Probably a silly question - headsail sheets

Neeves said:
Oddly whilst I was advised to keep a non-dyneema halyard for a spinnaker our screecher had a dyneema halyard and the first had a 'torqued' 'non twist' single luff cord (not sure what the correct term is) and the second had 2 dyneema luff cords, separated by about 50mm and both furled round their own luff. The halyard had a polyester cover that the clutch slowly chewed and destroyed. I think we wore through 3 halyards for the screecher.

I crewed on a larger cat, 44', on a delivery, crew of 4, and some one took the screecher halyard off the mast winch and the clutch chewed through the polyester cover and the halyard slipped - big time. It was impossible to tighten the halyard (because the broken cover jammed in the mast slot) and similarly we could not drop nor furl it. We had to cut the halyard - all the time the screecher was effectively full. Fortunately we were in open water. Its not a lesson you forget (always keep a highly tensioned halyard on the winch - do not rely on the clutch). But maybe clutches and rope construction has improved.

Jonathan
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Our boat being 30ft and 2 tons the loads aren’t as great. Our clutch takes the luff load without breaking itself or the rope cover. But it’s even more important to put it on the winch before trying to open the clutch. Not sure what would break, but something….
 
Neeves said:
When we replaced, around 1990, the running rigging for Dyneema on JoXephine of Hong Kong part of the reason was to remove the main halyard which was rope spliced to wire. I was quite used to removing the mast (and the boat yard had got the removal down to a fine art) and I drilled out the old sheave and replaced with a bigger, wider, one. When I last looked I still had the old sheave, which I kept - just in case. It never occurred to me that I could remove the cover..... :). Now..... I would not think twice.

The other motivation to changing to Dyneema was simple - the headsail halyard no longer needed constant adjustment, just occasional adjustment. :). We had 2mm or 3mm, don't recall actual size, lightweight Kevlar spinnaker sheets - which eventually rotted in the UV.

The lessons learnt were then applied to Josepheline and we specified that all the running rigging was to be Dyneema.

Jonathan
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👍
About the only wire you see around these days is the kicking strap .
 
Chiara’s slave said:
Our boat being 30ft and 2 tons the loads aren’t as great. Our clutch takes the luff load without breaking itself or the rope cover. But it’s even more important to put it on the winch before trying to open the clutch. Not sure what would break, but something….
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38ft Racer ... same ... clutch hasn't hurt halyards / lines at all ... I use normal polyester braid ..

Mast parts are wire spliced to the poly
 
Refueler said:
38ft Racer ... same ... clutch hasn't hurt halyards / lines at all ... I use normal polyester braid ..

Mast parts are wire spliced to the poly
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Obviously Neeves is concerned about the luff tension required on a code sail. But they can’t be a great deal higher on our boat than the luff tension on your rather pointy 38 footer, can they? Ours is tensioned with a 2 speed Andersen 40. That surely limits it.
 
Chiara’s slave said:
Obviously Neeves is concerned about the luff tension required on a code sail. But they can’t be a great deal higher on our boat than the luff tension on your rather pointy 38 footer, can they? Ours is tensioned with a 2 speed Andersen 40. That surely limits it.
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Apart from not being Self-tailers ... my 38 has decent 2 speed winches for everything !!

Clutches are as many boats - served by a single winch each side ... so we tend not to leave any one line on the winch.

Coaming genny sheets stay on winch though ... obviously !
 
Chiara’s slave said:
Only a minor issue even if single handed. I have no plans to change ours.
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My boat came with self tailers on the mainsheet and the reefing gear and plain ones for the primaries, secondaries, backstays, topping lift, kicker and halyards.

It was absolutely worth replacing the plain winches on the halyards; the others can wait for the time being.
 
Neeves said:
Cannot resist it - they must have been a devil to anchor - all those 'stays'.

Looks to be in the Med? and looks to be 'recent' - maybe 'invented' by an Oz to win the AC :).

Those of us who are 'Johnny come lately's' don't have your depth of exposure to 'yachting' have never heard of 'bulb fin raters' - we have had to cram your many decades into a very few (decades) and either forget or missed so much.

