Staysail

Two-way movement on stay

Sheet Angle

Sheet inside shroud

Close to the wind

Tack shackled to stay

Jorge was right about the weather.  This turned out to be the coldest day that I've experienced since San Francisco.  Neither club had electric power for a couple of hours.  I used the gas stove for hot water and toast, but it was a reminder not to take the electric  jug, toaster, fan heater, and power outlets for the computers for granted.

After doing some Internet and shopping at the market I set to work on finishing the staysail project.  I dragged one of the jetty hoses to the boat and after topping up the boat's water tanks I gave the new deck fittings a heavy hosing and happily found them to be watertight.  That being assured I spent a couple of hours screwing the cabin ceiling panels in position.

Even though there were occasional showers I put up the staysail to check out the new fittings.  I actually wanted to get the sail wet because it hasn't been able to fully dry due to the salt spray during the Horn adventure.  Before nightfall I would hose it down and drop it on the deck overnight.

The prime task was to see how the sail set when using the new deck fittings for the sheet blocks.  The accompanying photos tell the story.  The shot from aft shows how the sheet now passes inside of the shrouds, instead of through the gap between the shrouds as before. This enables the sail to be sheeted closer to the wind. 

An important factor is the angle at which the sheet meets the clew.  I positioned the block after trial and error with the sail up, but I used the reinforcing strap at the clew as my guide.  The side shot show that the sheet lines up fairly well with the strap.

In the closeup of where the sail and stay are joined to the deck fitting you can see how the riggers fixed the stay with toggles going in two directions, which will allow more flexibility of movement of the stay, making life easier for the lower swage.

I also addressed a problem that I noted during my run to the Horn. Because the tack of the sail is on a wire strop that connects it to the deck fitting the lower part of the luff of the sail tended to draw away from the stay, ruining the shape of the lower 2 ft or so of the sail.  The side shot shows my simple solution: a shackle holding the tack to the stay. 

While I was finishing up we got a gentle shower of small pebbles of hail that bounced around the top of the boat.