Leopard 48: Halyard connection to square top mainsail

[LauraMarie Cat]

Kahuna,

I totally agree with your conclusion that the 2019 rigging of the strop line is much better than your current rigging for the reasons you have described. Your four photographs provide perfect documentation of how it was done.

My L48 is in charter rental during the short summer season we have in the Pacific NW. Two years ago, a charterer tore a huge hole in the mainsail for unknown reasons, so it was removed and quickly repaired by the charter rental company. Unfortunately, they detached and cut off the strop that pulls the square top main to the top car and I could not figure out how to rerig it and had to come up with my own solution. My solution, shown in the photograph my previous post, works but I believe it chafes the main halyard, so I've wanted to restore the strop and your pictures show me how to do it.

About the torn mainsail and the stiffness you reported while raising your sail. There are two issues that sailors with square top mainsails should know about. First, a big part of the reason my main was torn was because before I bought my used L48, someone had replaced the strop with a line that was standard jacketed line and the jacket had torn and was bunching up. It's certain the strop must be Dyneema or Spectra, not so much because of its awesome strength, but because it is slippery and has no jacket to wear and tear off. Another hard to see cause of a stiff raising main is because the glide material inside the Antal sliders wears out over time, causing the slider to tilt at an angle and its aluminum body to dig into the track. Specifically, the slider just under the top triple headsail car was the one that was most worn. Accelerated wear of the Antal glides may be caused because the square top main creates a large pulling force that is perpendicular to the mast as it is being raised.

With a deal of effort, I was able to remove all the sliders by unscrewing the ones with studs from the batten boxes they mount into, then they all slide off the bottom of the track. To make a temporary repair, I simply swapped the most worn (2nd from the top slider) with the one at the bottom of the track, which sees the lowest load from the sail and thus was least worn.

I have since purchased new Antal sliders (from Fisheries Supply in Seattle) but that proved to be a big challenge as well. My 2014 build L48 uses a larger size track and slider that Antal no longer has in their catalog. Most Antal sliders have the part number silkscreened on the side of the car, but not mine. My sliders and track are 26mm wide, which turned out to be the following p/n's: ANT-HS26.50S and ANT-HS26.60S. The smaller sliders are the 50S and the taller sliders are the 60S model. These are the simple sliders without the studs, but rather than purchase more expensive sliders with studs, I simply installed the old studs on the new sliders.

Make a close inspection of your highest Antal slider cars and wiggle them to see if they tilt a lot, because that may be the cause of you stiff raising mainsail. Antal will not sell just the replacement synthetic rub glides, but they will rebuild the cars in Italy with new glides. That's a reason to keep to old sliders to be rebuilt for later use.

[theBigKahuna]

Interesting... charter companies must be alot like vacation rental management companies.....

In the past we had a number of ocean front/2nd row properties in the Carolinas. For all the $$$ we were paying the management company, the renters terrorized the properties w/ little to no recorse being taken from their security deposit.

We finally determined the island 'pecking order', and owners were at the bottom (which sounds much like owners in the charter industry). The first thing the charter company cares about is themselves and family/crews; second to that are the renters as the company wants to keep them happy and have good referrals; lastly, is the owners, which don't ever seem to get the attention you'd think they should enjoy.

IMHO

[LauraMarie Cat]

The charter company I work with has super nice management and staff. That said, your words are pretty much the truth. While they are nice people, their business model is to make money renting your boat and selling you all sorts of repairs and maintenance services at a high mark up. They charge $100 to $125/hour for work, but then pay their most very staff low wages.

Yes, charterers do plenty of damage and rarely have the integrity to report it. The Fleet captains doing the check in at the end of the charter never seem to notice any damage. You really need to be an active owner to note any damage, report it and hold the charter company accountable to get it fixed at their expense.

If I had a new boat, I would never charter it just to watch it get rapidly banged up by inexperienced and careless charterers. I was stuck and had to put my boat in charter rental because I would have died of old age on the wait list before a 50' end tie slip would come available.

[theBigKahuna]

Sorry for the rant on rental companies... we obviously had a very poor experience w/ our real estate and you're right... iand our case was the same. If there was no rental company, the properties wouldn't have even been an option.

[tomtriad]

My 42' trimaran had a flat head full batten mainsail with Antal system headboard, triple slider, and track. The headboard is HS2469 90 Degrees. Doyle has a 2 piece machined aluminum interlocking fitting that incorporates a jackline to relieve the head when furling. It cost $2k 15 years ago, no idea how much now. I devised a better method, whereby I removed the top diagonal batten when furling, replacing it again when rigging; the batten was loaded from the luff of the sail, tensioned with a lanyard and secured with a velcro flap. The headboard was always attached to the sail and the triple slider; I found this to be superior to using a jackline which is more complex with more potential failure points which could result in a catastrophically failure which would leave the headboard, slider, and halyard at the masthead. I raced and sailed offshore a lot and reliability and strength were foremost.

[T. Lee]

I have used an “Anomaly” headboard and car arrangement on a Gunboat. Simple, clean and works well on my single part harlyard.

[meirriba]

Lagoon 400 mainsail head

[fxykty]

We have a round top main so no direct experience with square tops. We are thinking of a square top main when we next get a new main (many years from now I hope).

When slacking the halyard to lower the sail for reefing, does the head of the sail come out of the car? Or does it stay in the car?

If it does stay in the car with a slack halyard, that’s good for reefing. But then how does the head come loose when dropping the sail all the way?

[meirriba]

Originally Posted by fxykty

We have a round top main so no direct experience with square tops. We are thinking of a square top main when we next get a new main (many years from now I hope).

When slacking the halyard to lower the sail for reefing, does the head of the sail come out of the car? Or does it stay in the car?

If it does stay in the car with a slack halyard, that’s good for reefing. But then how does the head come loose when dropping the sail all the way?

The head is not in the car
It is connected with a line. See picture in my post above.
When you release the halyard this line looses tension and there is no problem with reefing

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by meirriba

The head is not in the car

It is connected with a line. See picture in my post above.

When you release the halyard this line looses tension and there is no problem with reefing

So the head of the sail is loose while lowering the halyard? That seems to me to be quite risky, especially in stronger winds when reefing is required. Or is it not a problem?

[meirriba]

Originally Posted by fxykty

So the head of the sail is loose while lowering the halyard? That seems to me to be quite risky, especially in stronger winds when reefing is required. Or is it not a problem?

Not a problem.
After reefing, you tighten the halyard again.
So the head gets back to proper position.

[Tin Tin]

Originally Posted by fxykty

So the head of the sail is loose while lowering the halyard? That seems to me to be quite risky, especially in stronger winds when reefing is required. Or is it not a problem?

Ran a square top for 5 years full time cruising with the Lagoon set up (actually it is a patented system by Incidences sail makers) and a 900 sq ft square top and 2:1 halyard. Never a problem reefing, raising or lowering.The dyneema strop holds the head in and releases when it gets to the stack pack when there is little tension on the luff. It is the luff tension between the head and the second batten that pulls the strop in tight.


It is designed so that the two to one dyneema strop is only long enough to allow the top angled batten to lie flat in the sail stack pack. On raising when the second batten starts to rise out of the stack pack the dyneema strop starts tighten until the luff is tight between head and second batten. So if there is luff tension, cause by halyard or even weight of the sail the head will stay at the mast. Obviously when reefed there is luff tension so it works just fine.

[T. Lee]

I can’t post images but you can go to the website. I have one installed and used it for eight years so far.



https://engineering.anomalyengineering.com/