New to cutter rigging, question.

[Murgatroid]

My, new to me, 76 HMS 23 is cutter rigged, last night in very, almost non existent winds, I started wondering if it would be better to just douse the stay sail and only use the head sail? Any wisdom on dealing with and setting a cutter rig is appreciated.

 

[jssailem]

Congrats on your new to you boat. I watched the YouTube video you made of your sailing it on Lake Monroe.

Sailboat Data has an image of the Watkins 23 XL that they say is like the Helsen HMS 23.

Appears that the Main sail is cut a little small. Your video showed a long outhaul line. I am thinking you could add a foot or so to the leach, which might help.

The boat design has a tall cabin. Nice to move around in for a 23 ft boat, but adds a lot of "freeboard" which translates into drag when sailing.

In the video your Jib looks to be on a boom. I suspect you were flying your "cutter" stay sail. It was moving around a lot in the chop. I could not tell if you had a traveler and a sheet on the sail. I would see if I could get the stay sail to be trimmed down at the foot a bit. This would improve the efficiency of the sail as it would straighten the leach and spill less of the wind off the sail.

Cutters can fly two fore sails. The design is that the staysail and the outer genoa are trimmed to help each other. Without seeing your rig it is hard to tell if you would get improved performance or not. Often cruisers use the stay sail instead of a Genoa to better manage the sail plan in heavy air.

Good luck and enjoy your new bigger boat.

 

[shemandr]

I think I would agree with Murgatroid (First name Heaven's to..?). In light wind it may be better to sail on the head sail without the stay sail. Setting both sails may not allow the sails to ventilate enough for good attached flow. Of course I don't know how big the head sail is. But even if it's modest, at least going upwind (As much as Cuttters do) it is worth a try. Once off the wind, both sails would be better but not if either is over trimmed. If you look at pictures of sailing ships the fore/aft rigged sails become more trimmed as you look aft. That is because each is sailing in the lift of the more forward sail.

 

[PaulK]

The Allmand 23 (HMS 23) https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/allmand-23-hms-23 looks like it is designed for taking on December gales single-handed in the North Sea. Kudos for trying to get it to move in light air. The cutter rig is often seen on on long-haul passage makers because it provides a way to hoist a variety of sails to keep the boat balanced in different wind strengths. If you're making one long tack, the two foresails can help provide more drive and keep the boat steady, especially on a reach, when there will be a bigger 'slot' for the staysail to work in. The cutter rig is not known for being close-winded. In light air and working upwind making multiple tacks, the cutter rig is less desirable. The inner forestay increases windage and the staysail cannot be efficient, working in the narrow slot, backwinded by the larger yankee. The inner forestay makes tacking the bigger sail a real chore. Some owners furl their yankees, tack, and then unfurl it again. Many cutters make their inner forestays removable to avoid this problem. The owners then lose the hyfield levers used to rig them, and stop using the staysail altogether. It would appear that the HMS 23 is rigged as a cutter to permit a singlehander to furl the outer jib with a roller-furler without having to go forward, and to continue sailing with reduced sail area with the staysail keeping the boat balanced. In your light-air scenario, you want maximum sail area, but perhaps not the windage and hassle of the staysail. Make it removable, take off the staysail, and see if opening up the slot and reducing windage doesn't help.

 

[PaulK]

Found the video here:

Hoisting a genoa or yankee would help immensely, especially if you had a whisker pole to hold it out going downwind. It did look like the staysail was doing something, but it is too small to do much. Once you have the bigger sail up, the smaller one will simply be in the way most of the time. People have different opinions on staysail booms... Rigging a boom vang for the main might also be useful going downwind.

 

[Murgatroid]

I think I would agree with Murgatroid (First name Heaven's to..?). In light wind it may be better to sail on the head sail without the stay sail. Setting both sails may not allow the sails to ventilate enough for good attached flow. Of course I don't know how big the head sail is. But even if it's modest, at least going upwind (As much as Cuttters do) it is worth a try. Once off the wind, both sails would be better but not if either is over trimmed. If you look at pictures of sailing ships the fore/aft rigged sails become more trimmed as you look aft. That is because each is sailing in the lift of the more forward sail.

That is my feeling, in light winds the stay sail blocked the head sail. There is no traveler for the stay sail boom, there is just a center pivot point in front of the mast for the block, so the jib boom is set up like a lot of main sheets on small sailboats that don't have a traveler.

 

[Murgatroid]

The Allmand 23 (HMS 23) https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/allmand-23-hms-23 looks like it is designed for taking on December gales single-handed in the North Sea. Kudos for trying to get it to move in light air. The cutter rig is often seen on on long-haul passage makers because it provides a way to hoist a variety of sails to keep the boat balanced in different wind strengths. If you're making one long tack, the two foresails can help provide more drive and keep the boat steady, especially on a reach, when there will be a bigger 'slot' for the staysail to work in. The cutter rig is not known for being close-winded. In light air and working upwind making multiple tacks, the cutter rig is less desirable. The inner forestay increases windage and the staysail cannot be efficient, working in the narrow slot, backwinded by the larger yankee. The inner forestay makes tacking the bigger sail a real chore. Some owners furl their yankees, tack, and then unfurl it again. Many cutters make their inner forestays removable to avoid this problem. The owners then lose the hyfield levers used to rig them, and stop using the staysail altogether. It would appear that the HMS 23 is rigged as a cutter to permit a singlehander to furl the outer jib with a roller-furler without having to go forward, and to continue sailing with reduced sail area with the staysail keeping the boat balanced. In your light-air scenario, you want maximum sail area, but perhaps not the windage and hassle of the staysail. Make it removable, take off the staysail, and see if opening up the slot and reducing windage doesn't help.

Your analysis is spot on in my feeling of what is going on. In light winds the cutter just sucks up wind, no way around it, but the layout does have everything other than the raising and lowering of the stay and main sail, managed from the cockpit. The Watkins 23 XL does carry the same lower hull (my hull number is just one of the 23 xl's hulls and not unique to the HMS 23, there also might be some Helsen 22's and International 23's that all came out of the same lower mold) and inner hull but it is not a cutter rig, the HMS 23 is the only Helsen design that I find with the cutter rig.

 

[Murgatroid]

Found the video here:

Hoisting a genoa or yankee would help immensely, especially if you had a whisker pole to hold it out going downwind. It did look like the staysail was doing something, but it is too small to do much. Once you have the bigger sail up, the smaller one will simply be in the way most of the time. People have different opinions on staysail booms... Rigging a boom vang for the main might also be useful going downwind.

We did not get the head sail out on that first sail. That was stay sail and main sail only.