Sail Slides and Jackline Question

[bwytodd]

He's clipped it, but it hasn't moved, still stuck, got to find out why, then everything will be OK. Like many people Al has to use significant halyard tension to straighten the sail out, it should take VERY little halyard tension (no winching) in light to moderate wind. I have already eased the luff rope on my 2005 (early) demo 26 M by about 2", made a huge improvement in sail shape.

On some race sails we have had on boats we previously campaigned, (Schock 35, Mac 36 Cat, etc.) the sails were made with as much as 10" of extra luff rope hanging out the bottom of the sail to allow for future adjustment, it is a HUGE deal.

[Bill at BOATS 4 SAIL]

On a sailboat, especially a cruising sailboat, I think the main considerations should be safety, safety, and everything else, with comfort and cost somewhere down the list.

[ALX357]

OK, i'm back.....
from Sturgis, SD. working photographing bikers.... awful noise.
....anyway, the whole jackline issue was on the back burner for that interlude, but ...."to be continued..."
As it stands, Todd thinks my sail needs its rope freed, ....( more )..., and can't believe it is really cut at a complete 45-degree angle.
He sent me a photo of his demo boat's sail and jackline set-up, with a much shallower cut, almost straight luff, but still pulling on the boom aft of the gooseneck.
THE FOLLOWING PHOTOS ARE OF THE BWY DEMONSTRATOR BOAT'S SAIL



I'm going to send him a photo of my sail asap, when it stops raining and i have time to lay the sail out relaxed in the grass.
As some of you have hinted, or straight-out stated, it just doesn't seem right, the tension on the boom aft of the gooseneck, and i am pursuing the sail issue with BWY until i reach a satisfactory end or an impasse. The statement that it has been done to hundreds of boats without complaint puzzles me, and Todd allowed that it is not techincally correct, would not do for a racing boat, but that it is ok for the Mac's.
For the no-complaint thing, I think that if anyone knowledgable really saw the system illustrated fully, they would have avoided it and thus - no complaints from them. Those that were set-up that way without any prior (analytical) sailing experience might not have known any better, and apparently do not see a problem either in principle or practice. I think it will always bother me, and my provisional or temporary solution, as also suggested by some of you, was to add hardware that ensured that the luff tension was maintained via a connection at the tack primarily to the mast, not the boom.

[ALX357]

this may be "beating a dead horse", but it's still my night-mare so here is some more.
it's really not that bad ....
As Todd insisted, my luff bolt-rope rope still had a long way to go. Even with the full halyard tension from the winch, the new BWY jacklines were preventing the luff from stretching fully, and the bolt-rope sleeve was wrinkled from the compression.
SO i laid the sail out, boom attached, on the ground and AFTER untying the jacklines, i then tied the head of the sail to a tree, so i could stretch the sail's bolt-rope sleeve.

Pulling hard on the tack and alternately "milking" the sleeve along its entire length downwards , i finally managed to get the shrunken bolt-rope to recede another 5 inches up into the sleeve, for a total of 6-1/2 inches of stretch/shrink.

The sail looks more relaxed now, as Todd insisted it would. That's good.

The tack corner is still close to a 45 degree cut-off, even after the bolt-rope receded, and the sail is relaxed. I think that is radically too much a slice off. That is bad.

Compare the above photo of my sail to the photo below of the BWY demonstrator boat's sail.

Looks alot different to me, - the BWY sail seems almost alright.
BUT STILL, Halyard tension should not be pulling against the boom aft the gooseneck as mentioned several times before, and the sail should not have this tension transferred thru it on the bias and out of line of the boltrope.
The boom's shackle tack-point is in the right place for the relaxed sail, as determined by the lateral distance of the sail's lower tack grommet re. the new alignment of the bolt rope back from the mast.
this is getting old......
anyway i will email these photos to Todd and see what he offers to do about the sail.

[Bobby T.-26X #4767]

Actually, I like the progress that you are making.
Personally, I would move the boom attachment point aft to accomodate for the excess degree that has been cut in the main.
Based on what I see from the pics, that may work fine.

[mike uk]

Keep posting - it's very educational.

It's the beauty of discussion boards - unlike sitting in a classroom - those who want to listen can, whilst those who already know, or who are bored can read something else.

[Frank C]

... I have already eased the luff rope on my 2005 (early) demo 26 M by about 2", made a huge improvement in sail shape.

On some race sails we have had on boats we previously campaigned, (Schock 35, Mac 36 Cat, etc.) the sails were made with as much as 10" of extra luff rope hanging out the bottom of the sail to allow for future adjustment, it is a HUGE deal.

Pardon my ignorance, but this seems braindead from my perspective. Since the average sail would be priced at $800, or possibly double for a racing sail, can't a loft choose an appropriate line for the luff ???

Nobody's surprised these days to choose among high-tech ropes that either stretch for anchoring, or completely reject any stretch - to the point they can replace wire rigging.

Can't a sailmaker choose 25 feet of high-tech line that's appropriate to the task ???
This is totally ridiculous!

[Kenoten]

On my 97..the corner of the sail isn't connected to the boom...but to the connection closer to the mast. It seems that could eliminated some of the gap.

