Aquarius Sail Owners

Has anyone used these and how do you like them?

Kevin,

We have used them on the Spinnaker sheet. They work pretty good, but on the 22 the loads are high enough that we had to set them pretty high, otherwise they were "Always ON", even in light winds.

If I am not mistaken Harken had some problems with the springs in the early models, but as always they resolved that and the newer models havn't had the same problems as far as I am aware.

I use the Harken 55 mm Ratchamatics on Flight Risk(24') and on the F18HT, and have been very pleased with their operation and durablilty. Have also used the Ronstan 40mm smart ratchets and the 55mm orbit blks on the SC20 with less success. Two of the 40s went bad at some point over the 4 years I had the boat rigged for spin. The orbit blk replaced one of those, and I had no problems with it , but it felt somewhat flimsy compared to the Harkens.
On all the boats I use 4 autoratchet blks total, the spin sheet runs to the turning blk(at the shroud or rear beam) , where it wraps the sheave 180 degrees , and then runs forward to the next blk on the front beam, and then to the crew on the opposite side of the boat. This system gives full holding power to the first blk, and adds additional holding power with the second. This allows the crew to reasonably hand hold the spin in higher wind without excessive whining.

Dave

Thanks for the replies gents. I was thinking about using it for the main sheet blocks but talked to someone local and he didn't really recommend the Rachmatic.

Dave,

Sounds like quite a rig. Do you have pictures of the SC-20 rigged up? I would almost contemplate putting something like that on my boat.

Thanks,

Kevin

Kevin,
I also use carbo ratchamatics on the mainsheets for FR(12 to 1) and the HT(10 to 1), and they work very well. Give me a call and we can exchange emails, I do have some pics of the SC, but drawn diagrams and conversation might work as well.

Dave 509 276 6355 H

Dave reminded me of one more thing.
With the double block setup that Dave describes, we had to abandon the autoratchet at the rear location of the 22. With two ratchets in series like that, one would always lock up from the extra drag of the other block during a jibe. This can get pretty hariry when the sheet won't go out in the middle of a jibe and its blowing. When using the double block setup, we ended up with autoratchets on the front beam and manual ones at the rear local which we turned off during jibes.