baby stay steering sail - tremendous success

[dylanwinter]

last weekend I spent some time experimenting with a steering sail on the baby stay

I used a high aspect dinghy jib that once belonged to an Express Dinghy

I have to say that it worked beautifully

both under power and with just the genoa rolled out

it seemed to hold a course on everything from close(ish) hauled to broad reach



I have tried sheet to tiller steering on the main or genoa and always found that I had to compromise a little on the setting of the sails and had to tolerate some small amount of backwinding

this set up keeps the lines very simple

changing the angle to the wind is dead easy

the main driving sails can be set for optimum speed

you do not actually need a baby stay as mine is just raised on the spinnaker pole uphaul and the foot is anchored to the bottom of the baby stay - although it could just as easily go to the main mooring cleat in the middle of the foredeck if you do not have a baby stay

you could run a line from the mast to the bow roller and set the foot of the sail wherever you wish

I started with a bit of rope on the clew of the sail but found that a strong bit of bungee brought back to the grab rail on the roof worked much better

it made the system more responsive to small changes in wind direction

I am told that surgical tubing is really good stuff for the leeward side of the of the tiller mechanism but I bought some thing slack bungee and used it four times at about six foot long and that seemed to give me a nice even correcting force on the tiller

I will spend more time refining it when doing the long journey to Scotland and report back

I think that it should be possible to use a similar arrangment using a whisker pole to set the steering sail a little outboard so that it will even work when running

it will save us a lot of power on the long journey to scotland avoid that relentless graunching of the Raymarine - and keep us simple folk entertained

If I can get it to work downwind and get it to hold course without the spinnaker collapsing for an hour then I will consider that to be a real success

D

 

[bluerm166]

This must be of interest to other single handers where the temptation to bang on the autohelm is ever present and battery drain the consequence.Trouble is that in coastal sailing the wind is often spoilt and sandbanks can prevent long tacks.It's even harder to persist in setting up if you are on a schedule as you normally will be.
Will be interesting to see how you get on.

 

[john_morris_uk]

Interesting that you say that 'broad reaching' is the easiest point to set it up on. My experience has always been that close reaching is the easiest point of sail to set up a simple self steering gear on. In fact on some boats you can trim the sails and tie the helm off and they will sail themselves without any self steering arrangements on a close reach.

 

[dylanwinter]

Interesting that you say that 'broad reaching' is the easiest point to set it up on. My experience has always been that close reaching is the easiest point of sail to set up a simple self steering gear on. In fact on some boats you can trim the sails and tie the helm off and they will sail themselves without any self steering arrangements on a close reach.

Katie L will steer herself with a bungee tiller tamer on a fetch for hours on end and put herself back on course even if she encounters waves or washes

with sheet to tiller steering the reach or broad reach seems to work best provides you are prepared to accept a little bit of backwinding on the main

this steering sail does seem to require fewer compromises on the genoa and main - you can roll out or roll in some genoa and she will hold a course, she will hold a course without a main to balance the genoa, not tried just under main yet and there are fewer bits of string

I am also optimistic that I can make this work on a run - which would be marvelous if I can pull it off

good fun

and I am only rediscovering what the blokes who sailed cutters probably knew all along