Tom-
You might want to reconsider how you tighten your halyard. “…tightened as hard as I can make it” might not be a good idea. From a sailing perspective, the luff stretch is key to sail shape, and thus performance. Light winds don’t need a wire-tight halyard. Over-tightening also stresses seams unnecessarily. And probably everything else, even the mast. Maybe you won’t break the track stop out at the masthead, but why find out the hard way ? I’ve found that I can tighten my halyard much tighter than than it should be, even in heavy air. So I marked for full, and for my reefs. In light air, I know to stop about 2" before the mark, heavy, 2" after. You distances will depend on your halyard material and sail construction- they all have different “stretchiness”.
Another value to the marks… If they don’t “show up” as expected, I know something is jammed. Last season I didn’t realize how much my flag halyard stretched, and the wind wrapped it onto the track, where it got jammed between the slide and the track, nearly at the top of the mast. It wasn’t easy to un-jam and lower my sail so I could correct it. If I didn’t have the marks, I’d have tightened more (the wind was up), and might not have been able to lower the sail.
Dan Weinstein
Look Farther, 30C #205
East Greenwich RI
Having just switched to a new sail (more on that in some future separate posts), I learned two related things about halyard tension from my sailmaker:
I was tightening the old sail extremely without getting it as flat as I wanted because its luff line had stretched and work-hardened over decades of use.
Consequently, I was putting way too much tension on my new sail because I was assuming without thinking that I should do what I’d always done. My sailmaker took one look at it and (politely) whapped me upside the head. He pointed out that overtensioning the new sail was defeating my shaping purposes by creating a vertical shelf in the sail. Furthermore, it was just accelerating the stretching of the new luff line, meaning that it would take the new sail to the failed state of the old one that much sooner.
Two takeaways, at least for my own sail adjustments. First, always check for too little or too much. Second, treat my marks on control lines not as an exact target to get in the same place every time, but rather as a indicator that I’m getting close and it’s time to look up and check how I should be doing the finetuning for the current conditions.
Started learning to sail 52 years ago. Still learning.
– Bob
Me Gusta
Nonsuch e26U #233
Marina del Rey, California
Couple of things regarding reefing. According to my sailmaker newer sail cloth is much tighter than older cloth due to better manufacturing techniques. This requires "no stretch " halyards to exploit the better weave. The old dacron lines needs to be retired.
I have used a block at the tack. This has two advantages. One, little resistance and can be set without using a winch. As well is pulls the tack down to the base of the sail pack placing the strain where the reinforcement is and keeping it tight. You are no longer trying to squeeze a foot of loosely folded sail .
You are right but every sail is different and you should not treat a new sail like an old one. Botts made my sail and straight from his mouth the advice was tighten the luff as hard as you can make it for the best sail shape. He built the sail to have it tight and this makes it nice and smooth sailing upwind and it’s easy to add draft by easing the choker off the wind which you must do anyway. This sail doesn’t work too well in light air because it is so heavy.
My other sail is very old, 40 plus years and bagged out, and to get it flat the luff needs tension. However because it’s old the draft is moved back and this sail doesn’t work as well. But it is about half the weight (or at least it feels that way) of the Botts sail so is much easier to hoist.
" Maybe you won’t break the track stop out at the masthead, but why find out the hard way ?" I’m not sure what that means but neither sails head comes near the track stop at the masthead. There’s a good 2-3 feet of room there. I think the designer did that to keep the sail head from touching the topping lift.
You are absolutely right about hoisting the sail. If the luff isn’t tight when the halyard tension goes up then there is something wrong and time to stop and look to see what the problem is. I can usually raise the light weight sail to the top by hand before putting it on the winch for the final tighten.
Another point on raising the sail/halyard tension- the cast bronze slides with a bit of soap on a clean track make the sail go up easily and fall down instantly. The stamped steel slides on the steel track bind and jam and you may have to pull the sail down even with the same soaping and cleaning. There’s that extra friction from all the steel slides that adds to the effort on the winch.
On a Nonsuch sail draft is not adjusted by easing the halyard or downhaul like on some other sailboats. The choker is used to flatten the sail. The mast is already bent aft from the weight of the boom but when you add tension on the choker it bends even more. This curve or bend flattens the sail. First tighten the halyard enough to get rid of the wrinkles on the luff and get it tight (on some sails this might be a lot on a new sail will be less), then tension the choker to lift the sail off the boom and this may be a lot of tension too. Botts said this is the way it was designed.
I had the good fortune to spend a day with Botts, helping him install a Tides Strong Track, sail, and Stack-Pac on a 36’ Nonsuch, lunch at some point, and a sail on my 30 footer to make sure I had installed our Tides and new sail he made me for our boat. The owner on the 36 had ordered the wrong length Tides, so we had to take it down after putting it up, cut it, drill it, and put it back up. The sail with him was very interesting - tiny little changes and then we were going much faster! Could have sailed daily for a month and probably would have been learning something new each day.
Botts knew more about Nonsuch sails than just about anyone. I ordered a sail from Ed. When I went to raise it the sail kept jamming on the track. It was almost impossible to raise. The sail loft had put stainless slides on the sail by mistake. I told botts about this and he said no problem, I’ll drive up to Midland and solve your issue.
He told me to take all the bronze slides off the old sail. Once he got there he sat on the foredeck with legs crossed and sewed all the bronze slides by hand in about an hour. Now that’s service!
Sad news to lose such a knowledgeable gentleman with a heap of integrity to boot.
Ron
Ron & Diane Schryver
“Alpha Waves” 1987 NS30U #393
Georgian Bay Midland
? I’ve found that I can tighten my halyard much tighter than than it should be, even in heavy air. So I marked for full, and for my reefs. In light air, I know to stop about 2" before the mark, heavy, 2" after. You distances will depend on your halyard material and sail construction- they all have different “stretchiness”.