Running backstays

[gauntlet]

Another issue we are still debating and researching is our running backstays...current system uses our large sheet winches to tension windward runner, making off on the winch or to cleat behind it. This works fine when running but becuase this is the main sheet winch, essential for our genny, it means we still have to play about with backstays when tacking in order to free the winch and that is not our idea of fun when cruising two-handed...
So we need to change the tensioning system or find a way of transferring off the winch under load...can't think of a way to do the latter so considering options for the former...
Not sure whether it will be easy to add enough purchase just using more blocks and then there is the problem of taking the stay and all that gear forward and making off somewhere so it won't flog the sail all the time.
Highfield levers sound great (and are on original plans - Davey nice bronze ones) but are very expensive new, very scarce 2nd hane and someone said the all the wire flapping about was and extra danger.
What ideas/experiences do others have?

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[Peterduck]

My old gaff ketch has a block at the end of the wire backstay, about 5ft above the deck. The rope tail leads from a becketed turning block on deck through the block at the end of the wire, and back through the deck block to a cleat beside the cockpit coaming. That is all. I have no winches at all, and have no great difficulty getting enough tension for the backstays, which I mostly use only when sailing off the wind. The mizzen is fairly small, almost like a yawl, and has no backstays. When gybing, one needs to minimise the amount of sheet out anyway, and this is the time to tension the leeward runner, before the gybe is executed and the new leeward runner is let off before freeing the mainsheet.
Peter.

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[Mirelle]

Highfield Levers

are great. Mine came off "Mystery" when her zealously refitting owner threw them out and flogged them at the Suffolk Boat Jumble; got them for a fiver. Had he looked more carefully at early photos of his boat he would have known that he was throwing out original equipment that she was designed for; however, since he's richer than me he won't be getting them back.

Go and talk to Moray McPhail.

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?

 

[Kristal]

Re: Highfield Levers

Seconded. Our backstays are shrouded in fairly stiff white plastic conduit, split roughly around the middle by about a foot or two - this allows the stays to fall out of position quite nicely, with a gentle curve where the split is so as not to cause any stress to the steel. It is a simple, and enormously enjoyable task to slap one lever on with a satisfying "clunk" and throw the other off, allowing a gybe to be proud of.

If this doesn't solve the flogging wire problem, consider using Highfields in conjunction with a doubled-up length of shockcord attached to your forwardmost shroud and connected to the backstay by a small block. This will drag the stay well out of boom's reach as soon as tension is released, but shouldn't add too much additional strain when re-tensioning.

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<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://d205161.u24.uk.assimilatedservers.net/cryspics/>Crystal II in Pictures</A>

 

[jeanne]

I have used Highfield levers for years , and find they are a positive and foolproof system. They work in the dark just as well as in the day, and cannot give more tension, or less, than they are set up to give.
A friend sailing a strange boat at night once winched the mast down by allowing too much slack on a winch-tensioned runner. The runner went round forward of the spreader, and when it was tensioned, pulled the spreader out of the mast, causing the mast to go.
You do need another line to haul the slack runner forward, to stop it flapping about, but there is no strain on this line,and a small block on the toe rail by the shrouds, leading aft to a cleat on the rail is good enough .
I bought mine at Beaulieu, galvanised iron, for £8, I think,, but friends have had them copied in stainless, as they are very simple bits of kit.

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[RogerH]

I do have a pair of bronze running backstay levers from a 1930's yacht which are now surplus to requirements. If you're interested you can ring me on 01908 566362.

Roger

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[Porthandbuoy]

Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool !

<hr width=100% size=1>"Mariposa"
This time next year; maybe.