Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Fore Triangle Sail Handling

I want a handling system that will not require any bowsprit sail handling chores, will allow me to tack or gybe a spinnaker thru an open fore traingle and set a trys'l and storm stays'l without having to thread the luff thru a furler slot. I think I can do this using a variation of Shanti's running rigging plan.

First off,  my sail inventory will consist of a main with 2 reef points, stays'l with one reef point and two jibs, a Yankee and a 130 genoa. For heavy weather I will carry a trysail and a storm stays'l, and for light air a drifter. The stays'l and storm stays'l will be hanked on to stainless steel wire inner fore stay ( or is proper term "stays'l stay"?) and rigged with a downhaul. The Yankee will be on a standard foil based type roller furler that can be reefed, again on a stainless steel fore stay.  The backstay (SSB antennea) and both forestays will be wire, all shrouds will be Dynamee by Colligo. The Yankee will be the default jib and will not have to be struck to set the genoa or the spinnaker as these two sails will be set free flying tacked to a bowsprit traveller.

I believe Gary Felton on Shanti sets all jibs free flying behind the permanent fore stay on a Facnor luff line furler using a two part purchase halyard. He cranks down hard on the halyard to get 1200 lbs of tension, enough so that the Dynamee synthetic line sail luff actually takes over the head stay's job. If the halyard did ever fail the fore stay is there to reassume its duties. Gary has field tested his new system and proven it to be plenty stout.  But some have suggested possible disadvantages to this system such as:


"Interesting to see the jib arrangement on the other boat. Note that he uses a modern furling gear, not a traditional Wykeham Martin. Either way, it is imperative with this setup that the jib luff takes all the load from the headstay. One problem that is quite common is for the (now slack) forestay to fall into the sail, get rolled up in it and thus cause a bit of a snarl up. I have to say I don't think Mr. Felton's traveller and roller gear etc. is big enough though. I think he will struggle to roll the sail in a breeze."
Others have suggested that a standard extrusion type furler is a better option than free flying head sails on a luff line furler:

"- The sail will hate to wrap itself around the small radius wire. The
head and tacks of these sails soon begin to look very stressed and
nasty.
- The luffs of these set flying, stiff wire sails always sag off,
affecting windward ability.
- If the sail is set behind a stand alone outer headstay, These saggy
stiff wire jibs had a habit of wrapping themselves in the headstay when
furling off the wind.
- The stiff wire makes a larger loop of sail for stowing below."

Mr. Felton's use of Dynamee Dux for sail luffs and his tensioning system respond to these issues but nevertheless I will try to strike a balance and hopefully accomplish my goals by using a foil based roller reefing system for a "permanent" Yankee and a bowsprit traveller for all other jibs'ls.  The genoa as well asthe spinnaker will be free flying.

The inner fore stay will be attached to the stem on a highfield lever so it can be released and tied off to the mast out of the way when it is time to set a spinnaker or genoa.

The sequence for changing the sail set from Yankee plus Stays'l to a genoa or spinnaker with no stays'l would look like this:

furl the Yankee, drop stays'l, release and stow inner fore stay at mast, hook spinnaker or genoa tack pennant to bowsprit traveler, haul tack to end of sprit in front of furled Yankee, belay bowsprit traveler outhaul and lastly raise spinnaker sail in ATM sock on 2 part purchase halyard (all of this work is being done in the lee of the main). The spinnaker or genoa can now be easily tacked or gybed through the wide open fore triangle.
 When it's time to drop light air sails and harden up to a reach:

douse the spinnker with the sock, release bowprit traveller outhaul and bring in the sprit traveler, unhook the sail tack, drop the spinnaker sail, secure inner forestay back into position at stem, hoist and trim staysail and unfurl yankee.
Unless I am missing something, with this system I can rig for heavy or light air without walking the sprit or messing around with that ATM saddle thing-a-ma-jig that attaches the tack to the furled jib and again has me walking the sprit.

1 comment:

Gary Felton said...

David,
Just a few comments on the rig on Shanti.

My furler is by Precourt in Canada. It is of aluminum and Carbon fiber Construction. The diameter of the drum is 3 inches. Precourt has a 6" unit available also. A standard Profurl unit for Shanti would have had a drum diameter of 2 5/8 inches, so my "small" furler is actually a little more powerful than a Profurl unit would have been. Thats the beauty of it! So far It has worked wonderfully.

I have set up my headstay at approximately 1500 lbs tension, so when I set the jib flying at around 1200 lbs, my headstay does go loose relatively speaking, but stays tight enough so it does not sag or interfere with the flying jib in any way, even off the wind as suggested by the comments I read above. I have no more or less sag than a sail set on a furler with the headstay tension set at 1200 lbs. The Dynex dux is very flexible, as flexible as any line would be, so I do not have any of the inherent problems of "wire". The sag and weatherly performance is all predicated on the jib being cut for the sag of any system. If they do not match you will have poor performance. So even if there was a lot of sag, if the jib was cut for it you would still have good weatherly performance.

Just for the record, I would go with a traditional gaff rig using carbon fiber tubes with wood ends. At least have the gaff and topsail yard in CF. Just a thought. If the sails are cut for any sag in the system it should perform well. besides who wants to go to weather, I just stay put and have another drink until the wind changes.

Good luck with the rebuild....what fun!

Gary
S/V Shanti