tacking cutter rig sailboat

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Tacking with a cutter rig

Moderator: Jim Walsh

Post by brianhall » Sun 2/11/07 11:45 pm

Tacking a CD 31

Post by Tom in Cambria » Mon 2/12/07 3:21 am

There is also technique

Post by Mark Yashinsky » Mon 2/12/07 10:10 am

Dangerous nautical terms

Post by Neil Gordon » Mon 2/12/07 12:36 pm

Tom in Cambria wrote: ... you just have to put the helm down.

Fine with yankee

Post by Dean Abramson » Mon 2/12/07 12:58 pm

Post by Mike » Mon 2/12/07 2:44 pm

tacking a cutter

Post by Phil Shedd » Mon 2/12/07 11:35 pm

Post by brianhall » Tue 2/13/07 9:16 pm

Post by brianhall » Tue 2/13/07 9:23 pm

Post by Bill Goldsmith » Tue 2/13/07 10:46 pm

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Tacking a cutter rig

• Thread starter southchinasea
• Start date 23 Jun 2004
• 23 Jun 2004

southchinasea

Probably a dumb question. A new large-ish yacht has appeared in the marina. She is cutter rigged with a self tacking staysail. The forestay and baby stay seem very close together. Question, does a genoa on a cutter rig generally tack easily or does it snag on the inner stay? Mate reckons you'd have to furl and unfurl the genoa every tack change? Thanks <hr width=100% size=1>  

snowleopard

Active member.

remeber that a cutter carries a yankee, not a genoa, so it's a lot easier to get the jib round. i suspect that a lot of cutter owners don't set both headsails when short-tacking <hr width=100% size=1>  

Forgive my ignorance but what's a Yankee? <hr width=100% size=1>  

Well-known member

A "yankee" is a smallish high at the clew cut jib vastly smaller than a large overlap genoa. <hr width=100% size=1>  

Just out of interest; does anyboy know how the yankee and genoa sails came to be so named???? Just curious......Tony C. <hr width=100% size=1>There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't.  

I have a Gaff Cutter. Jib--Staysail--Mainsail. When tacking I attend to the jib ( forward sail) first. The backed Staysail helps the boat go through the wind. The staysail is next. Its very easy and can be done in a hurry or between sips of coffee. <hr width=100% size=1>  

SlowlyButSurely

Yep, me too. Let the jib/yankee go first. It will then slide over the backed staysail quite easily. Then tack the staysail and sheet it in. <hr width=100% size=1>  

• 24 Jun 2004

Dunno, but here is a French pun... The Yankee jib is named after the J class yacht of that name, I think. An older name for this headsail was "long roper". The Genoa jib was perhaps first carried by 6 metre yachts competing in the Mediterranean, but at all events it lends itself to a French joke - Genoa in French is Genes, so a Genoa jib becomes "foc de Genes" - "troublesome jib"! <hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?  

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tacking problems on a cutter

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Hi, I am a new sailor and have just bought a 41' Islander. I have previously only sailed sloops and I am having trouble squeezing thenJib between the Jibstay and Forestay when I tack or Jibe. I have to go foreward and loosen it and push it over manually. Any tips greatly appreciated. Laurel  

Deliberately backwinding the sail during the tack will help "blow it by" obstructions like the inner headstay or a babystay. By that I mean don't release the sheet on the tack till the sail fills on the new side. Another technique used by some (with furlers) is to partially furl the sail before tacking. OK offshore perhaps but a pain on a nice afternoon upwind leg. Making your sheet bowlines or shackles as compact as possible can help avoid hangups too. Getting a technique down that works is probably all it will take for you to resolve this problem.  

I have a 44' cutter and this too drives me nuts. I'm thinking about putting a cover on the inner stay like are on the shrouds now. This way, the jib sheet will have less friction while trying to pull the sail through. Has anyone else ever done that? Would it help?  

Faster is absolutely correct. On a Cutter Rig, you have to backwind the jib when you come about you will find that jib pulls through more easily. So what this means is that your start to come about and do not release the jib. Instead allow the wind to blow the boat around. Just as you reach the point where you have completed the tack, release the sheet and winch it in on other side. It should pop right through.  

