[rockfordwoods]

Hello experts. Current situation is a stay as in a normal cutter, but the lower end has an attachment/tensioning device (Highfield lever?) to move it out of the way for use with the #1 and #2 jibs. The boat also has standing intermediates from the some position on the mast. I got rid of the staysail boom right off.

The issues I need to deal with are:

1. The attachment point for the inner forestay is only a few feet behind the headstay, so there is no way I can leave the staysail on a furler all the time due to wear on the larger sails when tacking.

2. The Highfield lever and stay are always in the way since I can not bend that wire stay too much. Things get caught on the stay as well since it is loose and essentially hanging from the mast.

3. I would like to be able to raise the staysail from the cockpit if needed.

4. I would like to be able to raise more that one staysail depending on the weather. A stay-mounted furler would preclude that being easy.

I am thinking of converting to a staysail using a low torsion luff rope and furler to be flown without the stay. That way when I am not using a staysail, I can just bag the whole thing and store it. I am unsure of the required luff tension (using the halyard) for the staysail and how that would affect the mast compression. It seems to me that since you would be using a halyard for the sail anyway, the net of the halyard/stay combination would be the same as that of the halyard using the low torsion luff rope. I have read some opinions that it is not possible to get,enough tension like this.

Does anyone have any experience with using this setup for a staysail?