Full view
Jim decided (in agreement with some others who’ve seen the boat) a self-tacker would be a nice addition.
Jim writes:
“Used a friend’s bender to bend the 6′ long mainsheet track from the Supercat 20 used for my vaka (see pic of green Italian machine). I went for the 2-line design where one line goes forward to tension the jib’s shape, and the other pulls the car on the curved track towards the centerline of the boat.
Haven’t tested it on the water yet, but the lines move with little friction, and the curve of the track seems to be pretty good (car moves easily from end to end of the track, even with tight tension). See pics:”
Full view
Priming
Roller
Stanchions
Sheet 1
Line routing (image #1)
Line routing (image #2)
Line routing (image #3)
“And here are a couple more pics of my template for bending the arc in the track, and how the track looks now with safety tennis balls and (yellow) line to prevent lines from hooking around the ends of the track.”
Self-tacking jib track arc
Full view of the new self-tacking jib track