Headsail Height

Fire99

Fire99

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Hi All,

A fairly basic question here.

I have hank-on headsails on my Boat and the Tack height is pretty much set by a short length of rope which you can make any length you like really.

Im mostly running a No1 Jib as a headsail so is there any rule of thumb to how high the Tack should be set? At the moment i'm pretty much guessing.

Also the Fairleads are fixed on the deck (two screwed down 'eyes') and I have to skip the first one when running a No1 as otherwise the sheet would have to travel towards the bow before going through the first fairlead.

Hopefully I got the terminology right. :)

Any advice would be appreciated.

rgds,

Nick
 
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Sounds like you have fixed fairleads.

When it comes to getting a headsail setting well, upwind, it's important that the angle at which the sheet comes up to the clew should (if extended in your mind's eye) meet forestay at the mid point of the sail's luff.

In that case, I'd try and set the strop under the jib at a length that allows you to achieve that. You'll know if you've got it right because when you slowly luff the boat into the wind, all the tell-tales on the luff should lift at the same time.

Time for some experimentation.
 
Thanks Ken,

Yep my fairleads are fixed. So I take it i' doing the right thing skipping the furthest forward one due to the size of the No1?

I hear what you're saying about the angle etc so yep I think a bit of playing should see what gets the best results.
 
When I had that setup, each sail had to be set at a different height so I spliced wire strops to each sail bringing them all to the same sheeting angle. It is important with the smaller sails that they should be set some distance above the deck as they will be set in rougher weather and will be at risk from being hit by green water coming over the deck and ripped.
 
snowleopard said:
When I had that setup, each sail had to be set at a different height so I spliced wire strops to each sail bringing them all to the same sheeting angle. It is important with the smaller sails that they should be set some distance above the deck as they will be set in rougher weather and will be at risk from being hit by green water coming over the deck and ripped.
Click to expand...

That's a good idea. Will certainly save alot of faffing when swapping between headsails.
 
Fire99 said:
That's a good idea. Will certainly save alot of faffing when swapping between headsails.
Click to expand...
Too right. You don't want to be b***ering about adjusting strops on a wet bouncing foredeck in the middle of the night. Use a snap or captive-pin shackle too.
 
How about a block at the bottom of the forestay, and leading the downhaul back to the cockpit? This way you'd be able to tweak the lead as you are sailing by balancing the halyard and dounhaul.

That's the system used by the laser SB3, simple and effective.
 
I've got a similar set up, all-be-it with a variable sheet angle. I've always found that the extra effort made to actually change to a more appropriate headsail has more than mitigated for any tweaks that can be made to the sail shape or the angle of sheet. You are on to a winner by taking the effort to change the sail in the first place, I wouldn't worry too much about a perfect set unless you're racing. Whlst (arguably) lazier sailors are basically trying to reduce heel by messing around with an intrinsicallly unsuitable sail you'll be breezing along, short tacking easy and sipping pimms on the aft deck at the sametime.
 
Thanks for your input guys.
To be honest it's not an attempt at tweaking performance more that the height set each time has been a completely wild guess without any form of science involved.
Infact it's been more like "Oooo it looks very similar to that passing Yacht so i'll give that a go"

I really was trying to find out what the correct height is for normal sail setup.

Regarding performance I'd guess old sails and a relatively novice sailor will have greater affect than a slight variation in headsail height.

My other challenge is balancing the two sails. (headsail and mainsail). It's hard to see if both sails angles are matched when sailing at different points of sail.

Infact it's easier to see on other peoples boats from a distance rather than when i'm onboard.
 
Twister_Ken said:
it's important that the angle at which the sheet comes up to the clew should (if extended in your mind's eye) meet forestay at the mid point of the sail's luff.
Click to expand...
Steve Goacher told me to get it 40% of the way up the luff. Makes sense as the top of the sail has much less area.
 
How were you to taught to sail? In my younger days my instructed method for trimming sails was to point up to wind until both luffs of main and jib lifted(bubbled) then bear away slightly till the lifting stopped. Nowadays this is done more by fitting tell-tales to main and jib. For the jib(s) attach about 8" from the luff,on the mainsail about 10" from the luff at about the position height of your sail numbers;if new sails these may already be placed also on the leach of the mainsail, if not sew/attach them at the batten positions on the leach.
Sailing close- hauled they should be laying horizontally on both sides of the sail;reaching the leeward ones will lay flat and windward ones droop. Possibly you already have this set-up anyway.
Watching ,and sailing the larger yachts with modern rigs, I have noted that when going upwind with a largish genoa ,or foresail ,the genoa is sheeted in hard and the main 'pants' so that the work is being done by the genoa.You often see Sigmas using this technique and it seems to work,but I don't know the reasoning behind it,other than reducing heeling moment.

2 pence worth!

ianat182
 
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