JR: A cover such as you describe would indeed solve the hangups during tacks, but wouldn't it interfere with the hanks on your staysail? If not, go ahead. A thought: Rather than buy the thin "turnbuckle covers", remove the stay and slide a 3 - 4 foot long piece of 2" black ABS pipe over it then reattach. It visually shows up less than a white cover, the longer length and larger diameter works even better. (you can clean off the factory markings with solvent or sand it off)  

Faster: It's true, I would have to remove the cover in order to use the staysail. Since I primarily just use the Main and the Jib, maybe a cover would work. But, I wouldn't want to have to do surgery to remove the cover in order to hank on the staysail when I DID want to use it. My inner stay is removable, but I have no place to put it once i remove it; so it's inconvenient and I tend not to remove it. It bangs around all over the place. I've tried lashing it down a hundred different ways, but the loose stay still bangs around along the length of the mast. This is why I've been considering a cover. Maybe someone could describe the best way to secure this beast and I could forget this silly cover idea.  

make it temporary JR: Maybe as a temporary trial you could take that piece of plastic pipe and slit it lengthwise, snap it on your stay, and tape it in place. See if that deals with your hangups, and take it from there. If it's temporary that might be good enough. Remove it on the rare occasions you use the staysail.  

I have found that after wrapping shroud covers (the slit type by Davis) over my inner forestay, my genoa doesn't hang up as much when tacking or jibing. I have this problem mostly in lighter winds, which sometimes requires furling the headsail partway with the control line, prior to winching in the leeward sheet. Since I solo-sail quite often and my winches aren't self-tailing, this is when I wish I had four arms.  

Rigging only offers a "storage plate" for your inner forestay when not attached. Never tried it, but might be worth a look.  

Imo... Welcome to cutters. A big jib really hangs up all the time, and I roll it up each time. Even then, the flailing lines still get caught up often. It must be difficult if you haven't got a roller.  

This is a constant problem on my cutter, so I roll in the genny as I come about. I have ha some people suggest recutting my headsail to a yankee, but of course that would leave much less sail. One other thing to try is to release your leeward sheet and tighten your windward sheet so that they meet at the inner stay. If your headsail is a jib and not a genoa it will carry through. It all depends on the proportions of the rig and timing. I have successfully done this on my cutter with a 135 genoa, but it seems that it was more luck than skill at work.  

You will find out that the operation is easier with the staysl raised. The Jib somehow uses the staysl to slide through after being backed up.  

While there are products on the market for stowing a released inner forestay, you could probably fabricate one yourself. If you will, picture a large (maybe 12" diameter) sheave clamped to a stanchion abeam of the mast. When the inner forestay is released from the deck it is brought back, wrapped around this radius and secured fairly tightly to the rail. If it's tight enough, it won't bang against the mast and will be aft of the forward lowers. Just make sure that the radius is big enough to prevent kinking the wire. You can procure a fast-pin to replace the bottom clevis of your turnbuckle so that with just a couple of turns you can release it. Truly, if you are not using your staysl that much, it will make it much easier if you just get it out of the way. Good Luck  

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Self tacking Staysail

Staysails are the smaller jib on a cutter. They are mounted to the inner forestay, which is the stay inboard of the headstay and attaches only partway up the mast. When tacking a cutter, you have the jib and staysail to sheet on each tack. This can become quite a chore when short tacking through narrow waterways.

To reduce the number of sheets that need to be adjusted, I have made the staysail self tacking. This lets me short tack up a narrow waterway, while only having to adjust the sheets of the jib (if I'm flying it). If it is a very narrow waterway, I will lower the jib and fly just the main and staysail, allowing me to short tack without having to adjust a single sheet. This lets me direct all of my focus to avoiding obstacles and other boat traffic while working to windward.

The reduced sail area does lower my speed, which is a good idea when sailing in crowded and cramped waters. If we were to collide with an obstacle, our slower speed will give us more time to react while lessening the damage of the collision. 

