Quote:
Originally Posted by RainDog
I just bought a PS34 (#142). It has all hank on sails. It came with a 135% genoa, staysail, storm staysail (54 sq feet), spinnaker, and one more sail.
The other sail is 20 ft along the luff and about 8 feet deep.. It has a 6 foot wire attached to the head. The top of the wire has a hank and a spliced eye. I am guessing this is a third staysail that is between the regular staysail and the 54 sq foot storm sail.
My questions:
- What is the purpose of the wire at the head? Seems like this would be dangerous trying to strike the sail in a blow.
- The luff of this sail is at least 26 feet. Is that too long for the staysail stay? It is possible it was designed to sail from the fore stay, but I cannot imagine a situation where you would want to fly a sail of this size from the fore stay. |
Hi. Congrats on your new boat!
It would seem odd to have three 'staysails and only one headsail (the 135 genny). So my hunch is that this is another headsail, i.e. flown off the headstay rather than the inner forestay.
This would yield a more balanced approach, allowing a second high-wind sail to fly off the headstay in combination with one of the two 'staysails. If I had to guess I would say that sail is a heavy air/storm
jib, because the dimensions seem too small to be a yankee or working jib. The 6' lead with a hank may have been necessary to avoid having such a long length of untethered halyard, which would likely flap/slap/wrap along the headstay.
Anyway, that's my best guess. My second best guess is that it could be a storm trysail.
P.S. Your second post above was not there when I started typing. I'm skeptical that it is intended to fly off the forestay, but maybe?