I asked the marina to fix my new sail while I was awake, and when I came back, I saw this configuration. What do you think? Is this right? My previous sail had ropes.
Siva
‘Inner Peace’ NS26C
Jersey City
A twisted shackle would save a little room or even a shorter shackle off the sail… but it will work.
I attached mine with a soft shackle. Some others lash it, but I think soft shackle is easier to do.
Don
Many Nonsuch owners over the years evolved to lashing the clew to the wishbone with many wraps of a lighter line. This makes it easy to cut it with a knife in case of emergency…like if for some reason you couldn’t drop the sail due to jammed halyard during a gale. Harder to cut a high tech soft shackle; and gentler on the wishbone than wear and tear and corrosion from ss/aluminum combination tackle. For the strategy to work it’s a good idea to have a good sharp knife in a sheath strapped to the binnacle
Hi Siva,
This will work as far as attaching the clew to the boom with the eye in the correct orientation. A single shackle would cause the clew eye to be twisted 90 degrees. As RonB said, you can get a twisted shackle to use here which would achieve the same result, but would hold the clew closer to the attachment point on the boom. That’s what I use. It works fine so long as you don’t drop the pin into the water when connecting it.
My friend was helping me and did that just a couple of weeks ago. I went into the sailing store and held up the shackle without saying anything. The person behind the counter just asked “Wichard?” I said “yeah”. She pulled open the drawer right next to the counter and pulled out a new pin. I said “sell a lot of them?” She said “yeah”. 
Anyway, sorry. Uh, the thing is, your boom needs to swing far enough aft to be able to flatten the sail when you haul in the choker. Most non-Nonsuch “sloop-professionals” do not understand this, which might be why they thought this setup is just fine: it works in the moment, anyway. If the choker can flatten the sail with this stretched out set of shackles, then it will probably work fine as it is. If not, then you should replace it with something shorter. Either a twisted shackle if you’re into heavy metal or a soft shackle if you’re a modern, high-tech, AI kind-of-a-guy.
If you do use the soft shackle, then make sure there are no sharp edges on the attachment hole on the boom. Otherwise it might cut through at a bad moment.
Agree. Another thing you can do is make a chafe guard for the section of shackle that goes through the attachment hole. One way to do that is to find some spare piece of line that has an outer cover, strip off a bit of that cover, and work it over the shackle line. (This is probably easiest as a step in making your own, rather than trying to get it onto an already-made soft shackle.)
The hard shackles I like best use threaded bolts and have threads on both sides of the shackle. That way you can unscrew them just enough to get over whatever you’re attaching them to, but are still kept by the shackle.
I use that method and position some ChafePro tubing underneath the wraps to minimize contact with any rough edges on the boom end.
-- Bob
The best thing to do, as someone has already suggested, is to use multiple wrapping of a light line which can be cut as opposed to a hard shackle
Not disagreeing at all, just trying to learn: why is that better? I am getting a new sail soon and would like to do the best job of setting it up that I can.
Yes, not to go off topic, but why is lashing with conventional poly/nylon line better than a stainless steel or soft shackle? I raced for over 40 years on 34’-50’ boats and the mainsail clew was usually attached with a shackle. I don’t recall ever considering having to disconnect the clew. What is different on a Nonsuch that might require an emergency disconnection of the sail at the clew?
I can come up with scenarios where needing to cut the sail clew connection might occur, but I’m not sure how likely they are for most of us. The points about risk of injury in the process are also worth considering.
I think the stronger argument for lashings is the adjustability.
A few years ago, there was a thread about the fore-and-aft positioning of the boom where several people were talking about having tuned it to where the boom locked against the mast just as the sail reached maximum flatness. What they liked about it was the ability it gave them to keep the boom from banging on the mast when motoring in rough seas. I’m not personally in agreement with doing that, but it’s not unreasonable. Being able to fiddle with your attachment length is helpful.
Same thing for rigging up the sail in general. Even though I don’t want the boom to reach the mast, I like that I can use the choker to position the boom where I do want it and then use the purchase of a multi-part lashing to draw the sail into an appropriate position.
-- Bob
Brian,
Regarding maximizing the value of your new sail, with a big unknown (like a new sail) I like to start by understanding and confirming the basics. Eventually the method of clew attachment needs to be decided, look at the big stuff first.
BTW, I envy the fun you are about to have with your new sail.
The steps I followed with each new main are :
- Make a date… with someone who really know sails. Preferably your sailmaker or one of their deputies. Resist the temptation to “give it a whirl” before getting it dialed in.
- Unpack it and note any defects. New sails often have minor defects, especially in their “special places” … head, tack, clew, reefing points, and batten pockets. Now is a good time to add telltales if the sail didn’t come with them.
- Lay the new sail on top of the old and note differences. Different can be good or bad… but knowing gives you insight into where to look if things aren’t “right” when you hoist.
- First observe where the two clews lay, if they are different, the angle of the boom will be different when the sail is hoisted. Maybe in a good way, maybe in a bad way.
- Next compare the foot, which on a Nonsuch I imagine would be the distance from the tack to the clew. If different the ideal distance between the outer wishbone and clew will be different or the choker will be needed to compensate. BTW definitely use a lashing the first time you hoist the new sail to make adjustments easy.
