Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

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Donie75
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Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by Donie75 »

Hi,
As per my previous post, I am restoring an old 60’s Pearson Finn. I think this might be my Covid-19 isolation project. It has a wooden mast and boom that are in reasonable condition. Does anyone have a diagram showing the rigging especially the vang. My boat doesn’t appear to have a vang but I have seen old photos online that show some don’t seem to have vangs.
Also, there are 3 jamming cleats and another cam cleat on each side. I’m not sure what these do.
Also, how is the bungee rigged to hold out the boom and the centre plate
Someone posted sketchbook type illustrations on Facebook a few months ago but these seem to be for an aluminium rig.
Thanks,
Donie
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PeterV
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Re: Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by PeterV »

Donie, I have a copy of the Finn rigging guide which was produced in 1990, so towards the end of the alloy rig era. However the kicker is a lever kicker the same as a modern Finn.
For a wooden rig you have to decide how you're going to do it. An old fashioned lever kicker will work, that's what I had on my wooden rig on my first 2 Finns in the 70s. It used to work on 2 wire strops, one from the mast and another to the boom, but now dyneema would be better. Put the lever facing upwards because there's not enough room for it to face down. The other method is a drum kicker. These had a poor eputation, usually from the primary wire fraying and binding but now with dyneema they work quite well, and this is what I use on my wooden rig now.

The cleats either side are for the inhaul, the out haul, the Cunningham and the kicker. As you only have 3 they are probably for the inhaul, cunningham and kicker. You can end the out haul on the boom, cleated by the mainsheet take off.

The centreboard elastic needs 2 sheaves at the aft end of the centreboard capping. The elastic comes from the board, through one sheave, round the front of the case and back up through the other sheave to the board. The elastic needs to have an eye in both ends to fit over an extension on your front centreboard stopper bolt. The elastic should be too tight for you to be able to put it on when the board is up, this is so its strong enough to hold the board sticking out if you turn upside down.

The boom elastic hooks onto the boom mainsheet fitting each side and goes through a block at the bow.

Best of luck with your Covid 19 project,
PeterV
Finn K197 & GBR564
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Donie75
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Re: Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by Donie75 »

Thanks Peter. There seems to be no lever kicker on my boat. There is a pretty lightweight looking stainless steel fitting under the boom that may have been used previously. If you have any photos showing your setup for the kicker and the general rigging around the gooseneck of a wooden mast, I would be very grateful.
Finnsailor
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Re: Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by Finnsailor »

Donnie, do you know what make the mast is? Does the boom fit into a hole through the mast? If so it may have been set up for a wedge which is used to wedge the boom up or down.

Peter also mentioned a drum. Some Boats had a drum on the boom with a wire to the mast. The bang is put on by tightening the wire on the drum.

Good luck

Martin
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Donie75
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Re: Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by Donie75 »

I’ve put a few photos of my Pearson Finn into a google photos album.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ygtp5LbbsSCThWmQ8

Have a look and see if it works
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PeterV
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Re: Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by PeterV »

Donie,
Here's my set up. My boom fits into the mast the same as yours. You can see I have a strop around the mast at deck level which takes the primary block so the drum power is doubled, then the drum take off goes through a block to a take off to either side so its multiplied by 2 again. You can also see how I've arranged the other blocks to take the inhaul and cunningham lines which also split to cleats either side.

Image
PeterV
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Re: Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by LASERTOURIST »

Hello, I once owned one of the oldest 0K in France (F3),1958 vintage, gave it to the bordeaux dinghy museum when i changed club .
They seem to have lost it (with its gorgeous chromed builders plaque)when the museum (in Bordeaux U boat base ) went bankrupt

(it was by Jouet Sartrouville a very sucessful 30's to 70's boatyard on the seine, famous for building among others the Arielle, the first ever powerboat to cross the atlantic singlehanded in the 30's, with a state of the art autopilot (Marin Marie)
In my now defunct club there were lots of pre-laser singleganders and as it was near Orly and sud aviation works there were lots of innovations on rigs mostly done after hours on sud aviation machine tools.

The first version of the vang on OK's was a brilliant idea: the boom extended ahead a full 70 cm (2 Ft) through the mortice in the mast an there a 4/1 or 6/1 block and tackle purchase connected the forward end of the boom to a pick up point somewhere between 1/3 and mid mast (where the mast was not too bendy).

The finns did not use this (maybe because of their rules book didn't allow it) but mostly used the wedge system .
A tuphnol wedge vas bolted on a long and thin strip of 2mm Stainless steel and was pulled backwards by a bock and cleat system along the boom. The fore tip of the boom had to be carefully worked with a wood plane to some "custom secret" angle to lock properly and a triangular bit of hardwood or tuphnol was often bolted on the mast under the forward side of the mortice to give an efficient support to the wedge (of course the boom protruded some 4 ou 5 inches out of the mortice . If your finn mast has this bit bolted on it (or at least the traces of the fittinf screws) it was originally fitted with a wedge.
The wedge system was mostly a presetting: You had ro shhet in maybe until the tip of the boom touched the stern deck and even further, with a somewhat bent boom and then bring the wedge in with the line and cleat.

