Sail on a baby stay?

rhumlady said:
On a Westerly the lower end is not down to any reinforcing and would not be suitable for this use.
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I don't follow your reasoning.

Our Seahawk's babystay is under tension. There's a bottlescrew to achieve this.

As far as I can remember the fittings that the bottlescrew attaches to consist of an external eye which passes through the deck to a plate bolted to a plywood structural bulkhead. There are quite a few ply bulkheads glassed in to the boat. All of the chainplates (if that's the right term) are bolted to bulkheads of this type. Despite 30 years use they all seem as solid as a rock.

Surely this means the lower end is attached to 'reinforcing' ?
 
Any one contemplating running a sail on typical baby forestay (half mast height) should be able to tell if the deck where the baby stay attaches s strong enough.
Baby stay should be designed to be loaded up to bend the middle of the mast forward. So sould be strong.
Should the baby stay attachment let go while carrying a sail it should not endanger the mast itself if you don't have any other sails up.
However sail will be prretty small. Perhaps just what you want to claw off a lee shore ina huricane. good luck olewill
 
I was advised not to use the baby stay on my Mirage 28 to fly a storm jib which was a pity as I couldn't use the forestay because of roller reefing. The reason was not the insecurity of the deck fitting but the introduction of a pull on the mast at midpoint. This could introduce unwanted bending in the mast as their is no opposing force to stop it.
 
ghostlymoron said:
I was advised not to use the baby stay on my Mirage 28 to fly a storm jib which was a pity as I couldn't use the forestay because of roller reefing. The reason was not the insecurity of the deck fitting but the introduction of a pull on the mast at midpoint. This could introduce unwanted bending in the mast as their is no opposing force to stop it.
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Most mast head rig boats will have intermediate side stays attached to chain plates some distance aft of abeam the mast. So they pull the middle of the mast back against the baby forestay. I would think if that was the case then there should be enough power to counteract the pull of a jib on the baby forestay. Of course if you don't have that aft pull from the intermediate side stays we might ask why do you have a baby forestay? It presumably means the strength and dimensions of the mast is such that movement fore and aft of the middle of the mast is not a concern. good luck olewill
 
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