Multiple clew grommets

[Porthandbuoy]

Found a brand new hank-on blade jib in Sheolin's sail wardrobe. Heavy Dacron and battened to boot, so a good sail for reaching in stronger winds than a rolled up genoa can handle efficiently. (I have a separate storm jib).
This blade jib would be hanked on to a removable stay just behind the roller reefing genoa.
There are no reefing eyes. It's approx. 160 square feet.
But why four grommets in the clew? And that's a rigid bar with leathered ends across the top of them in the picture.

 

[pandos]

I have seen similar on self tacking jibs...presumably as the sheet angle adjustment is limited.

 

[Porthandbuoy]

You might be right. Something like this?
Sheolin doesn't have a track across the foredeck but the original brochure says there is a boom staysail.

 

[Daydream believer]

With a self tacking jib there is little room for adjusting the sheeting angle of the jib sheet.
By selecting a different hole, one can change the bias from foot to leech for sailing up wind
The same can apply to a blade jib with a fixed sheeting point.
The other way to change the angle may be to adjust the height of the tack on the stay slightly. However, if the sail has been properly sized, this should not be necessary.

 

[Porthandbuoy]

Now I know what I was looking for I found quite a bit of info on 'club-footed jibs'. It might also explain the smallish gooseneck fitting I found, with all the other spare bits'n'bobs that came with Sheolin. That would have fitted onto the end of the jib-boom and be fastened near the tack of the sail. No boom to hand, but I have the makings in my shed.
To use the sail or not, that is the question.

Pros:
I single-hand most of the time, so it could be handy short tacking up some of Scotland's long and narrow sea lochs.
It's not a huge sail, and a heavy cloth, so I should be able to carry it in stronger winds.
Seems a shame to have such a well made sail and not use it.

Cons:
I'm not keen on a 10' pole crossing the foredeck at shin height.
Left rigged I would have to furl the genoa to change tacks.
Might get in the way when anchoring and picking up my mooring.
Finding somewhere to fix the gooseneck might be tricky now there's an electric windlass on the foredeck.

I reckon some experimentation is called for.

 

[Daydream believer]

Why not just bolt 2 eyes to the deck , shackle a couple of blocks, or friction rings, on & use it like a normal jib? Run the sheets back to the cockpit. Just get the eyes in the correct position & the job's a goodun.
If you want to use it self tacking, run a highly tensioned wire between the eyes & let a block run along the wire like a car with another shackled to it. Sheet the sail to the block with a single sheet. Take the end up the mast to a spinnaker pole uphaul point then back down to the base of the mast & aft to one side of the cockpit.

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

Why not just bolt 2 eyes to the deck , shackle a couple of blocks, or friction rings, on & use it like a normal jib? Run the sheets back to the cockpit. Just get the eyes in the correct position & the job's a goodun.

A piece of scrap board, lashed down to convenient deck fittings, could be used to temporarily mount the shackles/ padeyes, in order to work out the correct locations.