Solent Rig?

[robert sailor]

Nigel 1 you have a solent rig

[Jim Cate]

Here's another variant: fractional rig, swept back spreaders, Solent plus baby stay. Runners to support the mast, topmast stay to bend it and support the masthead kite. Both genoa and solent jb on rollers, solent is rigged with a Highfield lever and can, with some effort, be brought back near the mast and secured. Difficult to restore if the boat has much wind or motion on. Nearly impossible to tack genoa without partially or completely furling which is a PITA. The designer said that one can sail without setting the runners in "quite a bit of wind". Wasn't willing to quantify that statement, so we use the runners in all but light conditions.

The solent sail is like a #4 jib, non-overlapping, and the sheets are rigged inboard. Works well upwind, used with full main up to ~ 30 kts apparent, and with various reefs to ~ 45 apparent. IN light airs on deep angles we use the genoa poled to windward, and prevented main and solent to leeward. Adding the solent gives a small but useful increment in speed. We do not use the two foresails together in any other situations, for they are too close together to work well in tandem.

This rig is pretty adaptable and covers a wide range of wind speeds, but the tacking issue is enough to raise reservations in my mind... not sure that I would do it again for a short handed cruising boat.

Cheers,

Jim

Don't have a pic of her downwind with all three sails set, so imagine the solent set to leeward in the final picture.

[HappyMdRSailor]

Golly Jim and Ann....

She sure is a looker.... Very nice !

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by HappyMdRSailor

Golly Jim and Ann....

She sure is a looker.... Very nice !

Why, thank you... we are quite fond of her!

Jim

[GILow]

Originally Posted by StuM

GILow - Not. That's a classic cutter. A solent has the second forestay as close as possible to the forestay and doesn't have running backstays.

Ah, thank you for that. So dual forestays a solent rig does not make. (Yoda parlance)

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by OldFrog75

So the answer to the OP question is : there is no such thing as a "cutter rigged sloop"?

You could quibble definitions but I would say that there are. Better would be staysail rigged sloop. I think people understand that a a sloop with retrofitted inner forestay is being discussed.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by GILow

So..., sorry to hijack a bit, but does this make my rig a solent cutter or not? I have doctored this photo to add the running backstays (light blue) and staysail stay (yellowy green), both of which were stowed out of the way when this picture was taken. Hopefully you can make out the dual forestays.

Matt

I would say yes, it looks like you have a classic cutter that also has a Solent stay.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Adelie

I would say yes, it looks like you have a classic cutter that also has a Solent stay.

I've got a headache now, that's for sure.

[StuM]

> I would say yes, it looks like you have a classic cutter that also has a Solent stay.

D*rn my old eyes. I didn't see that tiny line in front of the blue until I looked at it again. Yep, that's a Solent stay on a cutter.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by StuM

> I would say yes, it looks like you have a classic cutter that also has a Solent stay.

D*rn my old eyes. I didn't see that tiny line in front of the blue until I looked at it again. Yep, that's a Solent stay on a cutter.

Yeah, I probably should have higlighted it, it's pretty faint in the picture. 12mm from memory.... or 10... er... one of the buggers is 12mm, either the front or the rear.

So, to continue on my hijack of an innocent thread, I gather the furler on the rear of two solent-like stays is unusual?

Matt

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by GILow

Yeah, I probably should have higlighted it, it's pretty faint in the picture. 12mm from memory.... or 10... er... one of the buggers is 12mm, either the front or the rear.

So, to continue on my hijack of an innocent thread, I gather the furler on the rear of two solent-like stays is unusual?

Matt

Unusual but also probably a better low cost arrangement depending on what you are going to do now that I think about it.

By having the roller furler on the solent, that leaves the headstay for a drifter. This does at least 2 beneficial things. It maximizes drifter sail area with slightly larger J & I measurements and it puts the drifter in cleaner wind ahead of the rolled genny.

The downside is that tacking or gybing will be awkward.
A] You will need to use super long sheets and let the sail stream ahead of the rig when gybing before pulling it in on the other side, in which case it will probably be better to use a spinnaker halyard for hoisting.
B] Alternatively drop the sail on deck for each tack and pull it thru the gap ahead of the solent before rehoisting.

For offshore when you might tack or gybe on average once a day this shouldn't be a big issue.

Coastal cruising this might be a bigger issue.

If the goal is maximize convenience the loss of area in the genny is not an issue at all because it should be your moderate weather sail. Actually I would have it be a high cut 120-140% yankee.

In really light air you fly the drifter.
A bit more full yankee and staysail,
next drop the staysail and full yankee only,
then rolled yankee,
followed by staysail only,
and finally storm staysail.

Most foresail changes involve dropping/raising/rolling/unrolling the yankee and staysail without removing either, (I would bag the staysail in place when not in use.) The drifter is set or removed in relatively light weather. The staysail is swapped for the storm staysail in much heavier weather but they are much smaller sails and are inboard from the stem a bit.

This is the low cost option. Other options would include a CodeZero or an asymmetrical spinnaker which would be significantly larger than a drifter but then I don't see a reason for the solent stay, the drifter would only be used for going very hard on the wind in very light air and even then it might be faster to foot off and use the CodeZero and make up the increased sailing distance by sailing faster. Hard to say.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Unusual but also probably a better low cost arrangement depending on what you are going to do now that I think about it.

