Where to site controls

My albacore is fitted with a thwart, the woof hull in general have no thwart. This determines where to site the main control cleats. On boats without a thwart the cleats can be mounted on the edge of the buoyancy tank, on boats with a thwart the cleats are most often situated on the front and back edges of the thwart. A third option that has become very popular in the US, thanks largely to the work done by HAPCO, is to place the cleats on a control board between the deck and the buoyancy tank. This makes fitting continuous control systems very simple.

I have chosen to fit the control line cleats on the rear of the thwart. The boat is grp and has limited locations to fit turning points in the middle of the boat. On the centre board there is only one point at which I can attach turning blocks, figuren . I would have preferred to fit cleats on the leading and trailing edge of the thwart. Controls that are more commonly used by the crew are best on the front of the thwart. this also limits the number of control which can be sited at the thwart.

Whilst I was trying to workout where to place controls, I thought a lot about who uses the control the most, and where they are in the boat when using that control. This largely depends upon the way you sail. For example, when I was crewing we were light and often had the boom below deck level, so to to tack i often had to dump a lot of kicker. This required that the crew was the main adjuster of the kicker, but as a helm, I tend to adjust it. Table 1 shows the primary user and location for control use. Along with my preferred cleat location

When using a control it should be in front of you, this is the easiest angle to pull at. If you have to twist to get at the control then it is going to be difficult and tiring to pull. Equally controls must be within reach, so controls used when hiking must be closer to the side tank. My fireball had every control lead to the centre board cap, this was great because the boat is so narrow that you were never far from the control. The problem was that there were too many ropes in one place. There were 9 separate controls terminating in this area and they required 17 cleats. The alb I used to crew had most of the controls lead to the side of the boat, but I was forever twisting to adjust the rig on the run.

Having controls on the centreboard cap is most suitable for controls that are most often adjusted at mark roundings, when the boat is flat and the helm has time to move into the boat. These can be routed to the side of the boat, but in moderate winds you will often find you are pulling the controls at a difficult angle.

Table 1

The shroud length would probably be adjusted from the centreboard cap, as it is adjusted by the helm at mark roundings.

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