- Next compare the length of the luff. If different you will need to make a new hoist mark on your halyard. Hopefully it’s not longer, a long luff means you might not be able to properly tension the luff as the sail “relaxes” as it ages.
- Check the reef points. If they don’t line up right you might not be able to properly reef. Again there is a 50-50 chance that different is better or worse. I’ve read that Botts specified very different reef points that benefitted both sail handling and balance. Unfortunately I’ve not been able to see the differences myself.
- Now store the dimension differences in your head or a cheat sheet… and give it a whirl with your sail expert helping to interpret observations and propose trim changes.
- Ideally when you hoist the new sail it will be perfect. No puckers or wrinkles. Tell tales all break at about the same time. Easy to adjust draft through the full range with just the choker without any abnormal wrinkles. Be critical now, with my one design experience I used to think I’d have to live with any problems for 2-3 year before I’d get a new sail… now with Soave, I realize it’s more like 10-15 years.
As I said, I envy you. Enjoy breaking in your new sail !
Rob…
That sounds like way to much fun for me. I hope I can minimize it. 
The sailmaker is the local Doyle guy. He is one of those super sailors. Not only does he make sails for some big names that racing enthusiasts would recognize, he flies all over the world to race as the tactician on their boats. It took some convincing, but I took him out for sail. The point was to familiarize him with a type of rig that he’d never seen. And it was a very new experience for him. In fact, he told his wife about it and she wanted to know why they own an uncomfortable and unpleasant racing boat and not a Nonsuch. So he will be helping put the new sail on and then once we’re happy with the fit, he and his wife (the “snacktitian”) and my wife will go out for a sail with me.
After our sail I took the sail and sail cover in to his loft. He confirmed that it is a Botts sail and that Doyle still has the original record and plans for my actual sail. He then laid out mine and measured it both to confirm they have the correct plans and to measure how much it has stretched over the 29 years. My StackPack was also customized to work as a system with my sail and they still have the plans for it, too.
He then returned it and helped mount it back on the boat so he could understand how that all works. He will be integrating the new two - sail and cover - in his loft and will help me mount them on the boat and test it out.
I know that things can still go wrong, but we’re trying hard to minimize them. I’m still on the prostate cancer drug that has robbed me of half my muscle mass and three quarters of my energy, so I’m counting on him to get it or make it right. Cross your fingers!
I may need his name in the future ( after the new battery bank and folding prop).
Sounds like you made a fantastic connection AND most importantly he has taken an interest in understanding the nuances of Nonsuch boats.
You are without doubt several steps ahead of me on nonsuch sails… I can’t wait to see pictures !
He is Chris Winnard, the owner of the San Diego Doyle loft. But the sail plans are available through any Doyle affiliated loft. In fact, it’s possible that they can look up the sail that was originally made for your boat as all of the Botts designs were supposedly moved to Doyle when he did and have been digitized since then. The sail cover was designed by the Doyle loft in Alameda, but was actually built at the Doyle loft in Barbados. And they will be building mine, too, almost exactly the same as the original.
The results will tell if I’ve chosen correctly. I’ve done everything for myself for my entire life and it’s frustrating that I can’t do more of this myself, but I really don’t have the energy to do it any other way. And I doubt that I’m ahead of you in any meaningful way other than on the calendar. You clearly know more about sails than I do. That’s why I recruited an expert.
Here’s a funny thing. I kept telling him about the importance of the sail and cover working together, but I’m not sure it really clicked until he saw it. And you should have seen his eyes pop out when the sail dropped into the great big bucket of a sailcover in 1.5 seconds and then we just turned to motor in. No muss, no fuss. Someone here told me about dropping the sail like that years ago and I’m glad they did. Thank you, whoever it was! It almost always works flawlessly and when it doesn’t - maybe once a year because a batten gets cockeyed in the hanging straps - I just need to raise the sail a bit and drop it again.
The metal shackles will eventually open the hole in the boom fitting. I’ve been using a dyneema soft shackle but lashing makes more sense than the shackles.
Well that certainly makes sense. I’ll take a look at the wear in the hole and see how urgent it feels, but perhaps this is another project for my list. Prevention is preferable to repair. Thank you.
My clue shackle is attached directly to the aluminum casting. I’ve been a little worried about the wear. I’m thinking attach the shackle on the sail to a threaded loop held to the casting with washers and nuts and facing down. That piece is easy to replace if wear occurs.
The wear on the aluminum casting is exactly why I chose to use a dyneema soft shackle. Plus its a lot easier to install than a lashing.
I’ve got both. I’ve lashed a shackle. The lashing protects the softer metal of the existing hole and a shackle allows easy removal as needed. I replace the lashing every 2-3 years or so. I had some spare cord that had a nice waxy finish, nice and long so that I could both get lots of passes through the hole and lots of hitches. Then sail-taped to somewhat protect the lashing. The shackle is one of those nice (and expensive) Wichard shackles that uses an allen key pin.
Just to be different, for some reason I don’t have the casing on the end of my wishbones that you do. I seem to have a single plate welded to the back end of the 'bones, so I have just a hole in that to hold the clew. I don’t recall, but suspect that Previous Owner had a shackle, but I put in an eyebolt and use a lashing.
Pictures when I get home. I took some specifically for this discussion.
Brian N
SV Serenity
Nonsuch Nereus #003
Pax River MD