Forestay tension

[spikeandco]

We are fairly new owners of a BR20 and noticed the last time we sailed her that the forestay seemed quite slack. There was a definite wobble to be seen. How tight should it be? We loosened the jib halyard and this improved the tension a bit but there is still movement. Any advice would be much appreciated.

[Graham W]

It sounds like you have a conventional jib (not self tacking) with a separate forestay ahead of that, attached to a short bowsprit.  Is that correct?  If so, I’m sure that others will be along shortly to offer advice.

[spikeandco]

Dear Graham,

Yes, that's right. The jib is conventional with a short bowsprit.

[Peter Cockerton]

I have a BR20 with conventional jib, short bowsprit and a CF one piece mast.
When built the halyard connected to a 4:1 block system before attaching to the head of the sail to aid luff tensioning, I guess your boat is similarly built.
So if you think about it the forestay will always become slack as you tension the halyard due to the mechanical advantage when tensioning the jib.
The trick is I believe to have a nice tension on the forestay when the jib luff is not tensioned, so minimal slack is introduced when the jib is tensioned, that way the slack forestay does not interfere with the jib when rolling it out or furling it away.
My method is to have the jib tensioned sufficiently to remove the sag in the luff of the sail, have the forestay length so that the shackle can be attached to the eye on the bowsprit when pulling hard on the forestay.
Finish tensioning the jib to achieve a taught luff of the jib and I find then that the slack on the forestay is kept to a minimum but it will always be there.
I normally leave my boat rigged on the hard at my local reservoir so minimal preparation left to do before I can sail, but I do drop the jib and tuck it away under the cover to keep the weather from getting at it, the forestay quite obviously then takes over the role of keeping the mast up and at that point the forestay and standing rigging is nicely taught.
I have however removed the inline 4:1 block system from the head of the jib because the amount of length of halyard to keep tidy in the boat when the jib is tensioned is to much for me its several mtrs. Matt also offered another solution which keeps the length of the halyard down to a more manageable length, this is by having a loop in the halyard at a height where a 4:1 handy billy could be attached. I have had to implement a different approach due to my jib having an Aeroluff spar fitted in the jib so i can reef the jib if required.

Trust this makes sense and helps

Peterc

[spikeandco]

Dear Peter,

That's great, thanks so much for all the advice- it makes perfect sense! We are going to adopt your idea of stowing the jib when on out mooring. Matt has adapted the rig as we have the looped halyard as you describe so there isn't quite so much rope to tidy away.

Many thanks again and happy sailing!

[MarkDarley]

Peter,
It sounds like you have an aeroluff overlapping conventional jib with no jib boom.  I would be very interested to see how this is set up especially on the bow and with jib sheet leads.

I have just ordered a new set of sails with aeroluffed boomed jib for cruising, but I am considering also ordering a conventional overlapping jib to increase windward pointing when racing.

Does your jib tack fix to the stem, or to the end of your short bowsprit?  I am concerned about moving the whole sail area aft and introducing weather helm if I give up the boomed jib and the way it sits further forward.

I imagine I will also have to add a forestay to which I will hank the new overlapping......

[Peter Cockerton]

Mark

I have been looking for images I took for Graham showing jib sheeting arrangement on my BR20 but not found yet, the boat does have a short bowsprit which supports jib, and forestay. The jib sheets are first routed via a track and car system and then down the side decks to a larger than normal cheek block to perform the turn into the rowlock moulding and then to a larger than normal cam cleat.

My larger than standard jib is fitted with an AeroLuff spar which supports reefing, I have found this very useful in strong wind condition especially under jib an mizzen sail set, when tacking the jib can cause the bow to blow off until forward momentum restored, so I reef the jib.

If images still useful I will take some more when I’m next at the boat

Peter C

[Graham W]

This? https://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/smf/index.php/topic,2000.msg13279.html#msg13279