Twin forestays - why? how? what?

[kilkerr1]

Ello

Can anyone tell me what are the pros and cons of having twin forestays on a single hull yacht, please?

Cheers!

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[sailbadthesinner]

some blue water cruisers attach 2 foresails in the Trades and just cruise under that.
plus you can pre hank on you storm jib ready to hoist if expecting bad weather

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=red>if guinness is good for you. i must be very very good</font color=red>

 

[Evadne]

They were originally the bee's knees racing accessory of the 1960's, I am told, allowing you to hoist one foresail before dropping the other, i.e. the forerunner of the twin foil. You don't see them much these days.
I have them and find them indispensible for cruising, not being a roller furling fan: you set one sail and hank the "next one down" onto the other forestay and lash it to the guardrail. If the wind pipes up, changing foresails is now dead easy: drop the genoa, which takes all the drive out of the boat, lash it down (well), untie the No. 1 and back to the mast to hoist it. This is the opposite of how they were intended to be used but it is an intrinsically safe way of doing things. With Roller reefing you only go to the foredeck in strong winds when something has gone wrong. With twin forestays you tend to act before the wind gets too strong, and always take the way off the boat as a first act. If you don't feel this sort of physical exercise is within your capabilities you can always try roller reefing. I will probably have to resort to it when I get old: I heard the same sentiment from the owner of the oldest boat in our class, who is probably a good 20 or 30 years my senior, so there's hope for me yet.

The one big drawback is that getting a good luff tension is nigh on impossible, it always seems to be the other forestay that is the taughtest. I also have twin backstays (I don't know why) and this seems to make things worse.

Deploying the anchor between them is not a problem unless your anchor is too heavy to lift. Having two sails lashed to the guardrails when rafted up always seems to confuse people trying to cross us, especially as it hides the anchor lashed to the foredeck.
I expect the sails suffer more UV damage as a result of being outside even when not being used, but this is an acceptable fault, IMHO.



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[Dominic]

There are two common setups that I have seen.

The first is side by side - about three inches apart.
The idea is to set two genoas for trade wind sailing, with two poles and no main sail. The boat is just about self steering straight downwind with this rig.

Alternatively one can use it for slicker sail changes - one up and in use, one down and ready to go.

The other set up is the two forestays very close to each other - fore and aft. Each then has a roller furling fore sail. The outer one takes your big genoa, the inner one a smaller foresail. Both sails cannot be used simultaneously - this is not cutter rig. The Big genoa cannot be tacked - it has to be rolled in and then out on each tack - since the inner forestay is only a foot behind the outer one.

The advantage is that the smaller foresail is more efficient than the partial rolled big genoa - so one can have a truly vast genoa and a more sensible jib on the two forestays without the disadvantage of working to windward with a baggy and partially rolled genoa.




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[Mirelle]

Yes.

There was an ingenious device for throwing all the tension on the stay that the sail was set on, as I recall - alas, I cannot remember what it was!

A rare difficulty occurs when the out-of-use stay is snared by a piston hank on the jib in use. The perfectionist avoids this by setting eg the genoa to starboard, the no 1 to port with hanks reversed and so on.

I agree, it is a very convenient way to deal with headsails.

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[Davy_S]

Re: Yes.

Was it not as I recall the simple use of a triangle at the masthead. Each forestay attached to the bottom of the triangle, so as one was eased the other took the strain. If you have twin forestays it is difficult to get the right tension as on a masthead rig the backstay would be overstressed.

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[ccscott49]

I'm probab;ly going to get slagged for this, but I have three forestays! One main one with the roller reefing yankee on it (10mm) and two others (8mm), I rig to run two downwind sails. They have there own turnbuckles at the bottom, so I can tension each independently and then I have three halyards, so I can leave the yankee on the roller and hoist the downwind sails independently. When I dont need them, I de-rig them at the bottom and lash them to the shrouds to keep them out of the way. No problems with anchor, as I have it in a hawse. I haven't used this system in anger yet, so will keep you posted. I thought about flying foresails, but they are a pain to get down. I also condidered twin genoas on the single roller (twin groove), but have been told this just does not work effectively without a slot between them.

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[Mirelle]

Thank you.

That was exactly what it was. Simple and effective.

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[ccscott49]

Re: Thank you.

Same way as my three are rigged, but with the middle one as pivot.

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