I have just started sailing a Merlin again having purchased back and renovated 2979, a Fadeaway Satisfaction design.  It has shroud levers and the original lever type kicking strap. In the interval it has been fitted with a fixed hoop and the main is of Mylar. It could be me but I now find the boat very slow and not as I remember it!  I see Dan Alsop in his "tuning tips for older boats" strongly recommends the retention of the original traveller system.  Is this still the perceived wisdom for these older boats with high bow tanks?  If so, has anyone a surplus kit of parts with track, car etc. or perhaps "breaking" a similar boat for spares?

Your Fadeaway should still go well to windward with the correct rig controls but as Dan's article explains this means using mainsheet tension to straighten the jib luff otherwise you will lose pointing ability as the wind increases.  Either restore the traveller or fork out for the work to allow rig tension to straighten the jib luff - there are no real alternatives

Richard, speak to me on Sunday as I have the curved Traveller and Car that I took out of Panatella and am not putting back in. I am planning to put Hoop in instead!!

Thanks Andrew. I assume the work you are referring to is replacing the rig to a modern set up.

Either the full monty of deck-stepping or doing some strengthening work - space frame or such like - to take the extra rig loads without bending the boat whilst keeping your hog-stepped mast.  The difficulty is fitting this in without it looking naff or Heath Robinson after all the work restoring the beautiful woodwork

HI Richard,

when I got my Smokers - 3025, so close to you in time wise terms, it had been retro fitted with a hoop and went like a dog. I removed the hoop, put a traveller ssytem back in and won the first time back out in the boat at Bough Beech last year. I'm not a great exponent of putting a carbon raking rig on a 1976 hull, the boat worked then very well with a traveller and does so today. Getting good sails, made for that set up (as against trying to make a modern suit fit) is essential.

The other thing you need is a fund to help the crew replace their wet suits - we found the traveller chewed the arse out of supercrew Jon Thompsons sailing kit with remarkable alacrity!!

Dougal

Thanks for your encouragement Dougal.  I admit some 20 years has passed since I used to sail "Moderation" but it has done well in its early days which suggests it is the boat!  I shall warn my crew it could be draughty.

Yes, 3025 did go faster with the traveller, but by God it was (is) uncomfortable.  One good thing I found with the hoop (I have short legs), it was a good bracing point, to push myself out onto the side decks!  After one sail with the traveller,I did more damage to the wetsuit, than I had in four years sailing my Blaze!!

Jon Thompson