Baby Stay

[Guest]

I have just upgraded my boat and the new girl has a Baby-Stay. I can see that it it set up such that it's tension can be adjusted easily, or it can be diconnected.

What I am struggeling with it what it is there for in the first place. I have scoured a number of books and little refernece is made to a Baby-Stay, the few time it is mentioned it is about mast bending.

Can anyone give me a short description on where and when I would use this. Note, while the boat is a fast cruiser (Shipmen 28) I intend to cruise with it, not race.

Thnaks in advance

 

[Twister_Ken]

There are generally two uses that might be of value to you

One, it stops the mast from flexing too much when beating into the sorts of waves that stop the boat.

Two, its a good place to hoist a small jib or storm jib, if've you've got a roller furler on the forestay. Going to windward in a blow, a roller furler gets very baggy and inefficient. Rolling it up and setting a smaller purpose-built sail on the baby stay makes a lot of sense, provided halyard and sheet leads permit it.

 

[HaraldS]

Is it a baby stay or a cutter stay? My notion of a baby stay is one that goes approximately to the same hight on the mast as the lower shrounds and is often used instead forward lowers but not so good for using a forsail on and mostly not detachable. If it goes up higher, do you have runners at the same hight?

 

[Guest]

Hmm, don't know which it is. I will have to look next time I a at the boat. At the moment the mast is down and all rigging removed.

TH resasons that I can see that it is removable are: 1) there is a secondary stay under the fordeck that baraces the pad down into the hull. This is removable, possibly to allow better access to the fore-bunks. 2) the botly-screw and the bottom of this stay has one of those wheel things on it to allow easy adjustment.

I would say that the pad on the foredeck is around 1/3 of the distance from the foot of the mast when compared to the forestay. I am unsure of how high up the mast it goes but I think it to about the spreaders.

Help?

 

[Guest]

OK, that may also explain why I have a secnd set of gennie/jib tacks and cars inside of the shrouds. I will have to chec luff-lengh to my sails to see if any are small enough to set on this stay.

Thanks for the help

 

[claymore]

It also gives you a second chance if your forestay goes

 

[HaraldS]

Sounds like a baby stay if it's 1/3 from the mast. Triangle might still be big enough for a strom jib. Check if you have a halyard at that high too. You will also probably have to set it if it rougher so that the mast doesn't swing and you should be able to flatten the main by tighening it a bit with the wheel.

 

[jfkal]

Allows you to keep the lower half of the mast on rig failure. Stabilizes the mast. Mine was taken of and the boat became impossible to handle under Spinaker....

 

[mikesharp]

If you have running back-stays the baby stay may balance the force when not sailing. Might straighten the mast otherwise.

 

[PeteMcK]

It's a baby stay, not cutter stay or anything else, and it's there to balance the backward pull of your inner shrouds (you'll find it's attached to the mast at the same height). It stops the mast bending the "wrong" way but possibly most important, it stops it pumping in a big sea which could lead to a buckling failure. You can use it to tweek the mast bend but the Shipman's mast is probably so stiff that the range will be limited and not really worth the trouble. It will have been made removable to make gybing the spinny pole easier whilst racing - you can only end-for-end with it in place, and even this is a bit more awkward in a breeze. My own rig is similar but, how can I put it, there is a definite uncertainty relating to its reattachment in the general commotion at the leeward mark, despite assurances and pleas, so it stays permanently connected and tamper proof! (Nor am I too keen to test a not-fully-supported rig through a wipe-out broach.) A fair proportion of simple single spreader masthead rigs on boats in the 30 - 40 ft loa range have one.