Mast head rigs, can some one please convince me

[ifoxwell]

Interesting, why does that need to be true ?

Boo2

To my understanding Its only true if you take performance out of the equation, as a mast head rig wont fall down even with loose rigging where as a fractional can fold in on itself. But as soon as you want the boat to sail well the rig tensions need to be the same on both... but I'm no expert I'm sure there must be some riggers on the forum that could give us a better idea.
Ian

 

[Daydream believer]

So when i say short tacking up the river, I mean a tack once a minute or sooner.... Ive tried doing this in my father in laws Victoria and after 20 min was knackered... and that was with two of us doing it on my own doesn't bear thinking about were as the Sunfast was a real joy to sail in the same situation.

In my Hanse you would find the hardest part is moving from one side of the tiller to the other.
If i do not want to touch the tiller I can just pull the lines on my Aeries & the vane tacks the boat on its own

 

[doug748]

Interesting, why does that need to be true ?
Boo2

Cranking up the backstay on a fractional rig does not act directly against the forestay so it is not the prime mover of forestay tension. This job is more the preserve of the shrouds which have to humming tight to be up to the work. Anything less will lead to a saggy forestay, loss of pointing ability and even problems with mast stability.

I used to love my fractional rig with a large bolt rope main as the prime mover, fast and close winded, you could feather it upwind in strong weather to avoid reefing and then have full sail available for the downwind leg. With the small foresail area two hank on sails could cover you from force 1 to 6 and the joy of pure sailing with no nasty losses from reefing systems. Quick tacking to boot.

Mind you I love the masthead set up as well. Tension it enough to keep the rig straight and forget about it. With roller furling you can quickly dump most of the sail area and in a instant you are ready to tackle most conditions, or slow down to a crawl in order to take stock, most useful when shorthanded. Your main is so compact you wont feel tempted to fit a furling main to tame it. Neither will you feel you need to fly a Code 0 as you meet the flat spot when coming off the wind. The slot makes if more efficient as well.

So, as usual it is six of one, half dozen of the other.

 

[Tranona]

Thanks for all the great replies people, very informative although I'm not sure I'm sold on mast head rigs yet.

To add a little more detail, although I consider myself a dinghy sailor we have had a Beneteau 32s5 and a Jeanneau Sunfast 32i in the past and we currently sail a Red fox. I also spend time on my father in laws Victoria 34, which has contributed to my dislike of mast head rigs.

I, like I expect many of us, dont get to spend any thing like as much time sailing as I would like, hence it often ends up being just a couple of hours sailing down river to drop anchor with the family or joining in with the Wednesday night club racing.... and so I like to get as much enjoyment out of the act of sailing as I can.

So when i say short tacking up the river, I mean a tack once a minute or sooner.... Ive tried doing this in my father in laws Victoria and after 20 min was knackered... and that was with two of us doing it on my own doesn't bear thinking about were as the Sunfast was a real joy to sail in the same situation.

Unreasonable to expect a boat that was designed for long distance ocean cruising to be good at short tacking up a narrow river. Little to do with it being masthead rig, more to do with size and type of boat. You would be equally knackered trying to short tack my old Bavaria 37 in the same way because of its size despite being fin keel and fractional rig. Just not at home in those situations. However once out of the harbour easy to sail single handed when you have room and time to go about.

So, when I changed my boat because more of my sailing is in Poole Harbour than previously being able to short tack single handed with ease. Was very attracted by a Hanse for the same reason as Daydreambeliever, but the layout of the wheel steered boat i tried was not as easy as I expected despite the self tacking jib. However the boat I bought, a Bavaria 33 has a 110% genoa which is a third smaller than my old 37 and more importantly has winches just in front of the helm and room to move around the wheel. A doddle to short tack and you can even leave it to the auto tack on the autopilot.

So generalisations about rigs are not particularly helpful - after all you can rig a mast head as a cutter or with a blade jib to suit the circumstances. As Javelin says it is more about how you set the boat up than the specific rig type.

 

[dunedin]

Short tacking with a biggish genoa doesn't need to be too hard work if you master the technique. A lot of folks do it the hard way, but there is an easier way.
As ever, preparation is key - with the ropes ready to run, and the new sheet on the winch and winch handle in ready.

When tacking go round fairly briskly till get just past head to wind then hold the boat steady about 20 degrees above the final course. The genoa should be de powered but falling naturally in line with the sheet track. Take up the slack quickly by hand, pop into the self trailer and typically perhaps one wind of the winch may be necessary. Only then bear off to fill the sail, If something doesn't work first time, sail for 50m to rebuild momentum and then luff again to get fully in.
The key is never to winch in with the sail full of wind.
And done properly you get a good long shoot to windward between each tack. We have overtaken loads of cruising boats going to windward using this technique

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

Short tacking with a biggish genoa doesn't need to be too hard work if you master the technique.

Agree 100%.

