Areas of Special Concern: a - stay and shroud strength b - mast strength c - jury-rigging options d - headsail furling e - sailplan balancing f - BandR downwind g - heavy weather sails [a - stay and shroud strength] Average shroud/stay wire gauge (diameter), and thus raw breaking strength, on our type of vessels will tend to be less than that on your typical heavy fullkeeled vessel with similar sail area and mast height. This is not as big a disadvantage as it may seem at first sight. Simply because no offshore/bluewater (os/bw) vessel should have to rely on a shroud NEVER failing in order to keep the mast onboard. No matter how thick the wire, every shroud will have a finite probability of failing, if not because of wire strength than because of eventual damage to the fittings (i.e. turnbuckles and chainplates). There are simply too many links in a single shroud set-up to be absolutely sure that failure will not occur, if not today then perhaps in 5 years. Few cruisers do have the money and facilities to replace their shrouds every few years. A much more efficient way than going way up in size to avoid the severe consequences of possible failure is to provide redundant shouds or stays, as a little bit of statistics will quickly show. Fortunately, to some extent that redundancy is present for the shrouds (and on BandR rigged Hunters for the backstays, if you happen to have them). The most scary stay is usually the forestay. If it fails your mast is likely to come down, certainly with the strong aft-pulling BandR rig and/or in your typical autopilot/windvane controlled os/bw situation. Therefore, adding a babystay, or better a full inner stay is a no-brainer in my book. Als, there are countless additional advantages to that solution, as we will discuss later. With the BandR rig, or other fractional rigs, this should usually be accompanied by running backstays in order to balance the forces on the mast. In case you don't have any fixed backstays, this is again a no-brainer for os/bw cruising. By now, you have added considerable redundancy except when it comes to upper shroud failure. Luck and quick reflexes might save the day here, especially if you happen to have a strong toerail (preferably reinforced with a Wichard or similar toerail-mounted padeye) as well as a heavy snatchblock and can quickly free up your main halyard to provide the necessary counterbalance. For intermediate or lower shroud failure, your running backstays should provide you with several balancing options. A general tip for os/bw cruisers: when you replace your stays and shrouds try to use Norseman or other field-installable fittings where possible. By installing short, threaded lower fittings on the new shrouds and keeping a couple of long threaded spares on board you have a pretty good chance of being able to make easy emergency repairs underway as many wires tend to fail right at the lower fitting (because of crevice corrosion). [b - mast strength] Although a light and flexible mast is not necessarily weaker than a heavy and stiff one that might tend to break rather than bend, the integrity of the stays and shrouds becomes the all-decisive issue in the first case . That is why I decided to discuss that first. If you have done all you can to provide sufficiently strong and redundant standing rigging your relatively light mast construction should not have to bother you (as long as you keep from being rolled, in which case most masts will go overboard anyhow; more about that in later threads). The one special treatment which I have accorded my relatively light mast is to avoid drilling dozens of holes for a full series of mast steps, in spite of the many advantages that may have for conning and fixing masthead problems underway. Instead you may want to look for other solutions for getting up the mast quickly, e.g. the ladder type that can be pulled up in the mast groove with the main halyard. [c - jury-rigging options] When the best-laid plans have failed, for one reason or another, it is a comforting idea to know that you can try to fall back on jury-rig solutions for problems ranging from partial or complete mast failure to holed hulls or lost rudders and that you have an almost infinite number of tie-off points for your most ingenuous contraptions in the form of a full toerail. My heart broke when I saw that most makers of medium light cruisers now have abandoned toerails altogether. I know that it is not easy or cheap to install one either..... So, what can I say? Here in the South Pacific, there are very, very few cruising boats without toerails. If you don't have a toerail, install as many strong padeyes close to the rail as you have time, money and energy to do. Anyone have a better idea? [d - headsail furling] It is probably safe to assume that most of our type vessels are not equipped with top-of-the-line headsail furling systems. Our Legend 43 was equipped with a Hood furling system which lasted approximately 7 years and 25,000 NM before we replaced it(after careful consideration and price vs. construction comparisons) with a......... Hood furler. In 1997 Hood had just come out with a new offshore type that appeared to incorporate many of the construction tricks of the Harken systems (maybe some Harken patents had ended?). At any rate, this system worked very well for us on our Hawaii to Australia, Australie to Vanuatu and Vanuatu to Fiji vv. passages. I am not in the business of selling furlers and am not going to give any type numbers or buy/don't buy recommendations. After all, I may just have been lucky, who knows? I just want to point out that for the typical BandR rigged Hunter with relatively small genoa -- PARTICULARLY WHEN EQUIPPED WITH A STAYSAIL -- the genoa furler never has to do any real heavy duty work, as we will be using the staysail instead of the genoa in all fresh breezes, let alone in heavy weather...... So, what about the strength of the staysail furler? Again, no real problem. Staysails are so small (150 - 200 sq ft range for our Legend 43, if I remember well) that furling and unfurling the sail can be done with relatively litlle force being put on the furler. Our simple Hood endless loop furler has been working fine for 8 years and 30,000 NM, or so. It is getting a little cranky now and needs to be replaced. However, I am not going to buy top-of-the-line gold-coated furlers here either. [e - sailplan balancing] Why discuss that here? After all, every OS/BW sailor needs to pay a lot of attention to that in order to keep the autopilot and/or windvane happy, not to mention heaving-to and a lot of other situations where sail balance makes all the difference. Well, one only has to read the posts on Phil's boards for a little while to realize