The purpose of storm jib hanks over a headfoil, and the optimum solution

[merjan]

Could it be that the sail was intentionally made such that it could be used with a foil OR hanked onto a stay? I’d have thought it would be reasonable to have that versatility.

As far as I understand, the advice is that a storm jib should not just rely on the bolt rope. The grommets are there to enable that backup. What I was wondering was whether these are used (only) if the jib comes out of the foil, or to secure it to the foil so it does not come out in the first place. There has been comment in favour of the former use.

 

[MikeBz]

Personally I'm not sure I'd bother to feed it into the foil if I were going to use the grommets - if I'm hoisting a storm jib (thankfully I've never had to) then the conditions are likely to be not conducive to trying to feed the bolt rope of the sail into a foil.

 

[jwilson]

The idea of using a foil for a storm jib is pretty silly.

Unless you leave the mooring with it hoisted and furled the work involved is ridiculous, especially if you do as suggested and add ties in case it comes out of the foil. If you believe you need a storm jib you either need not to have a furler, or have a permanent or temporary inner stay to set it on with proper piston hanks.

I once crawled up the deck and put on a hanked storm jib. This was before furlers became common. No idea what the wind force was but a seaworthy 34-footer had already been completely inverted whilst running under bare pole.

Plan A had been lying ahull. Good or some hours, but then got very hairy - certain we were about to be rolled. Plan B was running under bare pole. After some more hours ended up inverted.

My Plan C was to put up the storm jib, sail faster and see if it gave more control. Swimming with keel in the air again.

Plan D - couldn't really call it a plan as arrived at almost by accident - was actively sailing - broad reaching and luffing into every big breaker, so more or less making progress on a beam reach, This finally did work.

From experience, you REALLY don't want to be messing about with feeding a sail into a foil and bits of ties on the pointy end in real weather.

I would be very happy to sail now with no storm jib: my present boat does have a removable inner forestay and a hanked storm jib for it, but I have no intention of ever using them, though I know the setup would work.

 

[garymalmgren]

RE; From experience, you REALLY don't want to be messing about with feeding a sail into a foil and bits of ties on the pointy end in real weather.

It is not just feeding the storm jib in.
The furled foresail must be removed. To do that it needs to be completely unfurled (in conditions that require a storm jib) and stowed.

gary

 

[Neeves]

Having used storm jibs in anger

read posts 23 and 24 - twice if necessary

You already have a sail on the, or a, foil. What are you going to do with, the sail, if its the only foil.

Precisely how are you going to fit the storm jib to the foil, unless you have a dedicated inner forestay that is only used for the storm jib (unlikely on a 28' yacht.

Feeding a sail into a foil in decent weather with two people on the bow and another, fully competent persons managing the halyard and sheet, is difficult enough - how precisely are you going to dress the foil with the sail - in rising 35 knots and seas.

If you storm jib is correctly packed, flaked, you are able to hank the sail without the need to unfold it, you can sit on it. The sheets can be already attached and run through the blocks on the tracks (the block location already market), halyard attached before you hank on. You can Henk on without the need to take the sail out of the bag.

I cannot think of any situation where feeding a storm jib, or any sail, into a foil is easy.

Realise when you need a storm jib and have to actually use it the conditions will be such that verbal communications from bow to cockpit will be impossible, you will be wearing full safety kit with tethers, harnesses and LJs all impeding activity and if you are using a foil it will take two at the bow to complete the task (with unacceptable risks from the flogging sail). You will need someone at the helm minimising the seas breaking over the 2 crew on the bow and another individual ready to manage both halyard and sheet, so you need, ideally, two adjacent winches. The cockpit will be full of rope, halyard, sheets and breaking seas (and the original head sail that you had to remove from the foil).


An advantage of hanks are the sail can be attach to the stay and then lashed to the deck in advance of the need to use it. Best if you have an inner forestay and separate halyard for the storm jib, and the storm jib has its own sheets. When we had Josepheline built this is exactly what we had, an inner forestay and dedicated halyard. You will only be using the storm jib when you have the main fully reefed, our 3rd reef was installed to reduce the main by 75% or replaced with a tri-sail - more rope in the cockpit.

Been there, done that.

Finally - for some reason you only need to use a storm jib in the rain at 2am.

Jonathan

 

[flaming]

Feeding a sail into a foil in decent weather with two people on the bow and another, fully competent persons managing the halyard and sheet, is difficult enough - how precisely are you going to dress the foil with the sail - in rising 35 knots and seas.

If you storm jib is correctly packed, flaked, you are able to hank the sail without the need to unfold it, you can sit on it. The sheets can be already attached and run through the blocks on the tracks (the block location already market), halyard attached before you hank on. You can Henk on without the need to take the sail out of the bag.

I cannot think of any situation where feeding a storm jib, or any sail, into a foil is easy.

