Channels
Hi there,
Boy, did you get some dumb advice. What kind of an idiot would tell you to decrease shroud angles? Oh, it was me? In that case I'll rationalize the heck out of that advice.
This is a fundamental problem with gaffers, and it is even worse on sloops and ketches, where the main tends to be further forward, where the beam is even narrower. You're lucky if you can get 10°.
But that gaff has to be able to swing. The "bolting a plank on" course that you mentioned is one possibility. The resulting extensions are called "channels", and they need to be quite thick, usually with the longer dimension being horizontal, to increase the span enough to make a difference.
Another possibility is to shorten the throat of the sail. This raises the peak angle, limiting the radius of rotation, so the gaff hits the wire later, under lower loads, and gets the jaws altogether away from the wire, which is supremely important. And by the way, a higher peak angle is in general a good thing, within limits, for improved sailing efficiency.
But the only way to avoid the problem altogether is to run the gaff on a track, letting you put the shrouds where you wish. Major design can of variables here, however, along with some cost-intensive hardware.
So I'd work to optimize the traditional setup by whatever means available, and reconcile myself to the fact that you aren't going to get as generous an angle as you might want.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss
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