that a lot of folks are wrestling with this; usually in the form of excessive weather helm. If anything has a way of spoiling an otherwise perfectly good OS/BW passage it is that problem, simply because it is nearly always associated with excessive heel and also tends to keep the crew handsteering, thereby significantly reducing the comfort level onboard. Although I don't have all the answers either, it would seem to me that the shape of our relatively beamy vessels has a lot to do with that problem. Many narrow beam, fullkeeled vessels tend to tolerate heeling better without creating a lot of weather helm. So, balancing the sailplan, especially under breezy conditions, in such a way as to avoid excessive heel and weather helm is something we will need to give special attention to. Again, the most effective way may well be to install an inner stay with staysail, which will keep you on your feet in stronger winds without providing nearly the amount of heeling the typicall poorly furled (baggy) big genoa does. Learning how to flatten both the headsail and the mainsail is very important too. Since this is more difficult with (i) old sails, (ii) sails which cannot be reefed deeply or efficiently enough and (iii) mainsails which lack adequate stiffening battens, everyone will have to asses their biggest liability here. A good friend of us who tried everything he could to reduce weather helm on his new Hunter without much success decided to install a boomfurling type mainsail (with full horizontal battens, I believe). Hope it will do the job. For OS/BW use involving distant ports in 3-rd world countries I would advise anyone to first try to sail without automated furling systems (and as many other advanced mechanical or electrical systems one can manage to do without) in order to avoid sitting in port waiting for special parts. Here in Vanuatu this is probably the "namba wan" reason why expensive Hinckleys, Swans and Oysters tend to do less sailing than we do (i.e. too many gadgets that can break down). [f - BandR downwind] You Catalina and Beneteau sailors can skip this, of course. First of all, I love the BandR rig since it has enabled us to sail upwind (and enjoy doing so) in the Tradewind belts, instead of the one-way downwind ride most other cruisers get here until the Trades disappear long enough (usually when a depression comes through with all the associated bad weather) to enable them temporarily to sail back (not to mention the final sail back to the mainland which often forces them far into the Variables where they risk severe punishments from the polar lows; sorry, I am getting on my soapbox here..). So, do we BandR rig sailors have to pay the pied piper when we need to sail downwind? To a certain extent; yes, we may never enjoy the rush of running downwind under a 150% genoa while the boom is let way out without the tightly vanged main touching the shrouds. However, part of the rush feeling may well come from the risk of the boom dipping into the high swells and causing a spectacular broach. So, what is a BandR rig sailor to do unless he or she wants to use a spinnaker or similar unstayed headsail, thereby experiencing an equal or bigger rush? Well, here comes the staysail again...... Just pole out the staysail to one side and your 90-110% genoa to the other and you are good to go over a 40-50 degree downwind angle, including dead downwind, in very good directional balance with little or no yawing and acceptable rolling behavior. By switching the poles you can add another 20-30 degrees to your total sailable downwind sector. What to do with the main? Just flatten it under second or third reef and center it to provide additional roll resistance (or drop it altogether). Of course, some sailors will argue that they would rather prefer to sail smaller apparent downwind angles (i.e. less than 160 degrees) in order to increase speed and VMG, thereby reducing the need for letting the boom out. In Tradewind areas with big swells, however, we find it very difficult to achive a balanced sailplan that way because the quartering waves keep pushing the stern off course far enough to make steering very difficult for helmsman and autopilot/windvane alike, especially since the main is not really let out far enough to achieve optimum stability (i.e. when the quartering wave pushes the bow upwind the vessel does not like to come back since the main is starting to draw better and wants to round up further). [g - heavy weather sails] Again a topic that may seem a bit out-of-place in this discussion. Why would our vessels need different heavy weather sails and sailplans than a typical heavy fullkeeled cruiser? Well, first of all, trying to heave-to a medium-light finkeeler in a stable manner in heavy weather is often described as difficult or even impossible, e.g. by older textbooks. In fact, our heavy weather experience with Hunter Legends 33.5 and 43, both with shallow draft bulbwingkeels (presumably even harder to heave-to than regular finkeelers) suggests that this is not true. However, careful balancing is necessary and -- once more -- the staysail really shines here, especially as it is positioned closer to the mast and has a continuously adjustible clew thereby allowing us to fine-tune the amount of draw by sheeting the clew more to windward or to leeward. At the same time, it may be neccessary to have a small amount of mainsail out, e.g. using the third reef position (third reefs are an absolute necessity for all os/bw cruisers unless one is set up to deploy a loose-footed trysail instead). In heavy weather no cruise likes to leave the cockpit unless it is absolutely necessary. Certainly a medium-light cruiser with fairly buoyant bow or stern can move strongly enough to make going forward even less desirable (although it is hard to decide what is more risky: a strongly moving but relatively dry deck or a less strongly moving but regularly pooped one). This is one reason why a roller-furled staysail is a great way to switch headsails in a strong breeze as one never has to leave the cockpit. If even the staysail (or very strongly reefed genoa) becomes too large (or baggy) to deploy some type of strorm jib may be needed. We have a Galesail on board for these occasions but have not yet had to deploy it. Another good solution would be a special babystay on which a storm jib could be quickly hanked on. In this thread I do not intend discus the use of drogues, sea anchors etc. This remains reserved for future thread no 6 or 7 (if I remember well). Well, guys, have at it! I know this is far from comprehensive but I am fresh out of breath and need to get on with the rest of my life.... Flying Dutchman "Rivendel II" (Legend 43, hull #1)
) Flying Dutchman