Anyone with twin forestays?

[patrickstickler]

I'm planning on installing twin forestays to my 32' Westerly Berwick ketch (so I can keep two headsails hanked on and alternate easily, or fly both downwind) and am wondering if anyone has any experience with such a setup on a similar boat.

I plan to use a triangle plate at the masthead to balance the tension and space the stays about 5" apart. I'll also reverse the hanks on the 100% jib so that the release pins are always on the outer side to avoid the chance of them hanging up on the other stay. I'll only reverse the 100% jib hanks and always keep it on the same stay, since it will most likely be always hanked on and most used, complimentary to the genoa and smaller jib or storm jib on the other stay, depending on conditions.

Comments? Experiences? Suggestions?

[sailingdog]

IMHO, it isn't a great idea. Getting the tension correctly balanced between the two stays will be difficult. If the tension isn't right on the head stays, it will affect the sail shape.

Do you really sail downwind for long enough, often enough to really warrant possibly compromising your sail shape on other points of sail??

Also curious as to why you wouldn't want to go with roller furling nowadays? It has proven itself pretty reliable and gives you a fair bit of flexibility with regards to headsail size.

[RichH]

You will have to get all your jibs recut to operate on a forestay with HALF the expected tension, if you dont your boats 'pointing ability' will be seriously decreased.

A foresail, staysail, jib, genoa is typically cut and shaped to an "expected" forestay tension at about 15%. To do this the sailmaker, cuts a smooth curve away from the luff section so that the luff shape MATCHES the expected sag in the forestay (at when in 15kts of wind). This cut away curve is called - luff hollow.

By using TWO headstays and ONE backstay, each of the headstays will be operating at 15%/2 = 7.5% tension .... and the SAG in the stay when under sail pressure at 15 knots will be EXTREME .... your boat wont point, and instead will heel VERY aggressively and will SKID off to leeward which will cause the rudder (now going partly sideways in the water!!!) to feel like the boat has EXTREME weather helm.
This a common problem with boats who use solent stays, 'inner' forestays, cutter rigs with headstay/forestay combos, etc.

The ONLY way to overcome this is to arrange ONE of the 'forestays' to have 'easy and convenient' tension adjustment. Eg. a (Hyfield) Tension Lever or the tack of the shroud being somehow adjustable by a winch, etc. ... all 'claptrap' that can easily fail while underway.
Putting 30% tension on the backstay to create 15% tension in EACH forestay isnt a good idea either ... as when tensioned over 30% for long periods rigging will prematurely fail from 'fatigue'.

Rig tension is VERY important with regard the SHAPE of especially the FORESAILS, Having TWO forestays, or a headstay + forestay (cutter rig) will add a LOT of unneeded 'complexity' and requirement of constant rig tension adjustment, even while underway.

To keep things 'simple' why not have a new jib built with a stout super-high-tech synthetic luff bolt rope .... and simply hoist such a sail 'free-flying' (no hanks, no foil attachments, etc. etc. etc.,) and with NO NEED to constantly readjust rig tensions while sailing !!!!!!!!!!!!!! .... simple, uncomplicated, etc.

:-)

[johnnyandjebus]

Originally Posted by RichH

...

To keep things 'simple' why not have a new jib built with a stout super-high-tech synthetic luff bolt rope .... and simply hoist such a sail 'free-flying' (no hanks, no foil attachments, etc. etc. etc.,) and with NO NEED to constantly readjust rig tensions while sailing !!!!!!!!!!!!!! .... simple, uncomplicated, etc.

:-)

I hope I am not high jacking this thread too much but.
Rich the idea you mention above is interesting, what would be the advantage over hanking on two jibs onto the single fore-stay?

John

Edit: Sorry, I thought a bit about it after posting and at a minimum the idea above means you can control one jib(i.e lower) without impacting the other jib, what I should of asked was why twin fore-stays or the above idea over two hank on jibs on a single fore-stay? But that would really take the thread in a direction away from the OP's question.... So feel free to ignore my ramblings

[sailingdog]

I'm rather curious as to why the OP wanted twin headstays. I understand that redundancy is nice, and being able to hoist one without affecting the other head sail is a benefit...but there are so many downsides and sailing wing-on-wing with dual headsails really only benefits you on really long passages DDW.

