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Re: Freedom Yachts

Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2013 12:11 am
by gamayun
Yes, mine has the reinforced pulpit. I'd need to get the rest machined. I wonder if the asym spinny that I have would work for the gunmount? I'll have to measure it.

Thanks, Rick, for offering to raise the chute! That would be great to see it fly. I'll send you my contact info.

Re: Freedom Yachts

Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 12:25 pm
by mike cunningham
Rick,

Reviving this old thread with a couple of questions for you re the gunmount spinnaker.

I am on a very slow road to equipping my boat with the gun but need to amp it up in the coming months. I purchased a reinforced pulpit with gunmount plate from a guy parting out an F30 on the east coast. (I sail and F30) so I have that bit in storage. The pulpit will have to be modified due to different footprint aft, but that is a straightforward welding job. The next most difficult bit is the pole. There is a fellow selling a 20 foot spin pole out here on the West Coast. I need to call about diameter but my guess is it will be fairly robust. Is there any guideline for length of the pole? I have heard 18' on a 32 so I would guess 20' would be OK? Of course trimming it down would be doable too. Thoughts?

Then there is the gunmount tube/ rotating bolt assembly which I can have fabbed out of SS. This seems not too challenging. Archive posts indicate this should be sized to allow for PVC sleeve inside the SS tube.

Finally I would have the sail and sock fabricated, rig up the pole. install a few bits of deck hardware and, theoretically, be in business.

Looking at the gun mount pulpit, the space forward of the gun plate seems fairly compact, obviously the sail has to be retrieved through his aperture but it looks pretty tight.

Re: Freedom Yachts

Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 2:50 pm
by rvivian
Mike -

The spinnaker launches and is retrieved behind of the gun-mount tube, not in front of it. There is a lot more room there.

Re: Gun Mount Spinnakers

Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 5:30 pm
by GeoffSchultz
Note that I split this segment of posts off of a topic titled "Freedom Yachts" in "Random Chatter", renamed it to "Gun Mount Spinnakers" and moved it to "Rigging and Sails", which I hope should make it much easier for people to find.

-- Geoff

Re: Gun Mount Spinnakers

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2015 12:44 pm
by Rick Simonds
Hi Mike,

There was another thread here about rigging on a gun mount spinnaker and I always meant to participate in that but life has taken some funny bounces lately and I just never quite got around to it. I'll try to take some pictures later this week of the set up I have.

It would seem to me that if you can get the reinforced pulpit, the rest of the fabrication should be very straightforward. The pole is really just a capped-off aluminum tube with some padeyes on the ends, a fab shop could do this in an hour.

This is just a seat of the pants feel for this, I definitely don't know this for sure, but while it's just an aluminum tube, it could be that a gun mount spinnaker pole is a thicker walled tube than a standard spinnaker pole. A standard pole only has a compression force on it, a gun mount pole has an actual bending force from the midpoint to the ends. I will see whether there is some way of measuring mine. Again, it's very possible that I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, they might be exactly the same.

The pole on my Hoyt 32 is 18 feet long. Sailor-me sees small advantages to going longer but engineer-me starts wondering about clumsiness and additional bending forces, though you should take that advice to be worth exactly what you paid for it. My only strong opinion about length is that I wish mine were about 6 inches longer only because then it would reach the second lifeline stanchion and I could tie it down more securely while stored.

Your project seems very doable and I'll help you how I can.

Re: Gun Mount Spinnakers

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2015 2:44 pm
by rvivian
Pole.jpg
Pole.jpg (92.24 KiB) Viewed 10991 times
The pole on my 1986/87 F-30 is a tapered one exactly 16-feet long.

I store it wedged in the pulpit in front and tied to a SS antenna mount attached to one of the stanchions.

Re: Freedom Yachts

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2015 1:36 pm
by mike cunningham
rvivian wrote:Mike -

The spinnaker launches and is retrieved behind of the gun-mount tube, not in front of it. There is a lot more room there.

Rv,

So the sail is retrieved aft of the pole? If I understand you correctly then yes that would be much easier. Not only is the pulpit top more open aft but you haven't got to squeeze through the reinforcing pulpit legs. Makes sense. Not sure why I concluded the sail had to be retrieved forward of the pole.

The pics is excellent, really helps visualize the rig. I wonder where Freedom Yachts sourced that tapered pole? I had a 25 many years ago which was equipped with the gun mount - I have since forgotten most of the rigging detail but i do recall a big untaperd pole was used, so I know it is doable with a standard tube.

Mike

Re: Gun Mount Spinnakers

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2015 1:42 pm
by mike cunningham
GeoffSchultz wrote:Note that I split this segment of posts off of a topic titled "Freedom Yachts" in "Random Chatter", renamed it to "Gun Mount Spinnakers" and moved it to "Rigging and Sails", which I hope should make it much easier for people to find.

-- Geoff

Geoff, thanks, that is really helpful.

Mike

Re: Gun Mount Spinnakers

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2015 1:56 pm
by mike cunningham
Another thought I had was purchasing a couple lengths of carbon fiber tubing such as

http://www.rockwestcomposites.com/brows ... bon-tubing

and joining them together to achieve the required pole size. Kind of pricey though.

Yet another idea is I own a couple of CF windsurfing masts which are are strong as heck!! Additional masts can be had cheap on the used market and are engineered to be separated into sections. I would almost be tempted to kludge a tapered pole out of a couple of windsurfer masts. Fixed diameter pole in the middle joined to two tapered sections on either end. Wonder if that would be feasible? If all I need is 16 feet then I could use the stronger sections of the masts to build a tapered pole.

Re: Gun Mount Spinnakers

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2015 10:05 pm
by rvivian
I've seen F-32s with non tapered aluminum gun mount poles.

When Cascade Yachts went bankrupt there was a 20' tapered pole like a gun mount pole there that the Owner said was used by many yachts, not necessarily Freedoms as spinnaker poles. He was stressed out and refused to give me a price when I asked "how much?" So I think they are around.

Perhaps welding two tapered aluminum or carbon fiber flagpoles or light poles together with a straight section in the center would work. But are they strong enough? It might take a naval architect to know.

Maybe the ubiquitous "Ask Paul Dennis" is the answer!

There is also a u-tube video of a Brit laying up a smallish carbon fiber spinnaker pole in his living room. The Admiral in my house would have a fit.