I'm trying to make up lost ground. :)

Jonathan
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Her name is "Bona Fide"; she was built in 1899 by Charles Sibbick, who also designed her. She is 45ft LOA and is owned by Doug Peterson, who restored her. "Bulb fin" because the ballast is in a bulb at the bottom of the fin and "Rater because she was designed to the Length and Sail Area Rule:

Waterline Length in feet x Sail Area in square feet
____________________________________________________ = Rating
6000

Beautifully simple - it replaced the Thames Tonnage Rule which had produced "lead mines" terminating with the "plank on edge" types which because beam counts twice in the Thames Tonnage Rule:

Length on deck from stem to rudder post in feet x bean in feet x half beam in feet
_______________________________________________________________________________________ = Tonnage
94

(itself a variation on "Builders Old Measurement") developed by the Royal Thames YC to allow its members to race against each other on handicap .

The extreme plank on edge types drew more than their beam, but were expensive, very wet and frankly unsafe. The OONA

Great yacht designs 11 - Oona

was lost with all hand including her designer.

So Dixon Kemp iirc came up with the Length and Sail Area Rule and the King's Big Class racing cutter "Britannia" was built to it along with some other very successful boats but the "loophole in the Rule" permitted "bulb fin raters" like BONA FIDE.

Its interesting to note that Sibbick (one of the great designers!) also produced some cruising boats which look rather different and quite a few are still around.

The problem with the "bulb fin raters" is that wood construction without glue isn't strong enough to withstand the sailing stresses if the boat is raced hard.

So we got the International Rule in Europe and the Universal Rule in North America
 
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Colour schemes for running rigging is useful but not necessary at the end if the day. The old adage about learning the ropes being particularly relevant.

I had blind people on board once and they brought a box along that beeped when off course, which allowed a blind helmsman to steer a course. Blind crew also learned the ropes very well, always identifying from source ie sheet winch. Positional awareness was pretty cool, rapidly developing an accurate understanding of where things were. A snakes nest of rope was not an issue because there rarely was one, and lines were identified from relative source, by touch obviously.
 
RunAgroundHard said:
Colour schemes for running rigging is useful but not necessary at the end if the day. The old adage about learning the ropes being particularly relevant.

I had blind people on board once and they brought a box along that beeped when off course, which allowed a blind helmsman to steer a course. Blind crew also learned the ropes very well, always identifying from source ie sheet winch. Positional awareness was pretty cool, rapidly developing an accurate understanding of where things were. A snakes nest of rope was not an issue because there rarely was one, and lines were identified from relative source, by touch obviously.
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I seem to remember that the audio compass for blind helmspersons was developed by the "Yachting Monthly" when the Editor was Des Sleightholme.
 
14K478 said:
See Jimmy Green website

Headsail sheets and halyards blue, spin sheets and halyards red, red, mainsheet and main halyard white, topping lift three strand. guys red and white, staysail sheets and halyards blue and white. Different colours for reefing lines 3 red, 2 blue, one green iirc.
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Not just Jimmy Green. I bought new lines from Performance Rigging while they were prepping and stepping the mast. Flash told me the "normal" colour choice as above. When I suggested red and green, he asked why would I want to look like a school boat.

His top tip was not to use plain white or light colours for gennie sheets as they are the ones most likely to get trodden on and made dirty.
 
wonkywinch said:
Not just Jimmy Green. I bought new lines from Performance Rigging while they were prepping and stepping the mast. Flash told me the "normal" colour choice as above. When I suggested red and green, he asked why would I want to look like a school boat.

His top tip was not to use plain white or light colours for gennie sheets as they are the ones most likely to get trodden on and made dirty.
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Ours are sliver grey to match the graphics and covers. We just wash them. And never, ever, tread on them.
 
wonkywinch said:
Not just Jimmy Green. I bought new lines from Performance Rigging while they were prepping and stepping the mast. Flash told me the "normal" colour choice as above. When I suggested red and green, he asked why would I want to look like a school boat.

His top tip was not to use plain white or light colours for gennie sheets as they are the ones most likely to get trodden on and made dirty.
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Thank you for confirming that this really is “normal”. It makes a lot of sense to me.

The reason for the three strand topping lift is to make it less likely to be cast off by mistake in the dark. And so on.
 
Provided the jib sheets are a different colour to the kite sheets and guys I'm happy. Though personally I think it's much more important that the kite halyards are different colours. Important that the back of the boat and the front of the boat are working with the same halyard....
 
14K478 said:
Thank you for confirming that this really is “normal”. It makes a lot of sense to me.

The reason for the three strand topping lift is to make it less likely to be cast off by mistake in the dark. And so on.
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I like 3 strand for Topping Lift ... easy to splice and sort into neat system ... it has good abrasion resistance ... etc.
 
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