[svHyLyte]

Twinstays were all the rage for a very short while in the early 70's, the theory being that one could swap out headsails very easily when necessary and one could fly twin head sails when running down wind. (Eric Hiscock was an advocate of such an arrangement in his "Crusing Under Sail" until he actually tried to effectuate the arrangement in Wanderer IV and realized the theory was better than the practice--from Eric's lips in Sausalito in 1971.)

As noted, in practice it didn't work very well. The subsequent evolution for down-wind running was a "twizzle rig" which involved two head sails sewn together along the luff and flown from a single headstay with opposing reaching poles (or whisker poles) although that arrangement proved pretty unsatisfactory as well.

Ultimately, what did work was a "Solent Rig" which involved two head stays one closely behind the other with a larger sail forward and a smaller, more manageble sail in heavy ari aft. For running in the trades, however, this twin head sail rig is still not particularly satisfactory. For that, the most satisfactory arrangement is matched twins tacked at either fore-quarter (so that there is a good space between their luffs) with reaching struts roughly 1/4th to 1/3rd of the way up the mast and the sails set with a dihedral angle--i.e. the leaches forward of the luffs. With this arrangement and the main stowed or hard-sheeted amidships, the yacht will track as if on rails without much roll and the helm free--no auto-pilot or vane required. With the sails on furlers--e.g. Facnor's--and the poles managed with topping lifts and foreguys, the sails can be adjusted to wind strength, even allowing running off in a gale.

FWIW...

[patrickstickler]

Originally Posted by sailingdog

I'm rather curious as to why the OP wanted twin headstays. I understand that redundancy is nice, and being able to hoist one without affecting the other head sail is a benefit...but there are so many downsides and sailing wing-on-wing with dual headsails really only benefits you on really long passages DDW.

Redundancy, easy switching between headsails, and downwind to the Carribean.

(if I were planning on just hanging around in coastal waters, I wouldn't bother)

Though given the useful feedback to my original question, I'm convinced that other options will be better.

[patrickstickler]

Originally Posted by johnnyandjebus

I hope I am not high jacking this thread too much but.
Rich the idea you mention above is interesting, what would be the advantage over hanking on two jibs onto the single fore-stay?

John

Edit: Sorry, I thought a bit about it after posting and at a minimum the idea above means you can control one jib(i.e lower) without impacting the other jib, what I should of asked was why twin fore-stays or the above idea over two hank on jibs on a single fore-stay? But that would really take the thread in a direction away from the OP's question.... So feel free to ignore my ramblings

Feel free to digress into any discussion leading off from my original inquiry. I'm interested in hearing the answer myself.

[patrickstickler]

Originally Posted by sailingdog

...

Also curious as to why you wouldn't want to go with roller furling nowadays? It has proven itself pretty reliable and gives you a fair bit of flexibility with regards to headsail size.

My long range goal is a circumnavigation (yeah, I know, big club that) and am setting the boat up as simply as possible.

I've had roller furling before, and was never much satisfied with it, apart from the convenience. And while there probably are versions that are reasonably reliable (and priced accordingly) mine was always a bit cantakerous and I wouldn't trust it in all conditions.

[CapTim]

I see that you've rather shelved the idea, but hey.. it's a fun mental game.

If you ran a wire sheave at the masthead, you could loop your stay through that and solve all the balancing/tension problems. You would need to strengthen your shrouds to keep the head from falling off in a breeze. Also, you'd need to add running backstays to counteract the increased forces generated by two headsails.

It's not the most simple way to accomplish the multiple headsail thing (dual-luff racing-type foils have been doing it for years now) but it's also maybe not terribly complicated, either. And you don't have to worry about the lazy sail just sliding out of the luff track!

You would have to try to decide between a swivel (weak point) vs shackle (could accelerate fatigue) where the sheave/block attaches to the masthead. Might be an appropriate use for one of the space-age polyfabulous fiber ropes.

Heck, you could even run the whole rig off it's own halyard. You'd be the only guy on the block with an adjustable headstay, I bet. Don't see much of that, do you?