Yesterday we were out for a day sail south of the Port of Los Angeles. We sailed out of the Angel's Gate and were about five miles offshore when we decided to turn around to head back in.
I took the opportunity to heave-to so we could take a brief break before the journey back. We have a large (IMO) genoa - probably a 150 - on a roller furler. Tacking with the genoa fully unfurled can be challenging, since our Montego 25 has three shrouds on either side of the mast - a fore and aft lower, and the cap shroud. The lower shrouds attach to the mast with a bolt which protrudes beneath the spreaders (we have one set of spreaders on our small 25' boat). A pretty typical setup in my limited experience around sailboats, observing such things. As you tack, the significant portion of the genoa athwartships of the shrouds of course tends to get hung up against the shrouds as the bow goes through the wind during the tack. Generally - sometimes with a little gentle encouragement on the soon-to-be working sheet - it will eventaully come lose and finish its transition to the other side of the boat.
Anyway, I had earlier furled the genoa a bit - perhaps four or five feet of the foot were reduced - since it was a little breezy yesterday and the boat was becoming a handful (the furling settled it down nicely). We had just hove to and I had just started to go down into the cabin when I heard that awful "Rrrrriiiiiiiiiip!" sound. Uh oh, that obviously can't be good.
As the title of this thread says, it turned out that the damn genoa had caught the edge of the bolt that protrudes where the lower shrouds attach just beneath the spreaders for the cap shrouds.
It was not the first time I've hove to, and certainly it was the first time that the genoa had ever caught that bolt, as far as I know.
My questions to the forum are: is this unusual? Is it unheard of? (Surely not.) Any recommendations on how to proceed? A marina neighbor suggested "grinding down" the bolt, but I don't want to make it so that it can't be removed when that time comes. I was thinking of trying to cap and tape it but I also don't want to create a situation where it would trap moisture up there and contribute to corrosion.
Is it always such a bear to tack with a 150 genoa, in terms of the sail making it across to the other side during a tack?
As for the sail, well I will be getting new sails shortly. We bought the boat about a year and a half ago and I judge the sails to be either original equipment, or close to it. The main is original, I think, and shows signs of having been re-stitched at some point. We discovered a new tear in the foot of the main, near the clew patch, *also* while we were out yesterday. We had a bit of a problem with the outboard as well, while in the main channel on the way back in - quite an exciting day for us!
I'm not overly broken up about having to purchase the new sails. I'd been looking forward to it for a while now but I wanted to get "every last drop" out of the sails before I sprung for new ones, and I had budgeted for it way back when we bought the boat. For the local folks, I will be going with either Quantum Sails in Long Beach or the Doyle loft in Costa Mesa (next to Minny's) because I want to work with a local loft who will visit my boat in person. Any recommendations on that front would be welcome (feel free to PM me if you'd rather not post that publicly).
I'll attach a picture of the genoa - the long dark line on the right is the tear. The UV strip is face-down on the ground, but the tear is along the line where the UV strip ends. I will try to locate a picture of the spreaders and the lower shroud attachment points.
Any comments or recommendations are very welcome, and thanks in advance for your comments!
-Mark
I took the opportunity to heave-to so we could take a brief break before the journey back. We have a large (IMO) genoa - probably a 150 - on a roller furler. Tacking with the genoa fully unfurled can be challenging, since our Montego 25 has three shrouds on either side of the mast - a fore and aft lower, and the cap shroud. The lower shrouds attach to the mast with a bolt which protrudes beneath the spreaders (we have one set of spreaders on our small 25' boat). A pretty typical setup in my limited experience around sailboats, observing such things. As you tack, the significant portion of the genoa athwartships of the shrouds of course tends to get hung up against the shrouds as the bow goes through the wind during the tack. Generally - sometimes with a little gentle encouragement on the soon-to-be working sheet - it will eventaully come lose and finish its transition to the other side of the boat.
Anyway, I had earlier furled the genoa a bit - perhaps four or five feet of the foot were reduced - since it was a little breezy yesterday and the boat was becoming a handful (the furling settled it down nicely). We had just hove to and I had just started to go down into the cabin when I heard that awful "Rrrrriiiiiiiiiip!" sound. Uh oh, that obviously can't be good.
As the title of this thread says, it turned out that the damn genoa had caught the edge of the bolt that protrudes where the lower shrouds attach just beneath the spreaders for the cap shrouds.
It was not the first time I've hove to, and certainly it was the first time that the genoa had ever caught that bolt, as far as I know.
My questions to the forum are: is this unusual? Is it unheard of? (Surely not.) Any recommendations on how to proceed? A marina neighbor suggested "grinding down" the bolt, but I don't want to make it so that it can't be removed when that time comes. I was thinking of trying to cap and tape it but I also don't want to create a situation where it would trap moisture up there and contribute to corrosion.
Is it always such a bear to tack with a 150 genoa, in terms of the sail making it across to the other side during a tack?
As for the sail, well I will be getting new sails shortly. We bought the boat about a year and a half ago and I judge the sails to be either original equipment, or close to it. The main is original, I think, and shows signs of having been re-stitched at some point. We discovered a new tear in the foot of the main, near the clew patch, *also* while we were out yesterday. We had a bit of a problem with the outboard as well, while in the main channel on the way back in - quite an exciting day for us!
I'm not overly broken up about having to purchase the new sails. I'd been looking forward to it for a while now but I wanted to get "every last drop" out of the sails before I sprung for new ones, and I had budgeted for it way back when we bought the boat. For the local folks, I will be going with either Quantum Sails in Long Beach or the Doyle loft in Costa Mesa (next to Minny's) because I want to work with a local loft who will visit my boat in person. Any recommendations on that front would be welcome (feel free to PM me if you'd rather not post that publicly).
I'll attach a picture of the genoa - the long dark line on the right is the tear. The UV strip is face-down on the ground, but the tear is along the line where the UV strip ends. I will try to locate a picture of the spreaders and the lower shroud attachment points.
Any comments or recommendations are very welcome, and thanks in advance for your comments!
-Mark
In the Cal-20s that we learned to sail on, the jibs were 100% at most, but may have been smaller. Certainly tacking was very simple and the jib transitioned easily with NO FUSS whatsoever. I'm liking the idea of having that on my boat (without having to furl the jib). I didn't read anything in there on heaving to or reducing (furling) the jib prior to doing so with a larger genoa. Frankly it didn't even occur to me; I had partially furled it while sailing to get better control and balance.