anyone want a vintage fireball?

[Obscured by clouds]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/sailing-dinghy-fi ... 3f06aab0ff

up on't fleabay

[Nessa]

what is that curved thing going across it for?

[Ed]

getting our threads crossed a bit now....

the cross-beam just holds up a snub-winch.

A system that i have always thought was very clever and been surprised that it was not used more.

I have seen it on photos of old 14s. I am told it was common on old FDs

I always thought it would be good on a Jollyboat, but had never seen it till I got J335, which has exactly this.

Anybody sailed with a boat using a snub-winch....did it work? Why wasn't it used more?

cheers

eib

[Nessa]

what did it do?

[Graham T]

Nessa - instead of cam cleats you take a couple of turns of the genoa sheet around the snubbing winch, which is like a ratchet block in that it turns only one way. You can then easily hold the load on the sheet.

The old Foreland one designs that were sailed at Broadstairs all had snubbing winches. As I remember they were quite efficient at helping hold the large genoas (provided you wrapped the sheet round the right way....).

Osprey 55 still has hers fitted and I am looking forward to getting her finished and on the water to see how easy it is to use on a trapeze boat. Kirstie (my crew) is not so sure!

[davidh]

Ed - and Graham,

add to the mix early 505s - they too used a snubbing winch.

Just goes to show how far fittings have come - and how they have in their own way influenced what and how we sail!

D

[alan williams]

Hi Ed
All the Plymouth Dolphins had snubbing winches. Disadvantage on tacking must wrap rope around winch the right way easy to get riding turns. No real advantage over using a set of rachet boxs which is what I,m going to fit to Typhoon when I restore her. Winch also hurts like hell if you fall on it. The location of the one on the turk fireball could be very much in the way of a trapezing crew. I expect that this boat was built before the adoption of the trapeze.
Cheers Al

[whacko!]

I had a chat with the owner prior to the Turks auction and he told me that a trapeze was fitted from the off.

The boat's highly unusual because of the snubbing winch. The only other one I've seen on a Fireball is on the pre-production prototype FB '0' which is now in the National Maritime Museum Falmouth.

Unfortunately identifying the sail number is proving a problem. It's not carved into the thwart and does not appear on the mainsail. All records were lost when Turk's offices were broken into many years ago and many papers scattered to the four winds. I've suggested the present owner contacts Bob Southworth at UKFA to see if he can help but it will be a laborious task going through the measurement forms from 1964-5. And that presumes the boat was actually measured in the first place.....

Chris