Oceanis 390 Baby Stay

[jmartis]

We have an Oceanis 390 that is rigged with a Baby Stay forward of the mast. We also have a small hank on sail from a previous boat that might work for us as a storm sail. We were wondering if anyone has tried this and, if so, with what results. Seems doable to me, but would like any comments back.

Thanks
John Martis
Beneteau 390 - Sasha
Rock Hall, MD

 

[Jackdaw]

Normally baby-stays are mounted too far aft to make an effective sail stay. The CE of the sailplan will be wrong. You could try it. But you would need to run a halyard and mast box to hoist the sail, and your genoa tracks could be in the wrong place.

 

[jmartis]

Thanks - I appreciate that its not a great 'sailing' configuration. Was wondering if it might be possible to use it as a pseudo 'trisail' under heavy weather conditions. It was originally a storm jib for our Precision 23 that we never used. Think we may rig it up this summer under good weather and see what it does if we mimic foul weather rigging.

 

[so_farr]

We have a additional second baby stay on our 390 with a small jib for upwind-sailing if we have more than 20-25 knots of windspeed - it works well - you can see the jib with the green cover on the attached picture. On the other picture you can see the position of the mounting of the second baby stay right behind the anchor-box. In the front cabin there is an additional metall-construction to absorb the forces from the stay.

Thanks - I appreciate that its not a great 'sailing' configuration. Was wondering if it might be possible to use it as a pseudo 'trisail' under heavy weather conditions. It was originally a storm jib for our Precision 23 that we never used. Think we may rig it up this summer under good weather and see what it does if we mimic foul weather rigging.

 

[jmartis]

Thanks for the reply and the pictures. We're going to give it a try and I'll post the results.

 

[Sailvayu]

I do not recommend carrying a sail on the baby stay. On so_farr's boat his additional stay runs to the top of the mast where it has a counter force from the backstay. the other baby stay has no aft support and is designed to hold the mast forward in place of forward lowers. If you rig a sail to this stay you would have to add running backstays to counter the forward pull in the middle of the mast. this is why boats with a staysail use running backs. I do not think the aft position of your mid stays would be enough for the loads of a sail.

There is a 390 in the marina I am in and I did a survey on it a couple of weeks ago i will go take a closer look at the setup this week to see for sure

 

[jmartis]

Thanks Sailvayu - that was a big concern of mine. Was worried that the stay might not withstand the force. Any additional insight would be great.