Self tacking staysails are nothing new, but most require very complicated systems and hardware to work properly. There are a few requirements that must be met for a headsail to self tack:

The sail can not overlap the mast The sheets must be free and clear of any deck hardware The sail needs a clew block to allow for trimming twist from the sail (optional but very helpful)

If the sail overlaps the mast, any self tacking hardware would hit the mast on each tack. It simply would not work.

The sheets need to be free and clear of any deck hardware to avoid them getting hung up on said hardware. Also, laying on hardware can cause stress points that will lead to chafe on the line.

Source: http://ipy.com/wp-content/themes/ipy/yacht-gallery/estero/estero-overview.jpg

Some common self tacking systems include the Hoyt Boom which is used on Island Packets to make their staysail self tacking.

Source: http://www.harken.com/uploadedImages/Tech_Corner/Systems/jib2.gif?n=4850

Booms are wonderful for sail control, which is why your mainsail has a boom under it. The problem with booms on the foredeck is they hurt when they smash into your shins! If your headsail is flogging around, so will the boom under it! The alternative is to negate the boom and instead mount a traveler on the foredeck ahead of the mast. 

All these extra parts, in the form of booms or traveler tracks cost a fair amount to have made and installed on your yacht. There must be an easier way?

There is! Simply installing a block on the clew will convert your staysail into a self tacking staysail. The block runs on a bridle which allows the sail to slip from side to side as you change your tacks. If you get hit by the block while the sail is flogging, it doesn't hurt that bad (as long as you use a light weight block). 

While this self tacking system is inexpensive, it is also less than perfect. The sail will have less than ideal sail shape while sailing to windward and significant twist when sailing off the wind. This is because the sail is sheeted onto a bridle. To help counteract the twist, I attach the block higher up on the clew block. This is effectively the same as moving the sheet blocks forward to apply more tension to the leech. 

The first version of this system involved my old staysail which had a clew cringle and a very heavy block. The bridle was sheeted to the toe rail, fixed at one point with the other end running back to the cockpit. The principle concept was there, but it needed a lot of tweaking to get to its current state.

The theory was: "As the sheet is eased, the bridle will loosen and the clew can rise and fall off the wind towards the leeward side. As the sheet is brought in, the bridle will tighten and the clew will stay more midship. As you tack, the block would slide along the bridle to fall onto the other tack. Sheet control was simply bridle tension, the sail would always fall towards the leeward side." This worked, but the lead angles were so wide that I was never able to point very high with it; I simply was unable to sheet it in all the way.  It was also a tripping hazard when walking forward on the deck. This led to the second version of the system.

The second version involved the new staysail which had a clew bock installed on it. The clew block allows for adjusting the lead angle on the sail instead of moving the lead blocks fore and aft. I also moved the bridle leads inboard to the staysail track. This version worked better to windward and I was able to remove some of the twist by attaching the block further up on the clew board. As you can see, the sail still cups at the clew and doesn't have the best of sail shape. For short tacking, this isn't such a big deal, but when on a long tack, this is lost efficiency.

This led to the third and current version of the self tacking staysail. The self tacking block is left attached to a higher hole on the clew block. On a lower hole, a standard sheet is attached to the staysail, allowing excellent sail trim and shape to be achieved on long tacks. The self tacker is also a very lightweight Carbo Harken block, further reducing the agony from getting hit by the block when the sail is flogging.

Development of the self tacker has finished, because I am pleased with where it has come to. While short tacking into or out of a harbor, I can set the self tacking sheet on the winch and work my way to windward. Once out of the harbor and into larger water ways, I can set the non-self tacking sheet on the winch and work my way towards my destination with perfect sail shape. 

While the self tacker is not perfect, it only cost me a few blocks (three to be exact) to rig and is easy to convert back to a regular sheeting system if I were to require it. This was very important to me since I heave to during storm conditions and a self tacker will not allow the sail to be backed. The simple act of switching the sheet on the winch is all that is required to convert from self tacking to regular sheeting.

I use this on my staysail, but if you have a sloop rig, you can use this on your non-overlapping headsail to convert your regular jib into a self tacking jib for short handed tacks.