Temp inner forestay for storm jib

[tim]

This months PBO has an article about fitting a temporary forestay for a storm jib. Assuming a Highfield lever is used to attach it at deck level, how is it stowed when not in use? The forestay will be to long to attach to the bottom of the mast so I presume it must be clipped on somewhere where it won't get in the way, make a noise and so on.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Tim

 

[Twister_Ken]

Mine fits nicely to the fwd lower chainplate, with just a landyard pulled tight.

 

[bryantee]

Some set ups use a removable strop.so that the stay can be tensioned to the bottom of the mast.for some words of wisdom look at www.coatesmarine.demon.co.uk in the catalog pages 18 and 19.

 

[Spacewaist]

Have a look at a Hallberg Rassey. It stows on the mast, by turning round a guide and attaching to a U Boat - or sd that be U Bolt? Works well

 

[tim]

Re: NM Thanks!

Thanks, guys, for the advice

 

[RichardDunstan]

We have a temporary inner forestay which is attached 2/3s of the way up the mast. We have a masthead rig. Round here (Melbourne), they are called babystays and mainly get used when you are double or triple reefed. It is normally attached to the base of the mast and we usually only run it forward if the mast is taking a pounding. Used in conjunction with the checkstays, it significantly reduces the flex in big swells (6m+).

Our storm headsail actually runs up the headsail foil but you have to attach it around the foil as well in case it rips out of the track. The sail is yankee cut and there isn't a lot of it. Interestingly, this design of headsail received a lot of critisism after the '98 Sydney-Hobart because, little as it was, there was too much canvas aloft.

I'm not all that happy with the stormsail running up the track and would prefer to see it hanked on properly. By attaching round the foil, we are sort of doing this but it wouldn't be easy to do in a big sea.

On the babystay, we run a small staysail on it. Once again, this is yankee cut. We use this on a broad reach sometimes with another headsail in light airs or on its own if the weather goes pear shaped. The cut is good because at that stage in heavy weater we are normally taking water over the deck. We've burst our #4 a couple of time because it has a normal low cut foot. The sail has a wire luff with eyes at either end. We have a swivel catch on the halyard and the deck eye.

In this way, when it gets a bit rough, we take the bag on deck, attach the clews, tack and head whilst it is still in the bag and we don't have to worry about it twisting when we hoist it.

The staysail forms part of our heavy weather strategy. Our normal white sails run down to a #4 headsail with two tucks in the main. After that, we go down to three tucks and then change to the staysail. This is good for about 60kts, depending on the seas.

About this time we stop racing.

Afterwards, we go to our orange stormsails - the tiny headsail and the trisail.

Rich

 

[dickh]

I have mine clipped to a short wire strop permanently fitted to the foredeck, so when not used it clips to the base of the mast - but it is a spare wire genoa halyard so can be winched tight. The halliard for the storm jib I use the spinnaker halyard.

dickh
I'd rather be sailing...

 

[LORDNELSON]

My temp. inner forestay has a removable wire strop which is kept in the sail bag with the storm sails. without the strop the temp. inner forestay is just long enough to be clipped to the deck fitting for the baby-stay and slightly tensioned, with the strop attached it reaches the temp inner forestay rigging plate fitting half way between the baby-stay base and the main forestay

 

[Guest]

How to stow temporary inner forestays is a perennial problem. However, this seems to be the answer. Make the temp forestay just long enough to reach some other strongpoint on deck to which it can be attached and tensioned when not in use. Then, when required, make it up to the correct length with a strop permanently attached to its working position. The sail would be hanked on above the strop anyway. I guess that is a little winter job for me, to shorten my existing inner forestay and fit a strop.