Solent Stay?

[RichH]

Ummmmm
With all due respect to Brian Toss, his description (above) is for structural integrity of the mast, but is that its the resultant (variable) SAIL SHAPE thats THE most important consideration, regardless if the mast stay 'up' or not.
From the above quote, I'll betcha the farm that Brian Toss never sailed on a Solent rigged boat, at least not in winds over 25 knots. If he did then he never once looked at the constant varying in the SHAPE of the foresails with the 'interplay' of fore shroud tensions!!!!!! Only a sailmaker would instantly notice such.

[EO32]

Rich,

You make an interesting point. I have a cutter with dedicated running back stays for the forestay.

It seems that if the solent stay was a tad bit shorter, It could carry 100% of the fore load, thus keeping it balanced. That is sailing only with the solent stay sail.

When released, the jib stay would return to 100% of the load.

[mitiempo]

That is how I understand it too. The lever that attaches the solent (Hyfield type) can be adjusted for the proper tension to just take the load off the outer stay.

[dillybar]

The tension issue never crossed my mind. I suppose if the the original stays are designed to have a certain tension or stretch value then you could not just add one more stay on one side and not over tension/stretch the other. I suppose it all becomes moot if the back stay will safely stretch enough to allow the solent stay to fully tension? Eg. if the stays normally run 2% stretch and you then tension a solent to the point where the fore stay is unloaded completely the back stay would now be at roughly 4%.
In practice I think you would find that the actual number would be closer to 3% as the fore stay might retain 1% plus the solent at 2% to balance out 3% at the back. DISCLAIMER - I PULLED THESE NUMBERS OUT OF MY A*S AND NO CALCULATOR WAS USED IN THE MAKING OF THIS THEORY!

[Plumbean]

Originally Posted by dillybar

DISCLAIMER - I PULLED THESE NUMBERS OUT OF MY A*S AND NO CALCULATOR WAS USED IN THE MAKING OF THIS THEORY!

Glad you don't have one of those up there!