Head plugs vs head caps
SteamPlayer
found on most sails? You know, the ones that come in various non-
standard diameters that usually don't fit in the top of your mast, so
you have to remove the corresponding female plug from the mast tip, or
find the one that fits that mast tip and that sail. And then while
you're downhauling you have to go and check to make sure it's properly
seated. And sometimes it twists out of the mast anyway, or comes loose
from its webbing strap, And then you need tools to rethread it on the
strap. Or it seemed like the right fit, but when you're derigging you
find the plug jammed and stuck inside the mast tip (that happened to
me yesterday, prompting this post). You know what I'm talking about?
What is the point of these things? What was wrong with plain old
headcaps?
JSNTG
They certainly are not more secure.
Hugh
"SteamPlayer" <Mitch...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1e42157f-edad-4d2c...@a9g2000prl.googlegroups.com...
Dan Weiss
What I miss are the times when the webbing snapped or when the mast
tip poked through and the sail became unsailable.
Seriously, mast tip plugs are so superior that I'm suprised you
experience frustration. Don't you use the same mast for each sail? I
suppose it could be a problem with a bunch of sails from different
manufacturers, but the mast/sail combinations doen't change.
The "point" of the mast tip things (sorry for the pun) is to
accurately control sail shape and rotation by precisely locating one
end of the stress line created by downhauling the sail. The plugs
also allows the head of the sail to rotate more accurately Without
the tip pug, the head of the sail can "roll" in any number of
directions, causing differences in effective DH length and making
tuning very difficult. Even if head cap only rolls to the same point,
all the friction of the mast tip is concentrated on a single spot of
the webbing. It will wear out.
FWIW, contact your sail/mast maker and get a bunch of replacement tips
and plugs that all work together. It will eliminate most of your
issues.
-Dan
liva...@earthlink.net
Hate the plugs, and frankly don't buy the argument about their
superiority. The only broken sail top I've ever had was on a North IQ
sail that had one of those friggin' plugs. The plug didn't stop the
enormous downhaul forces required to rig that sail from rupturing the
top. Thank goodness some sail makers don't force you to use plugs.
Ezzy and Severne are two such examples, and I don't hear too many
complaints about broken sail tops or difficult tuning re: their
sails. I have a couple of 12 year old Ezzy's that still look brand
new, and my Severne Overdrive is about the easiest-rigging cambered
sail I've ever owned. Sailworks may still use a plug for their race
sails, but the Retro does not require one. That sail works pretty
darned well, I'd say.
Zephyr
>
> - Show quoted text -
I like the plugs myself, though I do have one in my 6.5 (sailworks)
that recently constantly gets caught and pulls the female end out of
the mast as I de rig. none of my other sails do that (NP and
Sailworks on powerex masts) I think that I just have some sand in
with the rubber washer on the plug that has caused it to seat
incorrectly. It didn't used to do this nearly as bad. The plugs are
neater, especially on a sail with a fixed head - which is common on
larger sails. I think they also roll up better.
Regardless, getting a stuck one is a pia, hit it with some
sandpaper if the diameter is too large, or just get a new smaller one.
Dan Weiss
>
> - Show quoted text -
It's not that you can't make a great sail without a male plug in the
top, but the reason sailmakers tend to use plugs is, in part, to de-
couple the DH tension from the front of the luff sleeve at the very
top. This allows the upper leech tension to be more accurately
controlled and helped free up rotation. I don't know if you remember
way, way back in the days before plugs, but you will see that many of
the non-race sails had an opening at the top of the mast sock. This
"missing" section was to achieve these goals without using a plug.
I've not looked too closely at any of the sails you mention, but I
would guess that the mast tip fits into a built-in cup that is not
attached to the mast tube attaches via webbing to the luff-side of the
mast.
rod.r
because it also has an adjustable head.
I much prefer the webbing top.
The plug means a trip to the top of the sail which the webbing top
does not require, plus you have to get your finger in there to get the
darn thing aligned.
