Quote:
Originally Posted by Surrymark
Rather than put in a baby stay for a hank-on storm jib (on a Cape Dory 27), I've been thinking of using a non-stretch bolt rope (probably Vectran) on the luff that I can just attach to a pad eye on the bottom, and a non-stretch halyard at the top.
It seemed like a simple idea. I use the jib winch to get the luff as tight as I can. The sail is small, so it may stay taut enough for the purpose. Then I read the following from Michael on this forum:
". . .for hoisting from the pointy end when the wind picks up the sail should be attached to something or something ugly could happen."
It made me picture the storm jib doing some frightful whipping around until (hopefully) I got it hoisted.
Has anybody ever seen a no-stay rig like this? Has anybody used a variety of storm jib set-ups in bad weather?
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This is regularly done on the TP 52 crowd; there are a couple of details that are critical to get correct, and while you're close you're not quite on target. I've built the same mechanism into my mast, it works well.
The basic mechanism is soft stay that can be hoisted and tensioned, the storm jib is hanked on to the soft way with soft hanks, and a halyard hoists the storm jib. Attach jib
sheets and trim like any other sail.
To do:
Set up a padeye on
deck that is as strong as you're existing headstay, this is the tack for the storm jib and stay. Loads imparted by a stormsail in storm conditions will be equivalent to what the headstay can carry. To reduce
compression loads on the mast, place the padeye as far forward as you can. If you want to bring the storm jib's center of effort aft to offset a deeply-reefed main's center of effort moving forward, bring the padeye aft.
Backup at the padeye to the
hull such that you don't tear the padeye out of the deck. A matching padeye bolted to the underside of the deck provides a match to the bolt pattern and provides a ring to attach to belowdecks. Run a tie-rod from the belowdeck padeye to the
hull. The tie-rod could be 1x19, swages, and a turnbuckle, vectran lashing, work out what is best for you.
The stay is vectran singlebraid, it's breaking load is equal to or greater than the breaking load of the headstay. It goes up on a 2:1 halyard on the mast - this is the tough part, you really want a 2:1 halyard of very low stretch material as a 1:1 halyard most likely won't get you the tension you need for a stay. One way to do this is to place a padeye on the mast above a topping
lift and use a riding block on the topping lift. The block must have a breaking load greater than the vectran stay.
You will also require a halyard for the storm jib that is set on the mast below stay-tensioning halyard - this again calls for some thought as to how best configure the spar to do this. In my case, I had a second pole lift installed a foot below the first pole lift, with the first pole lift set up as a 2:1 lift.
The soft hanks on the storm jib itself can be spectra single-braid (slippery and strong, easy to make using a diamond knot), and some boats go with a spectra strop/webbing hank. In either case, the idea is that the hank should be slippery for riding up and down the vectran stay while at the same time not being made of a material that will cut through the vetran stay. Do not use
bronze hanks.
The set up, when finished, works like this: the vectran stay lives in the sailbag with the storm jib, the storm jib is already hanked onto the stay. The bottom of the stay is attached to a captive-pin D-shackle that attaches to the deck padeye (some boats have a second padeye set inches aft of the stay padeye to accept the storm jib tack). The storm jib has it's own tack pennant and D-shackle that also attaches to the deck padeye. Keep both D-shackles tied to the mouth of the sailbag so you don't have to go hunting for them in the bag. Tie off the upper end of the vectran stay to the bag mouth so you can also find it.
To rig, bring the sailbag on deck, and attach both D-shackles to the padeye. Attach the vectran stay to the 2:1 stay-tensioning halyard - the sail is still in the bag, the bag has not been opened. Hoist the vectran stay. If the bag is built correctly and the sail and stay are tied off such that they don't twist up in the bag, you can hoist and tension the stay without ever opening the bag - the stay snakes out of the bag quite nicely.
Check the stay tension, set up runners (if needed) to support the mast. Take up final tension on the stay. Attach the 1:1 halyard to the storm jib - which means you also want the
head of the storm jib to be tied off to the mouth of the bag so you can find it without opening the bag.
At this point you have a stay and storm jib ready in place, all you need do is attach jib
sheets, pop the bag, and hoist. Best part is on the douse thet sail just snakes back down to the deck - a big advantage over going with a storm jib with a built-in stay and no halyard, as when you drop that sail it will blow to leeward and may end up in the
water.
Upshot - what you describe is done, and requires some thinking through on the mast, the halyards, and deck reenforcement. And then you spend a lot of time figuring out how to never need the dang thing - kind of like the life raft.
- rob/beetle