In the PDF put out by the Curtis Faith (one of the Original Turtles), they do not mention the tight channel formation at all, so the rules may not need them. However, in the book on Turtle trading written by Russell Sands, he relies on the tight channel. So, when I get in the mood to play around with the turtle method, I generally apply it only out of tight channels.

As for stop placement, it was always my under standing that the Turtles did not use stops. I was never comfortable with that, so i would place one near the closest major support that was far enough out of the trade to allow some room to weather a drawdown; in case of an emergency. If I was trading a channel, for example, and I went long, my stop would be right under the bottom of that channel.

I would then exit based on the standard exit rules of 10 lower lows (assuming a bull market) That eventually morphed into the way i use stops and exits in my current system..although I use different riggers now.