Solent Stay

[mocruising]

I have a sloop that has a furling headsail and removable inner cutter stay with a hanked on sail. I very rarely use the cutter sail and stay arrangement and it spends most of its time stowed round the mast and the sail down below.

I am in the Med at the moment and have my 135% genoa in use, this is a heavy weight laminated sail. Like all furling sails it is not much good when hard reefed. There have been times when even well past the second reef line its just too much sail.(When sailing in over 35 kts)

I quite fancy the idea of rigging a Furling Solent stay inside (Aft of ) the genoa and either putting on the jib (Which I have but have never used) or a second smaller jib, or yankee for heavy conditions. Does anyone have any experience of this type of arrangement/rig. It would not exactly be a cutter would it. What constitutes a cutter rig anyway. What are the advantages/dis-advantages. Any comments welcome.

 

[kds]

" What constitutes a cutter rig anyway. "

You should be able to sail with both foresails drawing, and able to tack with them.
The query is - where is the head of the inner forestay ? If at the same spot, or close to the same height as the outer forestay, - it is not a full cutter rig. Traditional cutters have their two forestays approximately parallel and can set both sails effectively on the beat. Each sail is smaller and more easily handled, and dropping one is a quick "reef". Not as fast as a large genoa in light to medium winds, but better than a badly furled one in strong.
You could have the best of both worlds with the set up you suggest.
Ken

 

[Jonny_H]

We have a cutter rig - as you can see the headsails are parrallel:

We can hold both sails on a beat - although the genoa is quite full and so we can't point that high - we tend to part furl the genoa and have full staysail - works well.

The staysail is an excellent storm job too - about the right size (and can be furled partly if needed) and it is closed to the mast so brings the centre of effort to the middle of the boat in heavy weather (with a single foresail you have a scrap of sail at the front of the boat and the deep reefed main at the middle - with a cutter you have both sails together which balances it nicely).

We like ours - very versatile. Tacking can be hard work as the genoa has to be pulled infront of the staysail so has some resistance - but then again when cruising if you need to tack you can just go somewhere else!

One point to note - with a cutter rig you will need running backstays if the wind picks up to support the load point that the top of the staysail attaches to.

Jonny

 

[joeh]

jonny,
regarding running backstays,if there are none, would lower aft shrouds be sufficient if they join the mast at roughly the same place as the inner forestay. also considering that the mast has a pretty hefty cross section.
joe

 

[Jonny_H]

If the lowers have some pull backward then this will help. With a cutter rig the runners aren't critical unless its very windy (we leave ours permanently rigged but the previous owner rarely used them - he didn't even have any rope for them when we bought the boat!)

Some people use them religiously, others just use them when its windy and the mast starts to 'pant' at the attachment point.

Its a judgement call - they only need to support the mast at the point the staysail joins, as this is a pressure point forwards and the risk is the staysail pulls the mast too far forwards where it attaches and breaks the mast (extreme!).

Hope this helps

Jonny