SC-20 Weight Placement

[Kevin Keller]

Since SC-20's look so nose high should we keep our weight forward or is it an optical illusion since this there is so much more volume in the forward section of each hull? I obviously don't mean when the leeward bow is digging in.

I have a friend keep telling me to move forward.

[Matt Haberman]

Kevin,

Keep the weight forward. Crew should be up by the front beam and the skipper should be by the daggerboard / sidestay. Going downwind move aft as necessary.

This thread on the ARC-21 also holds true to the SC-20
viewtopic.php?t=286&highlight=

[Kevin Keller]

Thanks Matt.

I am waiting to sail it in heavy winds (15-25 knots) again but what I remember going upwind we had everyone as far aft as possible because I felt the leeward bow was digging in too much. But after reading that post, you say that 2-3" should be up maybe I shouldn't have been so concerned. It sure looked like it was digging in though.

Have you ever pitch-poled the SC-20?

Kevin

[Kevin Keller]

I was looking for another post and came across this picture of Eric sailing his cat (scroll down):

viewtopic.php?t=170&postdays=0&postorde ... e&start=15

That is what my SC-20 looks like when sailing it in a strong wind. That bow doesn't look too angled down? like it might pitch-pole? You can see all their weight aft.

Thanks,

Kevin

[Kevin Keller]

To keep beating this to death a little more, the previous owner said that my leeward bow digging in was a symptom of my barber-hauler being in too tight? Any veracity to that? If true how come?

[Matt Haberman]

Kevin,

In the first picture of Eric's, I would guess they are probably on a broad reach and being back that far is probably a good idea looking at the attitude of the boat. In the second picture they need to be further forward, period. Honestly I have never seen a 20 pitch-pole. Going up wind your not going to pitch-pole, downwind your at a greater risk, but I have been on both 20's and 22's where we have burried both hulls up to the front beam going downwind and the boat recovered just fine, you just need to be on top of things.

Not sure about the barber-hauler comment, I have never heard of that connection? It has been a while since I have been on a 20, but my recolection is that the barberhauler is out all the way going downwind and pulled in going upwind to adjust the slot between the jib leech and the mainsail.

[Kevin Keller]

Well today I pitch-poled a SC-20.

I just got through telling my crew that we needed to keep the bows low because that is where they belong. We hadn't had a problem with the leeward digging in because it would always come right back up.

I guess we ran into a problem when both submerged. The rear started to pop up and he said we are going over. I was thinking to myself, "We'll recover". Next thing I know we are running forward and there ain't nothing we can do to stop. We ended up in front of the ramp somewhere, pulling it over still hooked up to our trapezes.

When the motion stopped we laughed and laughed. It actually happened some what slowly and none of us were hurt.

So now I get to try out the righting technique that Bill Roberts talked about. I hooked up the sea anchor, tightened the mainsheet and jibsheet, and then loosened the traveler. I pushed the boom down............ and nothing really happened. I think my sea anchor was way too small to keep the bows in the wind.

So I climbed the ladder, released the stay, came down, threw a rope over the hull and hung out. All 160 pounds of me righted the boat, easily. It works!! Great boat. I just wish we had video of it.

[Dave C]

Hi Matt,

I read this post a while back and thought it has a lot of good information for my SC-20.... especially the link to "This thread on the ARC-21 also holds true to the SC-20" and the pictures on the second link mentioned. I decided to read the information again but when I tried the links they didn't work. Could you direct me to the proper links or wherever the information went?

Thanks!
Dave

[Matt Haberman]

Dave,

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I must have missed this when I upgraded the forum a while back. The path to the database changed slightly which caused all of the links to be broken. I think I found all of them and they should be working now.