Inner Forestay

[Kristal]

Having just sailed Crystal for the first time without an experienced crew aboard (i.e., with me REALLY being skipper!!) I'm keen to get some opinions in addition to those I'm already forming about a slightly scary aspect of Crystal's rig.

She has some four feet of fairly delicate bowsprit, with a stainless-steel forestay to the masthead, and an identical inner forestay attached to the stem, running to the second spreader pair (<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.moraira.net/photos/IMG_2890_450x600.jpg>this photo shows it best</A>, and at that, not very well - sorry!). With the inner forestay in place, the crew has a hell of a job getting the genoa across when tacking, and as a result, whilst sailing in the river, I remove the forestay from the stemhead fitting and secure it at the foot of the mast, leaving only the masthead/bowsprit outer forestay holding the mast forward.

A friend does not like the arrangement at all, and I'm inclined to agree, and at the moment plan to only remove the forestay when sailing in the river, when short-tacking is likely to be required. Does anybody else have any thoughts?

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<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.krishansen.co.uk/cryspics>Crystal II in Pictures</A>

 

[Dirk]

Kris,

Where on the mast is the genoa attached?

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[Strathglass]

If you can't get the crew to walk the genoa on the bowsprit thtough when tacking, then,
Roll up the genoa and use the sail which is normally set on the removable forestay as trhe foresail when tacking up restricted pasages.

Iain
This sail could for example be a long luffed jib.

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[Peterduck]

My understanding, Kris, is that an inner forestay is intended to support a staysail. If you are using it without a staysail set, but with a genoa jib on the outer forestay, then you could probably quite safely house it as you have described. When flying a staysail, the working jib should be correspondingly smaller, and thus would tack easily across the inner forestay. The double headsail combination is much more flexible than the single variety, especially when used in combination with roller furling. Personally, I wouldn't go any other way.

Peter.

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[Guest]

Hi Kris

Lovely boat.

In the line drawing, Crystal has a short bowsprit and one headsail. For the rest a conventional gaff and yawl rig. The combination of the mizzen and large mainsail will have balanced the boat and tacking would not have been a problem.

It appears that at some stage the rig was changed to a cutter: two headsails, the jib or yankee on the outer forestay and a staysail on the inner forestay. Furthermore it looks as if the bowsprit might have been lengthened, and probably an extra set of spreaders added.

From the latest photograph it looks as if you are sailing with a single headsail which is slightly saggingly held from a traveller somewhere along the bowsprit undecided whether it wants to be sloop or cutter rigged. It is not surprising therefore that her sailing performance is not optimised.

May I suggest that you refer to an excellent book entitled the Gaff Rig Handbook by John Leather which has excellent pictures of the different types of rig; sloop, cutter etc. It will help you decide which route to follow.

Good Luck!

Vincent


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[mikesharp]

It is not clear from the latest photo where the inner stay joins the mast and whether you have any bend in the mast. I would agree that the fractional outer stay looks a bit floppy and wonder how is easy it is in that case to get a good shape to the jib. Not being familar with the stresses of a gaff main does the the throat position on the mast help give any support to either of the fore stays? or are the shrouds in the right place to balance the inner forestay?
My boat has running back stays that balance the inner stay and keeps the required mast bend to shape the mainsail but this is on a bermuda rig.

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[Kristal]

Aha, hang on... sorry, I should have pointed this out earlier - although the line drawing shows Crystal with a high-peaked Gaff rig, she is in fact Bermudian and, we believe, she has been since she was built. The most recent picture was taken on the day we bought her, and since then I've tweaked the rig, including getting the jib halyard as tight as it should be.

She does have a smaller jib which hanks onto the inner forestay, but we don't have a smaller working jib, so it might be wise to to try and get hold of a second-hand sail, and try her out cutter rigged. She is quite nicely balanced as she is at the moment, I'm just worried about the mast not being well enough supported with only the outer forestay, and that being on a not-terribly-beefy forestay.

Thanks to all for the various advice so far!

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<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.krishansen.co.uk/cryspics>Crystal II in Pictures</A>

 

[RogerH]

You have tricky choices to make! You could stay with the single headsail but beef-up the bobstay, forestay and even the bowsprit, so you have more confidence in them holding the mast up. The Americans use this type of rig and seem to get on well with it. Harry Pidgen sailed round the world with just such a rig.

Alternatively you could go for a cutter rig, splitting the headsails and having a smaller jib which wont foul the inner forestay. This is a terrifically flexible rig which allows you to de-power very easily by dropping or furling either the jib or staysail. My boat is a 30's bermudian cutter with a 4' bowsprit which use this set up. We also have a boomed self-tacking staysail.

I would suggest you get used to sailing the boat with the existing rig to see how it works. Much depends on how the boat balances and how you reduce sail as the wind gets up.

Roger

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