The OPPOSITE of reefing...

[Greenheart]

This is one of those loony ideas that I always get when it's too cold to sail and too long since last season for me to remember that I can barely handle the unreefed rig if the breeze hits ten knots...
Has it occurred to anyone that it wouldn't be difficult to attach whatever assembly one currently keeps at one's masthead, on to a narrower spar, which can reside permanently and invisibly inside the upper 50% of one's existing mast...and, using an ordinary wire halyard, this upper section could be hoisted securely into its upper position, thereby extending mast height by a third or more, perhaps MUCH more, to allow the vessel to fly a truly cloud-scraping light-airs gennaker?
Instinct says the light inner section wouldn't bare the tension caused by rigging an 'upper' forestay for a giant genoa, nor will it reward attempts to hoist a giant oversize mainsail, with the ghastly obstructive overlap between one section of spar and the other...but a ludicrously large, slack-luffed sail like a gennaker, intended for a vessel twice the size...that might work!
The idea will appal or enrage adherents to One-design rules, and mayn't please insurers much, either. But for cruising in a calm, wouldn't you relish the chance to triple your sail area, and reach up high where the breeze is steadier? I say it's worth trying. Any thoughts?

 

[nmeyrick]

Slightly different implementation, but isn't this pretty much what old gaffers have been doing with topsails for ages? Not sure how workable the telescopic mast idea would be, but the idea of an extra spar which lets you put more sail area up high when its needed is sound

 

[prv]

I think you've reinvented the fidded topmast a few hundred years after the fact

Pete

 

[William_H]

Telescopic masts

We have a problem in Fremantle in low traffic/railway bridges between Swan river (estuary) home for a few thousand keel boats and the ocean. Some time back I remember an invention promoted for a telescopic mast to use rather than tipping mast back. It never took off. Down loads on a mast are huge certainly difficult to cope with by a halyard system and of course you would need to get the mainsail track to connect.
Around here a real calm usually means a blow is coming often within minutes. But yes I agree the bigger boats with taller masts seem to get more wind in a calm.
So the only option is a very tall rig with narrow blade type jibs for normal wind and huge overlap for light winds and similar shaped main.
Anyway keep dreaming summer will come as indeed will our winter. olewill

 

[Greenheart]

The Beaufort Rig

...ah, yes...gaffers. I've always liked that big tops'l style, and the flying jib. It'd just be nice to have the same option of supplementary sail area, on 21st century sloops! I can't believe it's outside the ability of chaps like Selden to come up with a 'mast for all seasons'. Remember you heard of it here first!

I remember Northshore at Itchenor, BOASTING that the Fisher motorsailers can cope with full sail, even in a Beaufort force 6. How is that something to be proud of?! Any boat that isn't overwhelmed by showing all its sail in a force 5, is obviously pitiably undercanvassed in light airs. That mayn't bother motor-sailors, but I'm from the Arthur Ransome school of sailing...engines are fine, but they're strictly auxilliary. And, why should 'full' sail area be good for such a range of conditions?

I hereby propose the 'Beaufort Rig'...it's so vast, that whatever force the wind is blowing, that's how many reefs you'll need to take in. Insurance brokers, take cover...

 

[prv]

...ah, yes...gaffers. I've always liked that big tops'l style, and the flying jib. It'd just be nice to have the same option of supplementary sail area, on 21st century sloops!

Problem with 21st century sloops is that the whole rig design philosophy is clean, simple, two sails, minimal extraneous gear.

Older gaff rig is much more accommodating to extra spars and canvas for light airs - there's a whole chapter in Hand, Reef and Steer about these so-called "party frocks". Watersails, ringtails, giant jibs, huge jackyard topsails, gollywobblers - plus anything else you can think of to hang in the rig and help you off the wind.

I think the difference is that when those boats were working, if there was little wind and you didn't do this stuff, then you didn't fish/move cargo/get your pilot on board/whatever, and didn't make money. In the white plastic version of events, you just turn a key and motor away, so why bother?

Pete

 

[prv]

Down loads on a mast are huge certainly difficult to cope with by a halyard system

Yep - I've heard a design rule-of-thumb that the downwards load on the mast foot can be as much as the weight of the boat.

Of course, in this telescopic topmast system, you don't take the main shrouds up with the topmast - they stay where they are at the main masthead and the loads don't change. The topmast halyard only has to cope with the loads of the topmast, and since it's a light-air addition and relatively small, those loads shouldn't be all that high.

To be honest I think the idea's perfectly practicable if designed into the mast section from the beginning - the question is whether anyone would buy it.

of course you would need to get the mainsail track to connect.

I can't really see that one working reliably. And in any case, if your mainsail is going to be so huge that it runs up the topmast as well, you're going to spend most of the time with it reefed, and when you're down to two or three conventional reefs, the bundle of reefed cloth at the boom will be unmanageably huge.

What you need for your topmast is - tah-dah! - a topsail. See, you haven't really invented anything new, just a slightly updated way of doing what working sail already had.

