Traveller

The old traveller

The old Schaeffer traveller was undersized for the job. These travellers mounted on a teak bridge spanning the turtle are well known for failing on Baba's. The traveller is bolted to the wood, the wood to the cabin top. There were no bolts through both the cabin top and traveller. The mounting bolts were 1/4-20, not big enough for the forces involved.

The old bolts were bent by the forces on the traveller.

The old traveller had a diamond shaped padeye at each end. This padeye was the only piece through-bolted to the cabin top and was intended to provide rudimentary traveller controls through blocks on each padeye and on the boom. These were redundant once a modern traveller track was added.

The new traveller

To gain maximum range the new traveller will span the entire traveller bridge. The pad eyes were removed and the aft support recessed into the wood. This allowed two 5/16 x 11-1/2" bolts to secure the ends of the new traveller through the cabin top, in addition to twelve 5/16" bolts securing the track to the wooden bridge.

The aft support was recessed into the wood.

PT Rigging provided us an estimate for replacing the traveller with a new Harken. I prepped the boat and removed the teak traveller bridge to their shop for installation of stainless backing plates and patterning of the curve. When we received the new track the curve didn't match the wood. I planed the ends of the traveller bridge to make the new track fit.

Paying too much?

PT Rigging ordered all the parts for this job. When the parts arrived they dropped off the track, cars, and other miscellaneous parts to me on the boat. I've never been sure why they didn't install the traveller. A friend of ours with another Baba 40 was having the same job done by Toss Rigging. I was relieved to see the same track and other hardware that was installed by Toss Rigging. In the end, we paid $300 more for the identical traveller and we had to install it! Lisa told me they back-charged us for the time Dan spent spec'ing the parts for the estimate. I'm glad they didn't back-charge us for the "Rigging for Dummies" course these guys took prior to buying their business! We obviously picked the wrong rigger for this job!

Control lines

When I installed the traveller I ran the control lines aft through a block to a Spinlock - much better than the cleats on the ends of the old traveller. Also note the bolts through the traveller bridge, backed by stainless steel plates.

The new traveller is also a 6:1 mechanical advantage and it's much easier to travel to windward in strong winds.

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