After that most OK's , Europes and Finns went for the differential drum system . Holt allen manufactured a differential drum (it was on the early Roga's 470's for the vang and the jib halyard tension) but the system was costly (bot in buying and maintenance, as the steel cable quickly turned into a spring-like tangle of telephone cord) so most of the student amateur builders OK racers bought a bigger, lighter and better rope drum (it cost nothing as it was a finnish fishing tackle spool you could get free from fishing stuff shops with plenty of "light and fast"racing style holes) . All you needed was to have a flat sqare bit of stainless steel MIG welded to a bit of stainless steel tube to make a proper axle and a pair of stainless steel flanges bolted to the boom. (such manufacturing was a mere trifle for mighty prototype workshops in the aviation industry)

The layout was later refined to work more efficiently than the Tuphnol drum shown on your pics. There was a very strong 5 mm vinyl coated stainless "ultrasoft" steel cable strop with a pair of cringles screwed on the mast (it was locked in place by "bridge" fittings at deck level just above the mast friction collar and the cringles were connected to a 40 Cmcompression strut (a stainlesss stteel or aluminium tube) that abutted in a U shaped fitting bolted on the mast just under the mortice and could be easyly disconnected (via a standard shroud pin and ring) . The steel cable on the drum axle was connected to the tip of the strut were both ends of the lower strop went.
This system worked brillantly an i thing would be ecven better with modern vectran ropes that do not end into a mess of a spring with lots of shards.

Later still, when the aluminium (and sometimes aluminium with a composite fiberglass top ) went into fashion the lever system went into favor (sometimes it was a kind of boomerang shaped lever) but at the time the Laer had been introduced and it was much simpler, almost all the OK sailors went for it . The boom was almost 30 Cm above the deck, meanig you had to hike somewhat harder, but as the boat had way less freeboard and because the windflow at water level is generally not very good , the crude laser vang worked just as well (it was the 3/1 or 4/1 holt allen cheap vang, not the XD)
cweed
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Re: Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by cweed »

Hi, all.

I see on Donie's photos of the Pearson that there are no floorboards. Have they gone to the decaying / awol or did Pearsons of this age not have floorboards originally?

(I saved K119 from the tip and made a floorboard..... and now wonder if I shouldn't have?)

Thanks!
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PeterV
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Re: Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by PeterV »

Floorboards were not fitted to some of the very first Finns, but as far as I can tell they were a requirement from the early 50s, they were certainly in use in 1952, so that predates all GRP Finns and almost all UK Finns.
PeterV
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Re: Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by LASERTOURIST »

In my old club, back in 1970 a very old finn had turned up , it was N°8 said to have come from the batch built in Finland for the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. It was built traditional canoe style with thin steam curved ribs , rather heavy mahogany planking, copper rivets and a ply deck.
It was very crude (fixed mast gate, fixed mast step gavanized steel centreboard and a handful of brone Curry klemme bronze cam cleats and a tube-style bailer, bronze pintles on the transom)... cant remember any floorboards , but of course the boat was being refitted and had been pretty much stripped bare and sanded.

Maybe it even had some external longitudinal rubbing strakes (canadian canoe style) between the keel and the waterline (not sure, it is way past..) and the (fairly wide) planking intervals were caulked with a cracked up yellowish putty (linseed stuff?)

Havent the faintest idea of where this boat went only that it didn't stay in the club very long , the owner had probably paid one year membership to use the club boatshed and facilities.
cweed
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Re: Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by cweed »

While early Finns are being discussed, slightly off topic, but could someone give a link to where the very useful information I saw a few years ago on what I remember was a dedicated Classic Finn website, can now be found?

I seem to remember there were boat lists with names and years as well as a sailing and tuning guide?

Thanks!
ent228
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Re: Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by ent228 »

Yves Louis Pinaud, sailing from start to finish, is a good book with lots of pictures of Finn's with wooden masts. Lots of copies around.
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PeterV
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Re: Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by PeterV »

The classic Finn website no longer exists, but I'm trying to put as much information as possible on the British Finn site.
PeterV
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neil
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Re: Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by neil »

I set up the Classic Finn site when there was interest in Classic Finns and I still had a few Finns. I was told that the UK Finn Association would be hosting the Classic Finn content so I had to shut the site down. The Classic information never made it to the UK Finn Association site.

However most of the content of the Classic Finn site is archived and available at https://web.archive.org/web/20110310060 ... page_id=87
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cweed
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Re: Finn Wooden Mast Rigging

Post by cweed »

Neil,

Thanks so much! Just what an amateur Finn fancier needs. Have bookmarked it for safety.!

Also, ent 228 I have the book and had forgotten what a great reference it is. Also 'Regatta Sailing' by Per Skjonberg of a similar era has some classic Finn related photos and wisdom.
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