staysail luff

[Bill1565]

I was collecting my sails for their summer overhaul at North St Pete this morning. Took the cover off the staysail, stripped it off the boom and laid it out to flake. Found 3 hanks on a piece of 3 strand line. I have seen this on Mains to allow reefing, but I am puzzled why a staysail with no reef cringles would be rigged this way.

 

[Ed Schenck]

Mine is exactly the same Bill, original. Never gave it a lot of thought since it flies just fine. Could it be to aid flaking? The sail has such an odd shape that if the hanks were on the luff rope maybe it wouldn't fold. Its hard enough as it is.

 

[Bill1565]

Not flown mine yet. No staysail stay when I bought the boat. Will add when I pull the stick later this summer.

Where are you? Is every thing OK? Haven't heard much from you lately.

 

[Ed Schenck]

Home here in Ohio Bill. And really enjoying the weather. We just had a week of mid-70s with nice breezes. Now the heat and humidity is moving in. It is very dry here.

I get out about one day a week for a little sailing in the Highlander. I don't know when or if I will get back to Florida. Because I might have to sell Ladylove it is hard to spend time here on SBO. But then I check in because I am afraid I will miss something. Its a hard habit to break after twelve years.

I have considered bringing the boat back to Lake Erie. But with my time so limited I am not sure it makes sense. That would be a major expenditure. It was three hours round trip to my marina here.

As a few of my SBO friends know I am a fulltime caregiver. We can afford a nurse for about three days a week, 0900 to 1700. I don't like getting into personal issues here on SBO. But I want to remind you all that we don't know what life has in store. We see it written here all the time, "don't wait, go now". Hard to imagine truer words.

 

[Bill1565]

I agree completely with go, sail, do it now.

Point to ponder. Things change. You can always sell the boat later. Prices are depressed here even for sailboats. There is no money except retiree savings, and we retirees all have boats already. Un employment was high before the oil spill killed tourism as far south as Naples/Marco. Now nothing is selling. Cars, boats, houses sit on the market for months or years.

Rainy, 110% humid here today. So I am computing instead of working on the boat. We are looking at a short trip in the fall to maybe the panhandle if the reality is not as bad as the media make it out to be.

Keep in touch

 

[Johnb]

I found that for certain points along the sail the distance from the rear end of the boom to the inner stay is greater than the length of the sail as it is being raised, so if you don't have that piece of line it can't be raised.

I found this out the hard way by removing the line because I did not like the way the sail luff tended to not be straight. Now my sail shape is better but I have to slacken the outhaul to raise and lower the sail. Once raised the outhaul can be tightened.

 

[Jim Legere]

Got to have a line on first 3 hanks

John is exactly right - the geometry of the staysail is such that you would not be able to raise it without the luff downhaul line on the first 3 hanks (or you could slack the outhaul, as he does). I guess one way out of the conundrum would be to install a furler and do away with the boom, but I'm cheap so I stick with the original design. I did install a reef on my staysail - and never used it - I figure it would be quite a gale before I put it in.

 

[Bill1565]

Thanks Guys. I'm looking forward to re equipping my boat with the staysail next fall.