[ALX357]

on this sail before it was cut at the corner, and before the slides were put on, the original connection at the tack was at the top of the stainless steel gooseneck fitting which is tightly riveted to the mast, to match the proper distance when the bolt-rope in inside the mast-groove. But if you have a sail-slides, the tack corner will be aft of its previous location by a couple of inches and cannot be attached as before without causing some wrinkling/distortion of the sail.
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QUESTION FOR SAIL SLIDE/SLUG SAIL-OWNERS
With the numerous others of you that DO HAVE sail slides, just WHERE / HOW is this solved ??, WHERE does the uncut sail with the original 90-degree angle get its tack attached.

PLEASE POST PHOTOS WHEN AT ALL POSSIBLE lets get some perspective here..........

[Chip Hindes]

WHERE does the uncut sail with the original 90-degree angle get its tack attached.

Mine's attached to the U-bracket/ bolt which secures the gooseneck, same as the original.

Mine was ordered and came on the new boat ('01X) with sail slides, so I can't say what the original may have looked like or how it was accomplished. My suspicion is that sail slides on a new boat are not a "factory" mod, but done by a contractor to the dealer (the original Havencraft), and that the mod consisted simply of adding the slides to a stock sail, without any further modification to the tack.

Adding sail slugs while retaining the original tack and attachment point results in the tack attachment being about 1 or 1 1/2" closer to the mast than it ought to be to retain the original sail shape, but I have to say in the overall scheme of things, that's not a major concern; sail shape on mine looks reasonably good and certainly way better than the butcher job which was done on ALX's sail. I do have to stretch the luff quite tight to remove the radial wrinkles, and as I've stated on previous threads, with my halyard led aft, there's no way to get it tight enough pulling it up by hand, without the winch.

I'm otherwise disposed for the next few weeks, won't be sailing and therefore can't provide pictures.

[DLT]

Mine is the same way, attached at the orignial attachment point.

Yes, this is too close to the mast to be perfect when slugs have been added. But, I haven't fixed it yet.

With that said, after thinking about it for a sec, it seems like a real easy fix to just buy a small SST shackle at Home Depot, attach that shackle to the sail's tack ring, and secure the shackle at the original attachment point. That would give you the little extra offset needed...

[Frank C]

QUESTION FOR SAIL SLIDE/SLUG SAIL-OWNERS
With the numerous others of you that DO HAVE sail slides, just WHERE / HOW is this solved ??, WHERE does the uncut sail with the original 90-degree angle get its tack attached.

Sorry Al, no pix today but my answer is identical to Chip's. Yes, the original tack ring is about an inch too close to the mast, and Yes, that causes a very minor wrinkle at sail's bottom corner. My mainsail was slugged by Pineapple Sails in San Francisco, and they DO NOT cut the tack ring, or modify the tack in any way.

DLT makes an excellent point, if I was at all concerned about the one-inch delta (NOT) , a shackle could correct for it. Fact is, I don't even bother to attach the tack ring into the U-clamp, rather just hook it onto the reefing hook.

Reviewing your pix again Al, I would not use that first grommet to take tension of the halyard. It's not reinforced at all. The halyard tension belongs on the tack ring, and IMO, on the mast.

[Moe]

We also attach the tack to the factory gooseneck fitting with no problems. There might be a minor wrinkle because of that, but I've never noticed. I guess if I was trying to be a perfectionist, I'd use a Twisted-D shackle to attach the tack ring to the original bolt.

Now that I see the forward end of the boom better, it appears to me the tack may have been hacked off for clearance by whoever installed those bails on the forward end. Was that shackle for the tack in the boom when you bought the boat?

[ALX357]

The shackle held by a pin thru the boom at the lower/aft tack point was installed by me AS INSTRUCTED BY BWY as a necessary part of their slide modifications to the sail. I placed it where they said, and where it naturally had to be to maintain flat sail shape after the sail came back to me cut at the tack like it is now. Long ago when i first bought the boat i put the lower bail on the boom using the same holes that originally had rivets thru the boom casting. I wanted an attachment point for the bungee and strap sail tie thingy i already had from a previous boat, without drilling any new holes.
Then after the sail mod from BWY, i put the other one on the upper side of the boom using the same bolt as the lower bail was on, to provide a tie off for the fore-reefing line origin, and a turning fairlead for the line on the other side after it came back down from the reef kringle, heading for the cleat on the boom over the cockpit where i can haul the reef-tack line. That works fine, actually used it when sailing, the front upper boom bail doing double duty replacing an eye on one side of the boom, and the turning fairlead on the other side. ( for the aft reef line, i attached a line to the eye on the boom's aft portside, and led the line up thru the aft reef grommet or kringle, and then down to where i attached a "EYE-NUT" or whatever you call it, a piece of marine hardware that is a SS ring with a base and a hole in it threaded 1/4-20, fits onto the end of the boom bail bolt to starboard, and the reefing line threads thru it then goes forward to a cleat on the starboard side of the boom. it is tightened onto the bolt after the nyloc nut, just jammed to it, and though it could be thought to easily loosen off, the bolt would rather turn in the boom and bail as it can freely, as well as being trapped in position by the line thru it when under tension. In the following photo, the line is looping around the cleat wrong;; in use it would just go to the eye straight down and then forward to that cleat. Again, i avoided new holes, since i was experimenting with the two-line reef system, and that worked fine while acutally sailing, as the aft line for reefing, pulling the clew aft as an outhaul and down to the boom. it is really easier to do than it is to write about.

The other line in the pic is the usual outhaul line, just loosened and uncleated. On the other side of the boom is a nifty outhaul device installed by a PO, which provides in a small casing several turns of fixed sheeves and cammed sheeves to give an easily pulled but powerful final adjustment of outhaul tension.