With the webbing top in the Superfreak, there's no way I can see the
mast ever comming out the top, it's not so much a strap as a webbing
sock with 4 sides.
sm...@fit.edu
that use them all work fine. However, my newest sails are Hot's and
they just have a webbing strap which is real convenient. Just feed
the mast in and push, no need to mess with anything at the tip.
sm
On Jun 9, 6:22 pm, SteamPlayer <MitchSt...@gmail.com> wrote:
SteamPlayer
>
> - Show quoted text -
Well, it looks like of the 7 people who posted, 4 are anti-plug, 2 are
pro-plug (that includes Zephyr, whose position seems rather
ambivalent) and 1 is neutral. So, in this grossly unscientific and
undersampled survey, we're running at least 2 to 1 anti-plug.
Sailmakers, are you listening? Any others care to weigh in?
The performance / tuning argument is unconvincing to me. How much play
are we talking about here -- an eighth of an inch, at this least
important part of the sail? I think there are very few people who
downhaul to that level of precision. If there's really a performance
benefit, maybe the plugs should be used on race sails only. And
durability? The head cap draws in all around the the mast tip,
probably spreading the load better than a plug. I've never experienced
a headcap failure, and if that were really a problem, they could just
make the headcaps thicker. And sure, I've accumulated a selection of
mast tip receptacles in different outer and inner diameters, but with
the plugs buried inside the sail head, it's a real hassle testing
which receptacle fits which sail, and I guess I'm just not organized
enough to label them. Instead, I've simply removed the tip receptacles
from my masts. Of course that allows more play than any headcap would.
My suspicion is that these plugs were NP's scheme to get people to buy
their matching masts.
Alan White
Alan
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BatFrog
windsurfing.
Second only to batten tensioners that require you to carry a metric
hex tool at all times.
16 years and never a failure of a cap. On the other hand , plugs
have jammed or gotten lost enough times to cost me TOW.
The theory about plugs giving meaniful improvements to sail performace
seems ad hoc. These sails are not precision instruments.
BF
TIPSTER
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> - Show quoted text -
My dealer taught me to square off the stem of the plug using a flat
file. This solved the plug getting stuck in the mast problem in sandy
areas. Our 6.0 Hotsail Fluid has a closed cap, which is certainly
easier to live with. One less trip around the sail while rigging.
Dan Weiss
BatFrog: I guess I don't feel your pain about carrying a specific
size of hex wrench in my bag. Metric and standard, I bought both from
Sears for about $12 and use each set quite a bit for other tasks.
Tuning a sail seems a bit like making toast. Perfectly browned for
some tastes burnt to others. Certainly I pay more attention to tuning
race sails that respond meaningfully to mm of DH tension than, say, no-
cam freeride sails. And this focus probably contributes to my
dedication to tuning my wave sails. Not that I get it right all the
time, but I try to apply the same care to both sets to get the famous
"invisible" sensation in my gear.
Windsurfing provides enough physical challenges that I work very hard
to eliminate any reason to fight against the gear for reasons of
imprecise tuning. What I like need not translate into another's
priority, of course.
rath...@gmail.com
practice, I actually liked the NP system w/ the cone-shaped male plug
at the top. This tapered design was more or less self-feeding, and
made rigging up a breeze. However, from a retail standpoint, it was a
major pain in the ass, cuz nobody had a NP mast w/ the larger female
mast plug at the top of the mast. The standard long pin that comes in
a lot of sails is a pain... especially when they add that damn o-ring
to the middle of the pin. Gaastra used to make a shortened, tapered
version of this plug that would fit into the standard female mast
plugs of most masts.
How about fixed headcaps in general? I always liked the simplicity,
but then again I'm average weight and have access to the correct size
masts... but I know some people like the flexibility of a vario-top.
kev
Alan White
<rath...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:a998d176-3289-4af8...@i76g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> How about fixed headcaps in general? I always liked the simplicity,
> but then again I'm average weight and have access to the correct size
> masts... but I know some people like the flexibility of a vario-top.
>
> kev
I used to love my old Windwing Convertibles that had adjustable caps. I have
no problem, performance-wise, whatsoever with adjustable caps, and the caps
actually protected the tip when I occasionally dragged the gear in a hurry
across parking lots and roads.
sm...@seattletimes.com
problem getting the mast seated in the plug, since it was buried
pretty deep in the sleeve and had no extension. When I derigged, there
seemed to be some problem decoupling the plug from the mast, but I was
in a hurry, so I just yanked out the mast and carried on. The next
time I rigged that sail, I thought I'd rigged it the normal way. I
went out sailing, had a few nice runs, had just completed a jibe and
suddenly wham! Something snapped and my sail was all floppy. I thought
maybe I'd busted my mast, but the sail was still more or less upright.