Hand, Reef and Steer and the Gaff Rig Handbook between them list a few ways of rigging a topsail which might suit an updated version. Probably the most appropriate would be the Dyarchy system, which involved a mast track and a feeder device which led the luff of the topsail into the track as it was hoisted. Sounds a bit precarious but apparently it worked well, and again you're not going to be wrestling with this in high winds.

Now all you need to do is sheet your topsail - just run the sheet out to the peak of your main gaff. Ah. There's your problem - Wrong Type Of Boat

Pete

 

[Greenheart]

Centaur-booster

All that you say is true, Pete. I guess I've never understood why anyone would purchase a vessel as compromised in its design as most sailing boats necessarily are, and then readily use diesel instead. And why would a person set off in a sailboat if time is a factor in their schedule?

My idea is that rather moderately-dressed cruising boats could be turbo-charged, with a little intelligent D.I.Y. I'd love to see a Centaur motionless in a calm, suddenly sprout a 45' tall telescopic topmast, and start to make useful progress as a gigantic gennaker is set from the masthead, leaving racing dinghies for dead!

I'll enjoy a look at Hand Reef and Steer, thanks.

 

[Lady Campanula]

This the sort of thing....?

Or This....?

No....?

Maybe you can mashup a MAM - a Middle-Aged Moody!

 

[Greenheart]

Yes, that's IT! Now, where can I get kit like that, to fit my Optimist?

 

[Twister_Ken]

My idea is that rather moderately-dressed cruising boats could be turbo-charged, with a little intelligent D.I.Y. I'd love to see a Centaur motionless in a calm, suddenly sprout a 45' tall telescopic topmast, and start to make useful progress as a gigantic gennaker is set from the masthead, leaving racing dinghies for dead!

.

I'd prefer not to be standing under that lot when it comes adrift in a sudden gust,

 

[Greenheart]

Oh, ye of little nerve!

Anyway, the 'booster' rig would have to be only for up to force 2, in very settled weather. Maybe it could have a shockcord halyard, to deal with gusts?

 

[electrosys]

This is one of those loony ideas that I always get when it's too cold to sail and too long since last season for me to remember that I can barely handle the unreefed rig if the breeze hits ten knots...
Has it occurred to anyone that it wouldn't be difficult to attach whatever assembly one currently keeps at one's masthead, on to a narrower spar, which can reside permanently and invisibly inside the upper 50% of one's existing mast...and, using an ordinary wire halyard, this upper section could be hoisted securely into its upper position, thereby extending mast height by a third or more, perhaps MUCH more, to allow the vessel to fly a truly cloud-scraping light-airs gennaker?

If you replace your telescopic idea with one mast strapped against another - then you've just designed the sliding gunter rig. Not only do you bring down the topmost part of the sail, but the weight of the upper spar as well. Vastly under-rated.

 

[Searush]

Yes, that's IT! Now, where can I get kit like that, to fit my Optimist?

Go to your Mum's broom cupboard & knock the head off a broom. Then, in the linen cupboard pick up a linen sheet & a pair of scissors. A bit of parcel string will suffice for rigging.

Read a few of Uffa Fox's books. He was thinking like you & making it work in 1930. His planing International 14 hull was banned as "unfair" because no-one could get anywhere near them.

 

[Greenheart]

I was only kidding, about having an Optimist. But a man can dream...

Thanks, I will read Uffa Fox.

 

[al.carpenter]

This the sort of thing....?

Or This....?

No....?

Maybe you can mashup a MAM - a Middle-Aged Moody!

Hi, third picture down is "THENDARA" (Sail nr 36) and just to hoist the Jack Yard from the deck up, it used to take five of us and almost one hour between preparing and ready to use...with a lot of stress because if it fell down... goodby deck and probably hull and a few skulls. So a telescopic system, now that would be great...

 

[Twister_Ken]

Of course, you could always make the bottom part of the mast telescopic, and just wind up enough of it to suit the breeze.

 

[Greenheart]

Not sure I understand that...wouldn't any lifting of the part of the mast which the shrouds are attached to, require the shrouds to be lengthened/shortened according to setting? If not...sounds great.

 

[Lady Campanula]

You want to go faster, go get a 60' IMOCO carbon trimaran! Otherwise, shadupandenjoythequietambience.....

 

[Woodlouse]

There's a nasty great motor sailing super yacht out there somewhere with exactly what you mean. A telescopic section of mast to enable increase the size of the mast and so the size of the main. However this was created so that the boat could get under a particular bridge the owner lived by, so was created to retain performance, rather than increase it.

There was also another big motor sailor spawned at Pendennis a few years back with a complete telescoping rig. The thing was ugly as sin and was referred to by most as the 'super macgregor'.

Finally, for topmasts on gaffers, Herreschoff incorporated telescoping topmasts for Columbia, Constitution and Reliance in 1899, 1901 and 1903 respectively for the Americas Cup so the idea is certainly not new. The idea here was for reducing top hamper when not flying topsails as was considered good seamanship in those days. The topsails used though were still big enough to require two spars though so hoisting and recovering was still a mission.