Advice needed for rigging my light wind sails.

[Privilege]

I'd appreciate any advice on rigging my sail.

I purchased a new mast last year for my 44' cat. I've just got my first light-wind sail; an asymmetrical spinnaker and rigged it from my bow-sprit. In due course I will also get a gennaker/code zero.

When I ran the halyard up the mast I realized that the only exit box on the front of the mast was for the forestay. I therefore ran the line around the forward sheave on the masthead. Is this O.K? Are there any hard-and-fast rules?

Most of the Privilege's have the line exiting around the level of the shrouds but some similar cats have the halyard going to the masthead. I am not racing and will be sailing conservatively.

I'd appreciate any advice.

[boatman61]

Yer good to go mate..

[StuM]

It's very common to run a spinnaker halyard through a sheave rather than in mast. Nothing wrong with running a light wind sail from the masthead - as long as you remember that it is a light wind sail

[neilpride]

If your cap shrouds end at the mast head then no problem, if they end several feets unders the mast head you need to install a spinaker block at the same cap shrouds level, the reason??? there is no backstay or support in the mast head if the cap shrouds end under the mast head, fairly common to see the spinaker halyard exit at the mast head sheave running trough a solid block at the shrouds level....then the load is at the right place...Cheers...

[Privilege]

Thanks for your advice guys.

[Benz]

The only concern not yet raised is whether the line will chafe as it exits the sheave box. For a forestay halyard it doesn't matter, since the lead follows the shroud, but a spinnaker that moves around a lot, not being fixed to a stay, might require some kind of fairlead where the halyard exits the sheave box. Luckily it's an easy thing to rig if required.
Ben

[Moonskater]

We set up a masthead halyard for a Code0 on our Antigua 37 a couple of years ago. Being a nerd i wanted the sail to be as big as possible so we ended up with 64 fresh m2 of sail with a torsion line length of just over 16 meter. The sail sits on a 1,8 meter retractable bowsprit. The builder FP said it was ok as long as we would not charter the boat. If we were, they proposed backstays. We are not chartering the boat but i fitted the backstays anyway and i am happy for that. We use the sail up to 12-14 knots apparent. To get the tension on the torsion line, we use a double 12 mm Dyneema halyard that goes from masthead through the swvel in the sail and back up into a dedicated sheavebox. In retrospect i could have put the sheavebox a bit lower as the halyard has a tendency of twisting even though the swivel. To get tension is really important for several reasons, first, the more tension, the higher you can go into the wind. Also when wind picks up, it is almost impossible to roll up the sail if the front leech(?) is slack. Shafe is also an issue here.
We are really happy with it!

Good luck
/petter