Head sail changes, furling (optional) and dealing with a square, anchor-full bowsprit

[marujo.sortudo]

So, I've been musing for quite some time about improving my headsail situation for blue-water cruising. Here is some info on and pictures of my boat, Mimi Rose:

http://pagetraditionalboats.com/mimirose.htm

Since '93, she's been rigged up with a Profurl system with a high-cut Genoa that basically lives on the furler (there are no other headsails.) With the cutter rig, this works amazingly well from about 7-25 kts, though, I've never found it useful to use the Genoa in a reefed position. I'm finding this system inadequate for the following reasons:

1. I want improved performance in light air and in mild downwind conditions. I'd like to add a drifter and probably a cruising spinnaker to my sail suite eventually to improve this performance.

2. The current system uses luff tape to place the sail in the foil and pulling the sail down is a bear, plus there is no way to contain it once it leaves the foil. Putting it up isn't much better and both are best done in light airs. I want to be able to change and/or drop sails safely in much more substantial weather.

3. A have a square bowsprit with two anchors that stow very nicely (see Bill Page's anchor tamer in the Rigger's Apprentice) on the side of it and the head sail is attached 6' out from the deck. In an ideal world, I'd love to be able bring the headstay (and/or) furler back to the deck to do sail changes there. Alas, a normal bowsprit traveler arrangement seems impossible; although, I've heard rumor of other solutions that I can only guess at.

4. I really dislike the idea of a sail ever being stuck up and open in a blow. This happened once to me two years ago when I turned up into a sudden squall and the genoa sheet quickly tied itself around a lifeline, very well. There was no way to douse the genoa as the knot could not be quickly undone under strain and there was way too much tenson on the luff tape (not to mention single handing on a lee shore. >> Obviously, this day taught me other lessons that will help me avoid this circumstance in the future...but not 100% of the time.)

So far, the best solutions I've conceived of are:

1. Hanked on sails on some kind of floating traveler (no, I don't know what that would look like, yet.) This would probably involve a fixed headstay and another that could be relaxed a brought back to the deck for headsail changes. Naturally, a downhaul would be part of this setup. This option would take care or all the mentioned issues, but I sure would miss the convenience of a furler for single handing and drawing into and out of harbor.

2. The reef rite furling system with it's Kiwi-slides intrigues me because I could see that it might fix everything except for #3 and should greatly reduce the incidence of #4. That said, I have no personal experience with this system which gives me some trepidation.

So, I'm curious to know some thoughts about how well I can address these issues and if there are some other thoughts I should consider, or if there are some tweaks that could make either of these systems better.

Thanks to all, Colin

[benz]

As far as a drifter, you can easily set one, especially with a wire luff, flying. That means not hanked to anything at all, with a HM halyard pulled tight. Since it's to be brought in before the wind gets up too much, it's not hard to put it in the main's shadow by turning downwind, thus relieveing the pressure on it, and gather it with one arm while slacking the halyard with the other. This is how I set my jibs, but I don't singlehand. As far as furlers sticking, the only way to guarantee a furler will never jam is to throw it overboard and use hank-on foresails or set them flying.
Ben

[Ian McColgin]

One solution is to go to jibs that are set on a merriman type furler behind the jib stay. There's a wire in the luff and the luff will be less straight than if set, whether hanked on or in a foil, on the stay. But judging from the pix your jib stay is not all that tight anyway. Just make sure the sailmaker understands so he gets the luff right.

I found it easy to rig an outhaul under the drum so the whole thing could be sent out to the end of the bow sprit or pulled back to the bow. The upper swivel usually has a bale to slip over the headstay to keep it alligned. If you make the halyard a two part - truck to a block attached to the upper swivel and back up to another block and thence down - and if you put the dead end and the block on the mast a bit apart, the halyard under tension will keep the swivel alligned just fine and you can saw the bale off. That means that as the sail goes up and down the peak is not sliding on the stay and you can hook up or release it from deck.

The sails go up and down as a snake, very easy to control in any wind. So have three - genny, jib and big reacher-drifter. The only problem is stowage since the sail-as-snake needs to be coiled and it's very hard - given the size of the rolled fabric and the fat luff wire - to get the coil to have a diameter less than four feet. Since mine had nice UV cloths on the leach and foot, I just coiled each down around the skylight. That was back far enough that I lashed the unused jib in place only in the very most severe weather.

G'luck

[marujo.sortudo]

Thanks for all the advice, Ben & Ian. After reading your posts I did some searches on "merriman furler" and "flying jibs" and found lots of good discussion on these topics, especially on the WoodenBoat forums (with many great posts by you, Ian.) Based on all the observations I've read in all those posts, I think I'm leaning towards hanked on sails pretty strongly now. Why?

1. While a Merriman or Wykeham-Martin furler would look beautiful on Mimi Rose with all her bronze hardware, I *really* don't like the idea of having to turn upwind to furl a sail off-shore in heavy wind/seas, or worse yet, getting it wrapped around the headstay. That said, if I knew my sailing would be almost exclusively coastal, this type of furling gear would be quite tempting.

