[Jeff_H]

I also own a fractionally rigged boat which does not require running backstays. My boat was sailed in from South Africa on her own bottom without them. I typically sail with a 110% jib except in the lightest breezes at which time I shift up to a 130% jib. The boat is fast and easy to handle on all points of sail. The following was a piece that I wrote for another purpose on this subject.....

Fractional vs. Masthead rigs

These terms both derive from the point at which the forestay hits the mast. On a masthead rig the forestay hits the mast at the masthead (top of the mast). Masthead rigs are far and away the more common of the two rigs. Historically cruising and racing boats were fractionally rigged. The Masthead rig came into popularity as a racing rule beating method for racing sailboats. Under the CCA and IOR racing rating rules, jib size was under penalized. This promoted small mainsails and big masthead jibs and spinackers.

On a fractional rig, the forestay hits the mast somewhere below the masthead (or a fraction of the overall height of the mast. It is not unusual to see fractional rigs referred to as a 2/3 (Folkboats), 3/4 (J-24) or 7/8th's (Triton) rig.

Each rig has it advantages and disadvantages. There are some big advantages to a fractional rig for cruising and racing. For cruising you are dealing with smaller and easier to handle headsails Not only are the headsails smaller because of the shorter headsails but, because the headsails represent a smaller percentage of the overall sail area, you often do not need to have overlapping jibs. The sail area is made up in the mainsail.

Fractional rigs often have purposely designed flexible masts and, when combined with a backstay adjuster permits quick, on the fly, depowering of both sails. Mainsails are easier to reef in a manner that results in an efficiently shaped sail for heavier conditions. It means that you don't have to take the expense, complication, maintenance and performance hit of a mainsail furler. Controlling mast bend you can often avoid reefing as the winds build. Roller furling genoas have notoriously poor shape when partially furled. The smaller jibs of a fractional rig rarely need reefing and when they do the fact that they are non-overlapping results in a better partially furled shape.

Masthead rigs have larger running sails and so can typically point closer to dead down wind. They are a little more forgiving. Because Fractional rigs permit such a large range of easy adjustment they can be trimmed through a range of adjustments that results in a bigger range of speed both slower or faster than a masthead rig of similar sail area. The limited adjustment of a masthead rig means that you more or less live with what you have. Therefore a masthead rig neither has the opportunity for going really faster and with less heel, or going much slower either.

My biggest problem with Masthead rigs is that you really need to carry more headsails and make more headsail changes. This is partially a function of the responsibility of the jib for drive. If you take a Fractional Rig 100% jib on a 28-footer it might be 150 s.f. and its 150% Genoa would be 225 square feet. But on a masthead rig 28 footer the 100% jib might be as much as 225 to 250 square feet and its 150% Genoa would be 337 S.F. to 375 s.f. That is a really big sail to manhandle and the when you increase a sail by 125 S.F. vs. only 75 s.f. there is a much smaller wind range that the bigger sail can be carried in so you might end up also carrying a number 2 Genoa as well as a working jib and a 150% #1 Genoa. With roller furling you end up sailing more frequently with (much less efficient) partially rolled up sails.

I strongly favor Fractional rigs for coastal sailing because the are so much easier to tack and jibe, you are not carrying around the big winches and as many large sails, and you are not subjecting the boat to the much higher loads of a masthead rig.

 

[Jeff_H]

A couple quick thoughts on Sasha's observations, masthead rigs generally emply stiffer spars because masthead rigs generally have significantly higher compression loads. This makes controlled mast bend more difficult. But also, even on masthead rig boats with bendy spars, generally it takes a pair of adjustments (babystay and backstay) to achieve the same level of bend achieved with a single backstay adjustment on a fractional rig.

Babystays generally make tacking more difficult since you need to drag the genoa around a stay that is out in front of the mast. This usually is not a problem when racing with crew, but is a nuisance when single-handing.

While I don't know the specifics of Sasha's boat, in a general sense, if a masthead rig boat is able to carry its #1 in breezes up to 25-28 knots, in most cases that boat would be way undercanvassed in moderate to light conditions.

For offshore work, especially on smaller boats, I really like the idea of a hanked on jib with a downhaul, and netting on the forward lifelines, which allows the sail to be doused from the cockpit.

Respectfully,
Jeff

 

[Jeff_H]

Chef2sail, I don't know who you are racing, but at least at high level racing, and in the more casual environment of cruising, masthead rigs really do not point any higher than fractional rigs. What you may be mistaking is the fact that fractional rigs tend to be used on more modern hullforms than the C&C 35 and with a modern hullform the fastest VMG's are achieved by turning down a couple degrees from the direction held by older hulls. In reality, a similar length and sail area fractional rig will typically will point and foot with a masthead rig.

Jeff

 

[Jeff_H]

Chef2sail:
First of all I hope that you can accept my humble apology. I am sorry that my earlier post came off as being a put down. I in no way intended it that way.

What I did intend to say in abreviated form in the perhaps poorly written sentence in question was three separate points.

1. The sailing qualities and pointing ability of fractionally rigged boats can vary quite widely, just as on masthead boats, and without knowing what specific boats your are racing, its hard for me to comment on their sailing relative abilities.

2. At least at the higher levels of racing, masthead rig boats do not point any higher than fractionally rigged boats, which is partially why so many modern grand prix level race boats are fractionally rigged.

