This
worked out fine and we all had a good time. After we had some problems that got us late to the start we passed most of the other boats that were out but couldn't catch the other well sailed Rockets.