If you don't have roller furling, and you have a tuff luff for your jibs, like me, then your options are to use the foil, or put hanks around it and trash the foil.

I'll take "use the foil" please. But then I realised recently that I haven't actually sailed any boat with roller furling for a decade now. So changing jibs is just how I sail.

In addition, when you're actually setup for changing headsails, bungees etc in place to constrain the sail before hoisting, have a proper pre-feeder setup that negates the need to have someone actually feed the sail into the foil as it's hoisted, have moveable cars, then whilst never "easy" it's achievable.

With the proper setup, hoisting a jib on a foil in moderate cruising conditions is a one person job. A storm jib in actual storm conditions - different story for sure.

 

[Neeves]

Others change headsails - you are not alone.

But that was not the question.

We don't know what kit the OP has, but being a 28' yacht and 'extrapolating' from the question - he does not have the right kit, easily adjusted deck cars etc

I actually wondered what prompted the thread - most people don't sail when a storm is forecast, few people carry a storm jib, especially one that does not appear to be easy to use......

Putting a 3rd reef in a mainsail is a doddle until the seas are breaking over the cabin roof and the cockpit is full of water that never has time to drain through the open transom......

Jonathan

 

[flaming]

Others change headsails - you are not alone.

But that was not the question.

We don't know what kit the OP has, but being a 28' yacht and 'extrapolating' from the question - he does not have the right kit, easily adjusted deck cars etc

I actually wondered what prompted the thread - most people don't sail when a storm is forecast, few people carry a storm jib, especially one that does not appear to be easy to use......

Putting a 3rd reef in a mainsail is a doddle until the seas are breaking over the cabin roof and the cockpit is full of water that never has time to drain through the open transom......

Jonathan

I don’t think you can necessarily extrapolate that he doesn’t have the necessary kit. Any more than we can assume he has roller furling that he’s using the foil from, rather than a tuff-luff like I have.
In fact, the very question about how to set a storm jib in a head foil does assume you plan on doing so, so you either plan on changing your roller furling, or you have to change sails anyway…

But then my whole point was “use the foil if it’s available and your jib is suitable”. Don’t use hanks on a foil.

That’s it.

 

[merjan]

We have a Harken head foil, not a furler. The storm jib has a strop at the tack so I can switch from #3 to a storm jib without adjusting the jib cars.
We don't go out sailing in a storm intentionally but if the wind can, and does, pick up from 22 to 30 knots in the Solent despite the forecasts. When we are shorthanded we prefer to use the storm jib with an already twice reefed main.

I hope that clarifies the kit and the intentions.

But the question was about the use of hanks of a storm jib. Thank you for the responses!

 

[TSB240]

We have a Harken head foil, not a furler. The storm jib has a strop at the tack so I can switch from #3 to a storm jib without adjusting the jib cars.
We don't go out sailing in a storm intentionally but if the wind can, and does, pick up from 22 to 30 knots in the Solent despite the forecasts. When we are shorthanded we prefer to use the storm jib with an already twice reefed main.

I hope that clarifies the kit and the intentions.

But the question was about the use of hanks of a storm jib. Thank you for the responses!

Seems to me you have a serious problem.

In extreme conditions you don't have an easy way of reducing your sail and exchanging it for your storm jib. Going on the foredeck to extract the storm jib from your head foil and replacing it with a storm jib just is not practicable.

I have changed a hank on sail on a Cobra 850 in conditions with me firmly wedged in the pulpit.
One moment looking what felt like the length of the boat down at the helm in the cockpit the next minute filling my boots as the nose buried in the next huge wave.

It took far too long and exposed me to serious dangers in conditions I hope never to be out in again.

I now have a much larger boat with working and efficient roller reefing but carry the same concerns as yourself.

I feel the only workable solution for me is to have storm sail independent of any jib or genoa. This can rapidly be hoisted on a secondary jib haliard either hanked on to an inner forestay or just using a highly tensioned multipurchased dynema haliard.

You still have the problem of how to easily remove your storm jib without a furler.

Seems to me your priority is to solve that problem first or set your storm jib in its place well before conditions get too dangerous.

 

[dunedin]

Seems to me you have a serious problem.

...................

Are you sure you are not over dramatising this ? The OP just said they are sailing in the Solent. It ain't Cape Horn.
They can go into a harbour, or at least a bay, to change sails.
If not a race boat perhaps they would be better fitting a roller furling system with decent foam luff jib, so can quickly change sail area without leaving the cockpit.
Suspect 99% of boats in the Solent don't have and/or have never used a storm jib. We don't carry one and been round some rather more remote places.

 

[merjan]

Thank you for all the advice. I am happy without a furler, as on our boat it is very easy and safe to drop a #3 jib through the headfoil on our small boat in most likely scenarios. I'm talking about less than 10 seconds for the whole job. Having spent most of my sailing life at the pointy end, I am comfortable doing that (much more so than standing by the mast to reef). So I have no reservations with our setup, and that was not the question.

