Hi, does anyone have a measurement to set up the mast rake on a Red Wine. Looking for a measurement from the rear of the bow bumper to a datum height measurement on the mast.

 

Many thanks. Michael

Edited November 13, 20214 yr by Michael Thomas
put wrong info on

Hi Michael.

Red wIne is a great boat. Mast rake is adjusted by a set of blocks from Sails etc. They come in a set of three and they effectively provide the best rake settings for the rigs. No need to measure anything.

Richard

Thanks Richard.

Unfortunately it's not my boat, it belongs to a new club member and I'm trying to set it up on his behalf. He is a new MYA member.

This boat is build no 10 and I don't know if they changed through their production run.

There is an oval shaped mast block which fits into the oval shaped mast tube, I'm presuming this is for an A rig.

Is there not a measurement for the forestay to mast distance triangle to keep the tension on the forestay to avoid sag and to get the correct mast shape to match the luff of the main sail through the backstay tension? There is no mast ram. Or am I doing it totally wrong.

 

Cheers. Michael.

Thanks to Richard I looked up the mast blocks on the sails2etc web site. This led me to a very interesting article on how to calculate mast rake. It's simple when you know how.

Now set to 2 deg. aft. The owner will now probably out sail everyone so I best check mine.

Thanks again Richard for pointing me in the right direction.

Michael.

Hi Michael,

To save you a load of hit and miss effort on finding a rake, I am happy to share with you the settings I ended up with on the Red Wine I modernised a couple of years back. What you will need to bare in mind is that the end measurements are based on swapping out the old fat fin for a modern low drag section with the weight concentrated towards the bulb and not in the fin construction.

Finding a good setup based around rake can differ widely from one design to another, with fin section and placement a big factor. Swapping the old fin out to a low drag section with a CLR move aft to match the hulls heeling balance and modern rig geometry added, allowed the boat to be tuned in a way that the boat accelerated in a puff upwind with only the slightest correction(if any) with the rudder required on any point of sail. Compared to the previous setup of old fin, heavy mast set high on the deck with overly long spreaders, working to tighten the mainsail leech in a gust, not release it, the boat was a total handful in anything but underpowered rig conditions. Of course straightening the mast rake helped a little but over correcting one problem to solve another is always a net loss in tuning, with a resulting balance of Lee helm when underpowered and a remaining amount of weather helm when overpowered not ideal.

Any decent well sorted design will have a base rake setting taken to the jib point or very near to given by the designer. This is the only constant that dictates rake, nothing else! Mast chocks control lower mast bend in the same way a mast ram does, relevant to the rake that is set. Any offer of base point rake angle in degrees is nice as a starting point but rarely meaningful from one boat to the next given so many variables. We’ll set up IOMs do not change their rake of a given rig through conditions.

The class has come a long way through development and a more concentrated attention to detail from wider backgrounds and areas than its ‘model yacht’ origins. A handful of older designs long forgotten or discarded as yesterday’s news have been shown to be more than useful with careful thinking and modernisation. Knowing what to look for can help as some are more suited than others….

Without spending a penny on an old Red Wine or most good older designs, there are plenty of small rig setup tweaks that will help reduce the excessive weather helm of the old fat section foils. Further gains up to all but the highest competitive World Championship levels can be had with upgraded foils and modernised rigs dependent on design. With my Red Wine after modernising I managed a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th in the 4 ranking events sailed in 2019. Just like the fantastic older Widget design, it would certainly be better than 98% of skippers sailing it at any level and a steal for under £500. 

Drop me an email if you would like any further info on getting the best from it.

Brad

Pics show a comparison of fin sections from original to current winning sections and original rig with silver mast versus a lowered modified sail plan and rig geometry with the red spars

 

Totally agree with those comments.

I  fitted a modern fin and bulb to both a Red Wine and an Image (same as Ikon) with significant improvement over the original. Not too difficult to do; just a bit of care filleting the fin into the square section finbox. 

The mast blocks solve the problem fitting a ram on a flat deck boat and they work well. What you end up with is the designers settings without needing to know anything about the rake angle.

Some great older designs out there and so rewarding to bring "up to speed" literally.

Just "discovered" the 10R class, but that is another story.

Richard