Hoisting the storm jib

[Mikedefieslife]

My boat is cutter rigged with a roller furling on both the main stay and the baby stay. I do not have a removable stay, which begs the question, how is the storm jib rigged?

It has a crazy thick luff almost like it should be free flying, but then it has eyelets like it should be hanked on.





I've not really had the time to play with it yet, but I don't think it's best suited to my configuration.

P.S - Yes I know the eyelets need replacing.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Get a new luff tape sewn on to it.

 

[jwilson]

I think it was made for piston hanks but these have been removed. I assume you acquired it with the boat, and the previous owner never used it. It is not really practical to use it as it is: in conditions where you need a storm jib the snatch loads from flogging will be huge if you try to hoist it free-flying. I have used a storm jib in survival conditions, and would not want to try hoisting one free-flying, even though once the luff was tensioned up really hard it would work.

Many cutter rigged boats rely on a partially roller-reefed staysail as storm jib: I suspect unless you are planning very serious long-distance sailing that will suffice.

 

[Mikedefieslife]

Yeah, I'm only cruising around islands at the moment but will want to sort it come winter. It needs and overhaul anyway so I could have a new luff put on it, but is it practical to put it on the stay sail furler? My stay sail is 7oz dacron and pretty tiny, so will suffice in most blows, but it would be good to know I have a working storm jib if ever needed.

P.s yes it was aquaired with the boat.

 

[jdc]

... Many cutter rigged boats rely on a partially roller-reefed staysail as storm jib: I suspect unless you are planning very serious long-distance sailing that will suffice.

That's my view as well. I have a cutter with twin roller furling headsails, and have never desired a storm jib. I do carry a spare staysail which is a bit smaller and heavier than the normal one in case of damage, but I've never felt the need for a separate jib, and have been advised by both the sailmaker and the boat's builder that there's really no need, even for places like Patagonia which are famously windy.

 

[Ademist]

I also have a cutter rig. After buying the boat we changed the hank on staysail for a furling staysail, which involved removing the piston hanks and adding a new luff tape with bolt rope.

This still left us with a hank on storm staysail. We thought we could remove the hanks and haul it free-flying with a dyneema halyard to tension it. It was very easy practising on a calm sunny day, but we then had a training run in a force 7 and it was a nightmare. It was almost uncontrolable and also cost us a new hailing horn which was whipped off. As JWilson said , the snatch loads are enormous. Even when hauled it was very difficult to get anywhere near the required halyard tension.

We went back to the drawing board and had a temporary inner stay made, which involved adapting the inner forestay attachment plate to take a second stay. This temporary stay is tensioned using a dyneema halyard (This is actually one of our spinnaker pole up hauls) . We then use a second halyard (The lower spinnaker pole up haul) to haul the storm staysail. Speaking to Selden, they advised changing the turning block sheath in the mast, as the original would not be strong enough to take the load of the temporary forestay. This was relatively simple.

The new system does work well, although we have yet to use it in anger.

A very wise round the world racing skipper friend, says if you are going to use a storm stay sail or tri-sail, they need to go up the day before you need them, as once it is very rough, you will just decide to use bare poles. I suspect this limits their likely use to ocean passages.

One other solution we looked at was to add a wide velcro attached wrap around on the luff around the furled staysail. I believe there is a commercial version of this available.

 

[lw395]

I sailed on one boat where the storm jib was rigged on loops with parrel beads around the tightly furled staysail.
Never used in anger, but it met the requirement to have one, and was easily done with the existing hank eyelets.

One can imagine it might not co-operate in an actual storm....

 

[Neil_Y]

When you really need one with breeze up over 40-50knots You want something really tough and easy to hoist quickly.
As soon as there was a chance of over 30knts of breeze we had the storm jib hanked on to inner forestay in a bag tied down. I'm not convinced the ones that go over a roller will be that easy to deploiy, and a mostly rolled up sail is a liability as it can unfurl easily.

When it was needed bag was opened and sail hoisted, it did need someone crawling up the deck and getting pretty wet but once up you could sail easily in 55knts which was the most we saw on our last open water trip.

 

[Neil_Y]

Crazy thick is good for a storm sail, that looks like quite a tough one.