2. Being a liveaboard, the stowage requirements for wire luff sails seem too limiting. I need to be able to pack things away tighter than that and stow sails well in the forepeak, easily. I suppose an HM luff might get around this, but see #3.

3. Maybe it's because I don't have much experience with it, but setting jibs flying (with any kind of luff) seems like it would get hard to handle in high wind situations. (Barring furling, of course, but that takes me back to #1.)

4. The more I've thought about foils and their downsides, the more I dislike them. I particularly dislike not being able to inspect the stay beneath easily. As noted, my headstay does sag a good bit, and my presumption is that this would be wildly improved if the weight of the foil were removed. On a related note, Mimi Rose yaws more at anchor than I like, and I imagine that the reduction of forward windage by the elimination of the foil and furled sail would dramatically improve this. (I plan on taking other measures here, too.)

These are my thoughts for how to proceed:

A. Replace the headstay with a simple spliced SS headstay and add a turnbuckle for more tuning control. (There are already turnbuckles on the bobstay and backstay. I may try to eliminate the bobstay turnbuckle as a result.)

B. Add a downhaul that is led to somewhere near the mast and/or port pin rail (i.e., near the jib halyard.) The downhaul would be threaded through hanks and attached to a hank just below the head of the sail.

C. Learn to handle/bag hanked on jibs well per Ian's recommendations in other threads on WB forums, and when needed to use Bernard Moitessier's suggestion of hanking the sail to a line on deck that leads to the bowsprit to ease moving sails to/from deck. In my case, I can use my high life lines for this additional purpose as they lead from the cranse iron and around the shrouds to high on the boom gallows. Hanking sails on them forward of the shrouds while still bagged would seem to make things even easier and safer to take forward with me. Plus I can work out the order of hanks in greater comfort/safety on deck, and go forward to take one sail off (placing it on a life line) and put the other on in one trip.

D. Make the bow sprit as safe as possible. This winter, I'll be painting the top of it with non-skid, but I also plan the installation of a footrope that would allow me to brace my thighs against the bowsprit (my crew is 10 inches shorter than I, so I need to make a height that will work for her, as well.) I will also evaluate and consider the addition of some other athwartships lines running from the footrope to whiskerstays if this seems like a good idea, and/or extra handholds where needed.

I welcome observations and suggestions on these ideas from the many more seasoned (than I) riggers/sailors on here.

Thank you, Colin

[Ian McColgin]

I like bowsprit safety.

On Goblin (Alden 43' schooner) the life lines came down to the gunnel just abaft the stem. This gave room to get past the head stay and swing my feet down to the footrope that went to the bobstay. I experimented with a line to reduce the space between the whisker stays and the base of the bowsprit but found that in reality I never leaned back anyway while there. About the place where the footrope met the bobstay was about where the whiskers were embracing me and where I could reach the tack - as far forward as I was going no matter what. It was a good place to work.

But better was Granuaile's bowsprit. No plank stuff. Round sprit with good footing first from non-skid on the original and then inset teak strips on the new sprit I built, both arced through 60 degrees, 30 to each side. The pulpit was right at the end with solid rails coming back parallel to the sprit a bit under 24" apart to the anchor rollers. These supported a couple of struts that V'd out a little adding rigidity. From here the rails angled out to join with an upright at the gunnels on each side a couple feet abaft the stem. Good space to get around the head stay and super secure at any angle of heel.

I went to all hanked on for Granuaile. I always have a downhaul for jibs running from a block down by the tack up along the stay inside the clips to the peak. If left not through the clips the downhaul flogs in the wind. So the sail could be hauled down from the foremast with both halyard and downhaul control. Once down, the jib could be kept down, resisting it's tendency to slide back up the jibstay's slope in a high wind. Then I'd go out on the sprint and work my way back securing the jib to the lee rail and lifeline with what I call a "sweedish furl" - essentially a chain knot over sail and rail. It holds great, uses up the long tail of the downhaul eliminating the need to secure that coil, and lets you unzip it from a position by the foremast when you go to hoist the sail again.

I think hanked on is hard to beat for a voyaging boat but so many folk never intelligently rig their bowsprits for real safety that I always also mention the marriman alternative.

G'luck

[benz]

Hi Marudo.
It seems that dousing a flying jib or drifter would be difficult, but with a little practise it's not much harder than a hank-on. Just a different technique. I doused my 300 sq ft drifter in a very sudden nighttime 50-knot blow, and though it scooped a little water from overside, it came aboard all right and could be immediately bundled below without my having had to go to the bowsprit end to unhank it. So I didn't have a bundle of wet sail bogging down the bowsprit end--I just eased out the line that hauls the foot out to the cranse iron, unclipped it, and my bowsprit could rear and plunge all it liked without shovelling tons of water back. One of the advantages of setting sails flying is that since you never need go to the bowsprit end, you can eliminate all the weight and clutter of nets and footropes and walkways and pulpits, with all the windage and drag and expense they can cause.
Still whatever you end up with, by all means eliminate all roller furling, which is a plain invitation to trouble.
Ben