Posted by goldbdan (goldbdan@…>)
Hey there Lance. Hope you’re doing well. We have a roller furling
jib on F45. I’m toying with the ATN Gale Sail (hanks on “around” a
furled sail). It’s just that because there’s never any tension on
the headstay on these boats, it seems to me that the sole benefit of
a storm jib is that it’s small and made of heavy fabric. Frankly, my
roller furling jib meets that criteria already (which is not so hot
on light wind days, but I guess that’s what the asymetrical is for).
Likewise, we have an in-boom furling mainsail (yeah, we’re lazy), so
we can reef down infinitely from the cockpit. The main benefit of
the trysail would be heavy material and that it’s off the boom. That
actually might make more sense than a storm jib, but you identified
the key issue; absent also installing a separate track, actually
using a trysail will not be so easy, though it would be easier on
ours than yours because we can just roll up the main and the track
then is wide open (no need to remove mainsail slides from a track to
make way for the trysail).
Anyway, I’m curious if anyone’s actually used storm sails on this
boat, even just to practice. I can’t seem to find anyone who has.
DG
— In FreedomOwnersGroup@yahoogroups.com, “lance_ryley”
<lance_ryley@…> wrote:
Hi DG,
if your 45 is the standard rig with the camberspar, I’m not sure if
a
storm jib would be much use to you. Even with the standard jib
down,
it’d be difficult to get the storm jib on above it.
The 45 is a little odd regarding storm sails in my opinion. First,
there is the aforementioned limitation on getting the standard jib
down
or off (which isn’t trivial with the camberspar). Also, the boom is
so
high that trying to put a trysail on the track would be very
difficult
to get on, especially if you waited until you really needed one.
This
is because to reach above the main, you have to climb the 4 steps
on
the front of the mast, and I can’t imagine doing that in a seaway.
The good thing is that the 45 is essentially a catboat with a jib,
primarily main driven, and not easily overpowered. We’ve been
caught
out in 30+ with full main and been able to maintain control
(although
it was certainly more manageable once the first reef in.
Our 45 has two reef points, and by ‘design’ they are both supposed
to
be single-line reefing. I don’t know if the main we have has deeper
reefs than the originally designed main, but I do know that the
single-
line reefing works great on the first reef and is absolutely not
possible on the second reef. This spring, we’ll be switching the
second
reef to two lines (which also means adding another rope clutch). If
I
were going to go offshore in a serious way, I’d probably add a
third
reef (and two more rope clutches to handle it) or just have a main
built with two very deep reefs.)
One possibility for a storm jib would be to have a small jib with a
wire luff that you could rig on the second halyard and tack to the
deck. Drop the camberspar to the deck and lash it down securely and
you’d have a good platform for the storm jib. The other, most
expensive
option (which I consider when I forget that money is, in fact, an
object) would be to replace the camberspar jib with a roller-
furler.
Replace the camberspar with a hoyt jib-boom, and then you have some
options in terms of how much sail area to have deployed.
Lance
F45 “Glory”
— In FreedomOwnersGroup@yahoogroups.com, “goldbdan” <goldbdan@>
wrote:
Anyone know a loft that has made them? Or whether they are
useful at
all, considering the freestanding rig? I have a hard time seeing
how
a
storm jib would work well, but obviously I could be wrong (and
probably
am).
DG