Baby stay really necessary?

[Clipper4730]

Hey y'all just a quick question regarding our rig. We have an '04 50' Bene with a baby stay that kinda makes the foredeck cluttered and not to user friendly. A broker once told me that unless you are doing some serious heavy weather sailing it is not really needed. Thoughts? We would love to remove it but don't want to over stress the rest of the rig. We are not extreme and don't sail in anything over twenty knots and reef early and often. Anyway just trying to get a little insight into the possibility of taking it off and storing it below.

Thanks
Will

[autumnbreeze27]

I wouldn't take the broker's word for it, ask your local rigger for advise.

Our boat is a cutter rig and we can detach the stay from the foredeck and move it to the port side about even with the mast. That makes tacking a lot easier. You could probably do a similar setup, and just hook it up if conditions warrant.

If you want me to post pics let me know.

[neilpride]

Its necesary, if you remove it expect some mast pumping, your sparcraft rig sport some kind of sweep back spreaders and those make the rig stable but not enough without the babystay , if you look at recent sparcraft masts in some kind of new production boats you can notice the angle in the sweep back spreaders is greater compared to your rig , then they can live without babystays... Cheers...

[Cheechako]

I doubt they would put it there without a reason. The key to keeping a lightweight spar up .......is keeping it straight.
Sure, you are likely fine in light air, but we all know we get stuck in more than we expect often. You could buy a release for it.

[Clipper4730]

I like the idea of releasing it and keeping it out of the way until we need it. Would love to see the pics of your set up.

Thanks for the input

Will

[Cheechako]

Check out "highfield lever"

[svHyLyte]

There are no "Optional" stays on the Beneteau Spars. With the standard rigging, side-to-side support at the mid-section of the mast is provided by the lower shrouds. Likewise, the luff of the Main, under the load of the main sheet provides stability against forward buckling of the mast at the mid-section. The baby-stay counters the force of the Main to prevent buckling of the mid-section to the aft. Without the baby-stay, the unsupported length of the spar, fore'n aft, is roughly doubled. That would be very unwise. Brokers are not engineers, or riggers.

[transmitterdan]

When you reef is also when you need the baby stay. As the center of effort lowers so do the mast bending forces. The baby stay tension increases to resist that.

Also, if you have a back stay tensioner the baby stay plays a roll in mast bend.

Lightweight sticks need compression to prevent buckling. The baby stay does more than just help keep the stick in column.

[neilpride]

But in the Bene 50 the uppers and the spreaders make the mast prebend and even tight the forestay , the backstay in this particular boat is usually not so tight, and the lowers counteract the prebend in the midle section under the first set of spreaders, thats why there is a babystay right there, take it out , place your eyes in the mast track under sail and you see why the babystay is necesary... my 2 cents..

[transmitterdan]

I agree with Neil. Prebend doesn't work right without a baby stay in many rigs. If you can find a rigger that has had some experience with Bene 50 rig failures ask them their opinion. Lessons learned from failures are worth a lot.

[JPA Cate]

The boat is meant to have the baby stay. If you ever had to go aloft in a seaway to repair a broken one, you would not consider permanent removal. However, removing it for flat water downwind work, is acceptable. You'll want to work out a place to secure it, when not in use, it can scratch the anodize or the paint on the mast. One boat we had had the baby stay terminated on a car on a track, so it slid aft towards the mast or tensioned up further forward of it.

Ann

[audeojude]

I had one of the F235's from beneteau with a babystay and we set it up to be quick released from the deck and moved out of the way to the side rail. Used a 4 to 1 block and tackle in line to tension it on the fly to where it needed to be for the conditions when the wind and waves were blowing. One of the scariest moments on that boat I ever had though was in 30 knots of wind and 6 feet steep seas and the mast started pumping because i had forgotten to hook the babystay back up. Mad scramble to the fordeck and hook it up and tension it quickly..then all was good.

moral of the story. You can have the best of both worlds just don't forget to deploy it in bad conditions. If you don't have it in bad conditions you will lose your mast eventually.

Just make sure that you look at the specs of the babystay and build a quick release and tensioning setup that meets the same standard.

The one downside of this on our boat was that the block and tackle and quick release when deployed caused a lot more friction for the jib when tacking and stuff would hang up more often. Most of our sailing was in lighter winds and it wasn't deployed much. I always intended to get a light weight thin wall piece of pvc that could go over the whole assembly but be lifted up out of the way easily when you needed to access it to attach or detach it from the boat.

good luck with it.

[savoir]

The block and tackle doesn't even need to be quick release. Put a tail on the line and pull the babystay back to the mast by hand leaving it attached to the deck.


You could also reduce the power ratio to 2:1 and run the tail aft to a winch.

[Huskybeer]

Originally Posted by svHyLyte

There are no "Optional" stays on the Beneteau Spars. With the standard rigging, side-to-side support at the mid-section of the mast is provided by the lower shrouds. Likewise, the luff of the Main, under the load of the main sheet provides stability against forward buckling of the mast at the mid-section. The baby-stay counters the force of the Main to prevent buckling of the mid-section to the aft. Without the baby-stay, the unsupported length of the spar, fore'n aft, is roughly doubled. That would be very unwise. Brokers are not engineers, or riggers.

I fully agree. you could change it to a furling system, to aqvoid too much clutter

[Mithril Bham]

I don't pretend to be an expert but have a similar situation on my BR 44. I asked the best rigger I know and he responded with a resounding "no". That doesn't mean you can't do it but I would find an expert rigger to re-tune and test everything if you do.
Good luck