By having the roller furler on the solent, that leaves the headstay for a drifter. This does at least 2 beneficial things. It maximizes drifter sail area with slightly larger J & I measurements and it puts the drifter in cleaner wind ahead of the rolled genny.

The downside is that tacking or gybing will be awkward.
A] You will need to use super long sheets and let the sail stream ahead of the rig when gybing before pulling it in on the other side, in which case it will probably be better to use a spinnaker halyard for hoisting.
B] Alternatively drop the sail on deck for each tack and pull it thru the gap ahead of the solent before rehoisting.

For offshore when you might tack or gybe on average once a day this shouldn't be a big issue.

Coastal cruising this might be a bigger issue.

If the goal is maximize convenience the loss of area in the genny is not an issue at all because it should be your moderate weather sail. Actually I would have it be a high cut 120-140% yankee.

In really light air you fly the drifter.
A bit more full yankee and staysail,
next drop the staysail and full yankee only,
then rolled yankee,
followed by staysail only,
and finally storm staysail.

Most foresail changes involve dropping/raising/rolling/unrolling the yankee and staysail without removing either, (I would bag the staysail in place when not in use.) The drifter is set or removed in relatively light weather. The staysail is swapped for the storm staysail in much heavier weather but they are much smaller sails and are inboard from the stem a bit.

This is the low cost option. Other options would include a CodeZero or an asymmetrical spinnaker which would be significantly larger than a drifter but then I don't see a reason for the solent stay, the drifter would only be used for going very hard on the wind in very light air and even then it might be faster to foot off and use the CodeZero and make up the increased sailing distance by sailing faster. Hard to say.

Wow, that's a whole sail tutorial right there, thank you.

What you say makes sense in light of what came with the boat. We have an MPS (Asym), but no drifter. Now you have me wondering if what I have been calling a genoa is actually a yankee, but I think not, as if I understand this correctly, the yankee would have a higher cut. We certainly have a yankee, but I would not have called it anything bigger than 100%, maybe even more like 90%, but I am just guessing there. I will dig out the rigging drawings and see if I can figure it out some more.

The original owner spent a lot of time plying between the East coast of Australia and places like Vanuatu, so I assume the sail wardrobe is optimised for those sorts of sailing conditions. (trade winds!)

I still have a LOT to learn about the stuff above decks on this boat.

Matt

[Nicholson58]

A solent rig is a non permanent stay. It is often rigged so that, stored, it is against the mast or nearly so. In use, the lower end is moved to a strong eye on the deck. The base is tensioned often with a series of blocks in order to make it stiff enough to operate hanked on sails. It could also be tensioned with a hydraulic ram. There will also probably be a dedicated halyard required. The purpose of the solent rig is so that it can be stored away from the #1 jib and so, permit tacking. You can use a solent rig on many smaller boats but it gets unwieldy on big vessels. A sort-of variation is a Code Zero but in this case, the stay is the sail luff.

There is no reason a sloop could not have a cutter staysail. It is typically from the upper spreader to a point on the deck such that the cutter stay and forestay are parallel. Attached are photos of my cousin's 58 Camper Nicholson sloop with double head rig. Both stays are permanent. The stay, furler, and sail weigh around 300#. This allows two jibs to fly wing & wing and may be done with two poles. Area is abut the same as a spinnaker but the area is much lower. This arrangement almost sails itself downwind. The two sails are of different weight & cut so you can make a sail change from the cockpit.

The Ketch is our Camper Nicholson 58 cutter-ketch. Both of our boats have the same mast height and the J is nearly the same on both boats. Our cutter staysail is useful for sail reduction in heavy wind and we use it under our jib since the slot is so large between the stays. We are adding a code zero this spring 131 sq meter with an ATN douser. It will tack to the bow and will use a spare jib halyard or spinnaker halyard.

The final photo is our friend's Island Packet 44 Cutter-sloop.

This is Allice's restaurant. You really can get anything you want.

[Nicholson58]

I did a look-up on solent and found a couple of good discussions. I will stand corrected on the "non-permanent" statement I made above. I picked that from an article on "How to Add a Solent Rig" in one of the gear magazines. It was totally non-permanent as I described. It can be permanent or non-permanent and it can be wherever you find it best to rig it.

Solent Rig | Cruising World

Downwind voyaging - Ocean Navigator - January/February 2013

[Group9]

Originally Posted by nigel1

This is the setup I have, which I thought was a slutter rig

If the breeze is enough, the genny can be tacked through ther gap between the two stays, in light airs I have to leg it forward and help the genny through.
Advantage is no need for flying backstays. In strong winds, I use the staysail with a reefed main, and if upwind, I need to rig the staysail sheets inside the shrouds.
Downwind, I can fly both, usually with the genoa poled out to windward.

The boat in your picture is exactly the rig I picture in my mind when I hear solent rigged.

No need for running backstays, with the inner forestay attached at, or very near, the masthead, and a few feet aft of the forestay on deck.