I looked up and there was the top of my mast poking out the top of the
sail! The plug hadn't been seated properly and came out of the mast. I
was a good half mile or so out away from the beach, probably a mile
away from where I'd launched. I was very lucky that I was able to
remain standing and that I was on my way back, rather than heading
out. I don't think pivot jibing would have been real easy,
waterstarting out of the question, uphauling extremely difficult. I
did everything I could to remain standing and came in several hundred
yards away from my launch. I don't think this would have happened with
a cap. I think the sail would wear out before the webbing broke, and I
can't imagine there being that much of a difference in performance.
BatFrog
We may have debated batten tensioners before...but there seems to be
plenty of extra bandwidth on rec.dot these days, so why not again
8^)
I can see you like to super-fine tune your rigs. That's cool,
especially if you are the kind of guy who can afford to buy all new
quivers every couple of years;
sails and masts all matching and all from the same maker.
I've got sails and masts from a lot of companies. And a lot of
years.
There are often times when I might use a mast on a different sail.
It all works amazingly well together, except for the products that
have special gimmiks
like head-plugs or laser interferometrically calibrated piezo actuated
batten tensioning facilitation. LICPABTEF in the NASA lexicon
8^)
1: Ease of rigging:
The old Norths and Ezzys work so great: pop the tension straps loose
on the cambered battons, rig the sail and pop the cambers on easily,
then just grab the straps and pull the battens snug. All done.
On the screw adjusted models, you are forced to leave the battens
fully tensioned (or waste time to unscrew the little *&^*%). With
the battens fully tensioned, you can only get the cambers on by
pulling a ton of outhaul and even then it can be tough. Then you
have to go release the outhaul and complete the downhaul. Then re-
adjust the outhaul again.
2: Batten interchangeability and repair: Let's say you break a batten
while rigging or in the surf. With the strap design, you pop open the
strap, pull the batten, you can put a wide range of temporary
battens back in there because the strap will adjust for at least four
or five inches. The strap will also couple to different batten ends
without problem. Compare this to the screw adjusted models.
First...it is a royal pain to even get the broken batten out.
Second....a temporary batten must be the exact length and end design
to fit up into the screw device. (Your solution: always throw away
sails every year so they don't have a chance to wear out...)
3: Options for repair on the water and self-rescue: Battens and
cambers that fail when you are out on the water can make the sail very
hard to handle...sometimes non-functional. The strap design allows
a sailor to effect a repair while treading water easily. Try this
with a screw tensioned design!
4: Longevity. I've never had a strap break or fail. On the other
hand, the screw tensioners on my sails often jam because of corrosion
or sand. Fine threaded metal screws and salt water are a very bad
mix. Once they jam,
you start reaming-out the hex socket with your tool...soon the socket
is rounded and the screw can only be removed with an easy-out. This
often damages the plastic housing of the tensioning gizmo. Time for a
major repair or new sail.
6: Some models use a little plastic knob instead of a hex wrench. I
think aerotech did it this way. The treads get oxidised and jam up,
then you twist-off the little plastic knob. Then you get another
sail.
5: No Standards. Which way do you turn them to tighten? One
manufacturer goes clockwise to tighten the batten, another goes
counterclockwise. Who can remember from sail to sail? I'm screwing
in and out trying to see whether I'm tightening or loosening and
finally just say, "Screw it".
6: Tendancy to overtighten: The strap method gives you an immediate
tactile feed-back on how tight you've got the batten. The screw
method gives no feed back and there is a tendancy to over-tension.
7: Longevity of the sail: The batten pockets on screw tensioned
sails are typically left fully tensioned for the life of the sail.
The pockets begin to stretch and stitching can come loose over time.
Strap models are easily and quickly de-tensioned for storage.
Those are some reasons I hate 'em.
Regards,
BF
Zephyr
I had the same thing happen to me once, it scared the crap out of me
at the time. Was glad to see it was only the plug and not anything
broken. Sailing a loose sail like that can be a handfull.
SteamPlayer
link to this thread to NP.
Mitch