New(to me) boat rigging question

[Yankee22]

The cal 39 I just bought is cutter rigged and has a genoa and staysail. The problem, at least I think, is that there is only one set of winches in the cockpit. How do I control my staysail sheets?

[Faster]

Pictures would be good... usually staysails sheet to a self tacking track or boom and don't necessarily need cockpit winches like the headsail would.

Otherwise I guess you can only ever sail wing-on-wing!

[RedtheBear]

I sail a cutter rig myself and I didn't like the self tacking set up and went to a fully free staysail. I have 4 lever locks that I run my sheets through. I can use my winch(s) to work either sheet on both sides, lock it in place and then clear the winch of the tail and then work the other. I admit that my boat is much smaller(26') than your 39 but they do make some hefty lever locks that would handle your sheet loads and you can aways back them up with cleats so that your load on the lock would only be momentary. I can see the situation where the loads could quite large but I am probably reduced down by then so I'm not loading them then.
Positioning the locks was a bit of a head scratcher till I thought of a sliding turning block setup similar to that on the jib sheets on Hobie Cats. This is also similar to many main sheet leads on larger boats. Remember to keep the lead to your wench fair to the wench take up. It was a tight fit up on my top but it works. I know, more lines, more blocks; money, money, money. Maybe that's why I sail small.

[Argyle38]

Argyle has a club footed staysail with 4:1 block with the sheet led back to the cabin top. There is a small winch there, but I find I very rarely need it. The staysail is relatively small so unless it's pretty high wind (I mean < 35 kts or so) I don't even use the winch.



Putting a winch in place to control the staysail might come in useful sometimes, but most of the time it just won't be needed.

[sailingfool]

I'd be surprised if your Cal actually has a staysail setyp. Could be...but much more likely the PO setup an inner forestay for flying a storm jib. Do you actually have a moderate weight full hoist staysail in your inventory, not be be confused with a storm jib?