Cutting out the cutter rig

[jrodgers04]

Hello!

I'm a new owner of a 78 E31 Independence cutter rig and have been getting a feel for her over the last few weeks. Love the boat!

With a massive roller furled 150 on the forestay, I'm finding tacking to be be an interesting procedure as the genoa needs to be helped over the stay for the staysail, which attaches to the deck about 4 feet aft of the forestay. This either requires someone manually helping it over or furling it to the point it clears the staysail stay.

My question is, if I were to not fly the staysail and detach the staysail stay and affix it somewhere further aft out of the way, would that destabilize the standing rigging? Or does the forestay bear the brunt of the structural burden? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the staysail on a long run and can see how it will be useful in a variety of applications. More want to know if I am going out for a few hours after work and want to keep it simple and just run the genoa, is it a bad thing to mess with the staysail stay.

Thanks in advance!
Jon

 

[Loren Beach]

I have seen inner fore stays stored to allow tacking the jib on a Lot of boats over the decades.
Here is one site with some good information.
Found with a quick web search.
https://theriggingco.com/2014/07/09/how-to-stow-your-inner-fore-stay/

 

[toddster]

Doubtless a detail for other Independence owners. But it's an interesting question, as I am wrestling with issues of adding a (removable) inner forestay, while wanting to avoid the issue of running backstays. As near as I can make out from the drawing on sailboatdata.com, the IFS is counter-balanced with what looks like basically an extra pair of aft lowers. (Google doesn't seem to show any photos with this detail.) I would think that if you release the tension on the IFS, you'd also need to release the tension on those aft stays, if that is indeed how it's rigged. Other than that, the same boat is shown with sloop and with cutter rigging, with the same "I" dimension, so I doubt that the IFS is required to hold up the mast.

 

[BillyT]

Hi Jon I am the new owner of an Independence 31 which had the inner forestay removed when the bow sprit was replaced. The aft lower backstays are still in place and the rig appears to operate just fine with the sloop set up. I will be replacing the inner stay and staysail as I prefer cutters. I will be putting in a self tacking inner and probably reduce the amount of genoa overlap as I will be single handing most of the time. However the idea of a removable inner forestay for daysailing also sounds great to me. Good luck with the project.

Bill

 

[Christian Williams]

I was sailing on a Lagoon 65 with two roller-furling headstays. The skipper had to furl the huge headsail completely before every tack.

I thought this would be a great bother, until I saw him push a button. Nothing like electric winches.

If I had a second stay I'd keep it stored at the base of the mast when not in use using the gear Loren linked to.

 

[toddster]

A lot of the hardware bits for the removable inner forestay project turn out to be surprisingly difficult to buy - they turn out to be
a. No Longer Available
b. Not Made In Your Size or
c. Cost More Than Your (my) Boat

Maybe there will be a flush of hurricane salvage items on EBay this season. I did eventually score a nice Highfield lever at a reasonable price, but it took about two months of scouring the listings. I guess I should get back to that project and keep looking for the hounds.

 

[gadangit]

A lot of the hardware bits for the removable inner forestay project turn out to be surprisingly difficult to buy - they turn out to be
a. No Longer Available
b. Not Made In Your Size or
c. Cost More Than Your (my) Boat

Maybe there will be a flush of hurricane salvage items on EBay this season. I did eventually score a nice Highfield lever at a reasonable price, but it took about two months of scouring the listings. I guess I should get back to that project and keep looking for the hounds.

I found that to be true as well. I settled on a standard turnbuckle based on the advice from the foredeck/boat captain of the J-44 that we crew on. He didn't see much of a difference between an expensive over center lever vs. just tightening up a turnbuckle. I built a dyneema dux inner forestay, have yet to install it. I'll have a few options on how to stow at the mast.

Chris

 

[toddster]

Maybe an argument for the lever arrangement is some scenario (which will never, of course, happen to us) in which we are some how caught unprepared and need to rig a storm jib in a hurry. But also these things are not rocket science. I'd think one could easily be made from some bar stock, a couple of pins, and a turnbuckle. In fact, that's exactly what I was preparing to do when this ABI lever came up in the listings. Or heck, just borrow a chain binder from the tractor shed and replace it every time it gets too rusty.

 

[Christian Williams]

I got interested in an inner stay so I read all of Loren's link.

It also refers tp this good survey of highfield levers:

https://theriggingco.com/2014/06/08/the-highfield-lever/

In the end my needs don;t include an inner stay, but they have their uses. Ryan Levinson put one on his 38 for long range cruising.

 

[gadangit]

In addition to a storm staysail there are a few other uses that I can envision us utilizing the inner forestay:
1. Set a lighter staysail inside of our assym spinnaker on a beam reach.
2. Set a staysail to change out the headsail. We don't have two jib halyards or two tracks on our furler, so every headsail change is bareheaded. A staysail would at least give you something. We are not a full race boat and don't pretend to be one. But you can do a few things that have a double use for cruising.
3. Emergency stay if something happens to our headstay.
4. We won't have headsails cut for a cutter rig, but I could see flying a staysail inside the genoa when off the wind for a little more power.

Our sailmaker can't wait for us to give him money, but I am trusting him to give the best advice for how we are planning to use the boat. If those ideas above don't make sense I'm trusting him to tell me.

Chris

 

[supersailor]

Back in the good old days very long ago when I was much crazier than today, we used to set a "Tallboy" or a "Lowboy" under the chute using a pad on the deck and a halyard approx. 2/3 up the mast. The sail had a luff wire sewn in and it acted as the staysail stay. We flew those sails in some wild conditions on San Francisco Bay. I see no reason that the same thing wouldn't work here. Retrieving the sail was more difficult as it was not hanked on. We used a downhaul to keep the head from blowing too far off the side. All the halyards were on the mast. This would be more difficult with everything led to the cockpit.

One of our club members has a BaBa 30 and it uses a handle and hook . with the handle back, you hook the stay on then throw the handle forward and it over centers and tightens the stay. He has hank on sails for it. The stay resides just in front of the mast when it isn't being used. The system is really slick. He doesn't use the staysail up here in the North West. Says it is too much trouble.

 

[toddster]

I thought I'd cut down one of my old hank-on jibs to try to make a "working staysail" maybe twice the area of the storm jib. Possibly for flying inside a big headsail and to fly alone in the 25 - 35 knot range. (Can't seem to lay hands on those project notes at the moment...) Given the size of my proposed inner foretriangle and various rules of thumb gleaned from sailmakers, the feasibility may be marginal. Oh well - it's supposed to be a hobby.

 

[Mark F]

Ballenger Spars has pelican hooks that would probably work as an inner stay quick release. I used to use them on my aft lower shrouds and back-stay when tabernacling my mast for passing under a bridge (everyday I sailed). They were not crazy expensive.