The following is a selection of tips & comments from over the past year or so. The messages are more or less as they appeared originally, though I have taken the liberty of editing out some of the irrelevant byplay. Where they are useful parts of the originating questions are included italicized & in (brackets). Editor’s notes within messages are enclosed in <brackets>.

 

MATERIALS

Phil (2000)

Uses for vectrus:
- boom vang (1st 2 cascades, then use polyester)

CONFIGURATION

Phil (March 2000)

Don't use a shackle to attach your vang to the vang loop on the butt of the mast. Instead clip it on with a wichard hook, like item 'A' in the photo. They are plenty strong, have a retainer so they won't accidentally pop off, and saves a bunch of time when rigging and derigging (not to mention back pain from leaning in to the cockpit to fiddle with a [bent] shackle pin) –

Henry (March 2000)

OK, here's a tip on the tip. NEVER attach your vang to the bottom of the mast at the tang. It induces unneeded compression, which in turn effects bend characteristics, especially side to side. Attach your vang by hard pin to the mast base itself or to a dedicated tang, but never to the mast. For floating around in under 10 knots it really makes no difference because your vang is never on anyway, but when you are loading that tang between 500-1000#'s in 18+ knots it throws everything else off. Besides, that is one more thing you have to detach when de-rigging, and another fail point. After all, Proctor uses only a pair of 5/32" rivets to attach the tang, far less than the shrouds which see comparable loading.

ch (March 2000)

I use a cascading block system on my vang and attached it to the mast by simply looping the line (Spectra or similar) around the mast and then splicing the line through itself a couple of times. (kind of like an eye splice with the two long ends and the mast in the bight of the loop. The two ends become the lines for the cascade blocks to be attached to. Simple, but it is semi-permanently attached to mast, so disconnect at boom end with hook or shackle.

Phil (March 2000)

With your vang system, I guess you'd better remember to loop that line around the mast butt when stepping the mast! But I like its simplicity. Simple = Good!!!!

(Aug. 2000)

Henry has suggested that the vang needs to be 16:1… I currently have a single cascade with a double up top and a triple down below led to both sides of my centerboard case with cleats mounted on top of my un-used main sheet hoop.

mb (Aug. 14/2000)

i'm running a 4 on top and a 5 on the bottom, the line goes back on one side of the center board so the skipper can adjust the vang