 

[knuterikt]

To my understanding Its only true if you take performance out of the equation, as a mast head rig wont fall down even with loose rigging where as a fractional can fold in on itself. But as soon as you want the boat to sail well the rig tensions need to be the same on both... but I'm no expert I'm sure there must be some riggers on the forum that could give us a better idea.
Ian

A rig that is to slack will give shock loads on the rig that it is not designed for (result is fatigue and finally something breaking), that is the same for masthead and fractional rigs.
A properly tuned rig should be set up with a tension at about 15-20% of the wire breaking strength,
Read more here http://www.riggingandsails.com/pdf/selden-tuning.pdf and here http://loosnaples.com/how-tos/tension-gauges

 

[Javelin]

Masthead rig its more like 10% on caps. inters and lowers.
Forestay is controlled with backstay so tension is variable.
Even more so with twin backstays, cutter rigs etc etc

Frac rig is where you would see 15 to 20% and in some cases 25% and it's essentially just on the caps and inters.
Lowers are really a mast bend control but again is varies from boat to boat.

And then we have rod rigging which is a different game with a hydraulic jack under the mast step, it all gets a bit fraught.

On the sailing,
Tacking with a 140% or 150% overlap genoa is all about timing.
Get the release correct and the haul in is not so hard.
With a decent foam luff genoa, furled in a few rolls and the cars moved forward will tack like a 110% and given a good design will set perfectly well.
If I'm going to do a lot of uphill work on my own, on the Orwell, Blackwater or up the Crouch I'll drop the big jib and put my No3 up.

 

[Boo2]

So, when I changed my boat because more of my sailing is in Poole Harbour than previously being able to short tack single handed with ease. Was very attracted by a Hanse for the same reason as Daydreambeliever, but the layout of the wheel steered boat i tried was not as easy as I expected despite the self tacking jib. However the boat I bought, a Bavaria 33 has a 110% genoa which is a third smaller than my old 37 and more importantly has winches just in front of the helm and room to move around the wheel. A doddle to short tack and you can even leave it to the auto tack on the autopilot.

Interesting that a boat with self-tacking jib would be less easy to sail than a boat with a "normal" genoa, what was it about the Hanse that made it hard to tack, Tranona ?

Boo2

 

[Tranona]

Interesting that a boat with self-tacking jib would be less easy to sail than a boat with a "normal" genoa, what was it about the Hanse that made it hard to tack, Tranona ?

Boo2

Not necessarily hard to tack, just did not feel right with a huge wheel and to move forward you had to climb over the side benches, whereas in the Bavaria cockpit it is easy to move around and the mainsheet is just forward of the wheel. The point I was making is that a self tacking jib on its own is not necessarily the only way to achieve easy single handed tacking. I can reach either winch from the same spot behind the wheel and sit on the side benches either aft or further forward without first climbing round the wheel. Lots of other things about the boat that are not quite as good (for me) although there are also many good features. Now out of production and the replacement 315 is a very different animal that again has some very good features - but not for me!

 

[William_H]

Regarding rig tension on a fractional. Having successfully raced my little 21fter for 31 years or something near 1000 short races through 4 different masts and rigging replaced several times I am yet to be convinced that rigging tension can improve performance or that it need be any where near as tight as Mr Selden and others suggest. Providing the rigging is tight enough to be stable with no sails on I can not remove slackness on leeward shrouds. Or indeed slackness of the forestay when hard driven under spinnacker. Yes I do drive the little boat much harder than is reasonable seeing 8knots down wind last fri night.
Yes the cap shrouds take a lot of load especially under spin but any amount of static tension will not alleviate the loads applied when sailing. I don't see the shock loads occurring. Loads seem to be reasonably slowly applied in a tack. All that static high tension on rigging does is stress the hull unnecessarily when you are not sailing.
olewill

 

[Daydream believer]

I played with rig tension for a couple of years on my fractional 31 ft boat- starting with slack rigging & finally ending up with 25% on the cap shrouds. I found that the 25% has a marked improvement on performance over slack cap shrouds. The mids are 18-20% & the lowers ( which are thicker) are at 14-15%. This allows me to get up to 150mm bend with the backstay. Starting with 50mm prebend when static If the lowers are too tight I cannot flatten the main when I want. All set up with a gauge

Another problem with slack shrouds is that I noticed in big seas that the mast would pump & an inverted mast is a mast waiting to break

 

[lw395]

Generally I prefer fractional rigs, but I think it's best to think about the whole boat as a package rather than fixating on one particular aspect.
There are some masthead boats I would prefer to some fractional boats.
A good masthead rig might be nicer than a poor fractional rig.
A 9/10ths or similar rig might be a good compromise if I were designing a boat from scratch, some bend control from the backstay, but not enough to need heavily swept spreaders or runners.

Also, don't forget to consider downwind too, a fractional rig that is really responsive upwind might suffer from the kite being small downhill...
And are you looking for most responsive/fastest sailing in F3 or are you going to be reefing a lot?
Myself, I'd prefer a big rig and reef early, I love a boat that sails when others think it's too light.
We don't go looking for gales.
YMMV as they say.

 

[yoda]

I also spend time on my father in laws Victoria 34, which has contributed to my dislike of mast head rigs.

That would explain a lot! It sounds like the type of rig that would suit you is one with a self tacking jib and the option of a bigger genoa for longer legs of off wind sailing. Dehler 36 would be good except for the draught if you are river sailing.

Yoda

 

[ifoxwell]

Well thanks for all the advice people.... cant say I'm sold but I wont discount a mast head rig off hand then, with out first weighing up the possibilities.

Ian