Also as @dunedin wrote, we are just sailing in the Solent, the Channel if we feel adventrous. But I don't see anything wrong with using our storm jib more frequently in the Solent , as this gives us more preparedness should we need it elswhere. In the maximum wind range that I am happy to face, with two reefs on the main it gives us a nicely balanced boat.

So regardless of where we sail, and why we want to fly a storm jib, I think it's useful to know the "right" way of using a storm jib as a principle. Sometimes there is no "right" way, and there are compromises (like lashing your storm jib might riskdamage to the headfoil as @flaming pointed out).

 

[oldbloke]

If my storm jib ripped out of my headfoil while sailing in the Solent, I would 1, question why I was out in a tempest, 2, either switch the engine on and smash my way to safety for an hour , or beer away and scurry off to safety under main only. I certainly wouldn't risk trashing my expensive headfoil with some kind of lashings or hanks. Possibly a different matter in the Bay of Biscay or the Roaring Forties

 

[merjan]

Perhaps I should clarify that the question is about good practice when flying a storm jib on yachts using a headfoil rather than my sailing preferences.

 

[flaming]

Perhaps I should clarify that the question is about good practice when flying a storm jib on yachts using a headfoil rather than my sailing preferences.

Welcome to the forum….

 

[dunedin]

If my storm jib ripped out of my headfoil while sailing in the Solent, I would 1, question why I was out in a tempest, 2, either switch the engine on and smash my way to safety for an hour , or beer away and scurry off to safety under main only. I certainly wouldn't risk trashing my expensive headfoil with some kind of lashings or hanks. Possibly a different matter in the Bay of Biscay or the Roaring Forties

I like your strategy for a tempest in the Solent being to BEER AWAY.

I concur with your view that heading to the nearest pub is generally the best strategy when a storm is forecast

 

[TSB240]

As far as I understand, the advice is that a storm jib should not just rely on the bolt rope. The grommets are there to enable that backup. What I was wondering was whether these are used (only) if the jib comes out of the foil, or to secure it to the foil so it does not come out in the first place. There has been comment in favour of the former use.

The grommets can also be used to 'stop' the sail. It is traditional way of protecting the foredeck crew from a flailing sail.
Similar to a "stopped" spinnaker hoist where rubber bands or wool is used as a means of temporary gathering of the sail to enable hoisting and prevent it filling easily or prior to rounding a windward mark.

In the case of a storm jib strong twine was used with the sail then flaked into a bag. The sail is then easier to handle in a bag whilst shackling tack and haliard. The twine would only break when the sheet is tensioned. This protects sail,foredeck crew, mast,foil,helps threading the sail onto the foil, and tensioning the haliard by reducing flogging.

It might be a useful technique if flying an unstayed storm sail which are really prone to flogging on hoist or if you don't have the sea room to run downwind.

Possibly good (to) practice!

 

[merjan]

The grommets can also be used to 'stop' the sail.

That's what we do. Otherwise the sheets (already attached to the sail) are right at head hight, looking for someone's face. In this way deploying the storm jib is a much more civilised affair. There is a good demonstration of how a storm jib should be packed in the UK sails link I sent above.

 

[TSB240]

That's what we do. Otherwise the sheets (already attached to the sail) are right at head hight, looking for someone's face. In this way deploying the storm jib is a much more civilised affair. There is a good demonstration of how a storm jib should be packed in the UK sails link I sent above.

Love the video, flat calm they use the foil, soon as it gets a bit choppy they hank on an inner stay.
QED If you have one!

 

[Neeves]

I've lost track of what the OP, actually, wants or can usefully use

If you start from scratch the ideal is to have an inner forestay with its own halyard dedicated to use by a storm jib. Unfortunately most masts are not designed to take an inner forestay as the mast would need to offer support, runners is one option, to the 'new' inner forestay. But with a dedicated inner forestay the storm jib can be attached in advance or can be attached at the time without the need to alter anything on the forestay itself. Best with an inner forestay with a Highfield lever - than you can pack it away and thus be able to tack, easily.

If this is an option meriting consideration a picture of the mast might be useful but will need the services of a rigger - and will not be cheap.

I prefer, its a personal thing, the installation of the inner forestay as you can then attach the sail in comfort and do so whilst still making headway using the original, old, forestay. The storm jib can be lashed to the deck in its dedicated bag with halyard and sheets attached. All you need do is open bag and hoist the storm jib straight out of the bag. Its safe, fool proof, can be arranged for single handed sailing. Hanks have been used for decades - they can easily be attached to any, or almost any, sail.

All great if you are crossing Bass Strait.

If you are sailing in the Solent and you see an unforecast storm coming - motor on, head straight to the nearest shelter. You don't get awards for stupidly challenging nature.


The problem is the new inner forestay.


Jonathan