3. In most cruising applications, masthead rigged boats do not point higher or have a better VMG than a comparable masthead rigged boat.

My other point that I intended to make during my post is that the difference in pointing angle that you have observed may not be the result of the differences between fractional and masthead rigs but may be the result of other factors. More specifically, hull and keel form and that fact that the fastest way to sail any particular boat upwind typically varies with the boat's hull and keel typeform as well as rig.

Modern hullforms can have big VMG gains by footing off slightly due to potentially significantly higher speeds through the water and reduced leeway. These kind of boat speed gains when footing a few degrees are less dramatic on older hull and keel designs, such as your C&C 35, and so their best VMG may occur by sailing a few degrees higher than a more modern boat. Different courses for different horses.

Respectfully,
Jeff

 

[Jeff_H]

In many ways, for the kind of sailing that most of us do, the cutter rig is the worst of all worlds. At the heart of it, it is the hardest rig of the single mast rigs to shift gears. Beyond that it requires the most complex rigging layout. Proportioned to actually act as a cutter rig, it is the least efficient sail plan meaning that you need to carry a lot more sail area in order to achieve the same drive as a fractionally rigged sloop, and that increased sail area means more work to sail and more hardware, and a lot more cost to maintain.

To be frank, at least here on the US east coast, most of us spend the majority of our time sailing in a wind range between 8 to 20. The kinds of gear shifting that we end up doing is a far finer tuning than a cutter rig is easily capable of. The intermediate stay and the proportions of the headsails to mainsail make a very limited gear shifting capacity, for the most part, with shortening sail the primary viable option at the upper end of the range.

But my biggest gripe with Cutters has to do with the way boats behaive as the wind nears the upper end of its standing sail plan's wind range. Most boats develop weather helm as windspeeds increase due to a variety of factors, heeling, sail stretch and rig sag being some big factors. At the upper end of the windrange, you end up having to reduce sail rather than depower as you would with a fractional rig. The standard regime is to reduce headsail size or completely furl the headstaysail (Genoa or yankee), but because the headstay sail is so far forward, that simply adds to the weather helm, which means that you need to reduce mainsail area as well. In other words, as typically configured, cutter rigs lack the smaller incremental stages typically associated with more modern rigs.

Respectfully,

Jeff

 

[Jeff_H]

When was that written?

 

[Jeff_H]

Bob,

"Equally clear is the reason for its popularity: it's simple and uncomplicated."

That strikes me as a very strange statement. There is nothing simplier about a masthead rig than a fractional rig. Arguably with a masthead rig's need for forward lower shrouds a fractional rig is actually simplier to build, maintain and tune.

I also disagree that the masthead rig is the most popular rig being produced today. If you look at the majority of new sloop rigged being produced at this time, fractional rigs are far and away more common. The one thing that has prevented a bigger switch to fractional rigs is the popularity of inmast furling which is a bit harder to do on a fractional rig, although Hunter, Beneteau, Hanse, Tartan and Bavaria have found a way to make it work.

Jeff

 

[Jeff_H]

Bob,

I saw that it was a quote, but simply because it is a quote doesn't make it right, at least without some kind of context. On the face of it it runs counter to any reality that I know of. It would be helpful to the discussion if you can perhaps provide a synopsis of where Peter Hahne's coming from.

Respectfully,
Jeff

 

[Jeff_H]

Thanks Bob, the additional quotes give me a sense of where Hahne is coming from. Which isn't to say that I aree with him. I think his quote predate advances in rig design and the typical increased complexity of a modern masthead rig somwhat antiquate that poistion.

I would agree that designing a modern fractional rig is a bit more complex but the result of a good design is a fractional rig that is easier to tune and sail than masthead, which is why these days the majority of modern designs have fractional rigs. For that matter, historically the majority of rigs were fractional rigs before the racing rules of the late 1950's changed that.

There are couple things that have happened since the late 1990's that have also somewhat reduced the complexity of designing a fractional rig relative to a masthead rig. Since that time almost all manufacturers of modern boats have gone to multiple spreader rigs and tapered rigs whether a frac of masthead. Computer aided design programs for spar design and for sail shaping have become better and become the norm. Sailmakers have learned how to design sails for the higher headstay sag and mast bend typical of a fractional rig.

These days most leading edge raceboats and high quality coastal cruisers. as well as many offshore cruisers have fractional rigs, and few of these have running backstays. And with better computer designed sails, little if any performance is sacrificed on these running backstay less fractional riggers.

Respectfully,
Jeff

 

[Jeff_H]

Hi.
I sail a 30ft sailboat with a 3/4 rig mast, always alone.
The main sail is big, I'm the first sailboat to take curls and avoid be oversailed.

Yes, tacking involves changing runners every time. The difference with a masthead rigged mast, is that a tack takes two more operations ( take lazy runner , release working runner). If the rigging specialist allows to change to 9/10 it will make easier to sail, and more pleasant for cruising.

This is a very old thread, I will note that virtually no modern fractional rigged boats use running backstays. Instead they use raked spreaders. On modern fractional rigged designs(25-30 or so years old), the only time that running backstays are used are when a storm jib is employed on a separate stay, and even then that may not be necessary depending on the rig geometry. The limited use of running backstays on a fractional rig when using a storm jib, pretty much the same as they are used on a masthead rig using a storm jib.

Jeff