Shorthanded #1/#3 jib swaps

[nathandevries]

My partner and I have been having a blast doublehanding together, however one area we're a little clueless about is the best way to transition from our 150% to the 100% jib when the wind starts to pick up. We needed to do this during the SSS Corinthian and RYC Big Daddy, and it was pretty ugly!

We have a Santa Cruz 27 with a double sheave at the masthead, so just one jib halyard and one spin halyard and a Tuff Luff headstay foil.

I'm on the tiller, so the foredeck work is singlehanded.

A 2nd jib halyard would allow us to use the 2nd headstay foil groove and avoid sailing headless during the change, plus avoid the mayhem of two sails on the foredeck. Bringing the #1 onto the foredeck and back down below is also really difficult for one person, so I'm wondering if we should look at a bungee setup that allows us to keep the #1/#3 on deck when unused.

If anyone has any tips/tricks, I'm all ears!

 

[tiger beetle]

The best way that worked for me to do a loose-luffed headsail change onto a foil is to hoist the new jib inside the flying jib, tack, and drop the old jib inside the new jib. The flying headsail acts as a wall to help keep the sail going up/down from going overboard. For singlehanding it helps if the halyards are long enough that you can take the halyard tail with you to the bow and pull on the halyard while feeding the luff tape into the foil.

Sausage bags go a long way to managing sails on the foredeck. For a short race in the bay I will leave a headsail tied off to the lifelines with bungee cord. For an offshore race I don't do that and instead sausage-bag the headsail and then push it thru the foredeck hatch - protects the sail from damage and being washed overboard (also protects the stanchions from bending if the bagged sail catches a big wave coming across the foredeck).

If you want to have two people on the foredeck while doublehanded it's fairly easy to rig up a second tiller from the base of the mast pointing forward so you can stand at the mast and still steer the boat with your feet. What you do is attach a tiller to the mast or collar, the tiller points forward and can pivot (tiller is just a stick of wood with a hole in the end nearest the mast so you can tie the wood to the mast or collar and create a pivot point). Run lines from the cockpit tiller thru blocks and forward, bring those lines in to the tiller at the mast and tie them off. If you push the mast tiller with your foot the cockpit tiller will move and you can control the boat while working at the mast. Dancing at the mast while steering downwind with your feet as you gybe the spinnaker pole earns extra credit points.

- rob/beetle

 

[Foolish]

it's fairly easy to rig up a second tiller from the base of the mast pointing forward so you can stand at the mast and still steer the boat with your feet. - rob/beetle

That's a great idea. I'd love to see a photo if you can.

Andy

 

[sleddog]

Changing a jib upwind, shorthanded, on a Bay Course with relatively short legs is a Loser. Better to look up the next leg and anticipate what jib will be best, and make the change downwind or reaching. If you have to hang tough being overpowered, slide the lead jib aft 12-18", get backstay on max, feather the leading edge of the jib, and minimize tacks. Yes, you may lose a minute or two on a 2 mile windward leg, but not the 10 minutes plus it will take to do a change, with crew on the bow, traffic, crossed halyards, and sails blowing over the side.

Another option if you are heavily overpowered is just drop the jib, secure it in place or dump it down the companionway hatch and sail the rest of the leg under main alone. SC-27's sail fine under main alone if you dump the traveler off a bit and don't try to point.

 

[BobJ]

Yet another option is two furlers. It is quick to change gears with this setup. The downsides are the disturbance the rolled genoa causes on the luff of the jib, although I can drop the rolled sail to the deck pretty quickly - and the need to roll up the genoa to tack or gybe it. That hasn't been too bad either.

 

[tiger beetle]

That's a great idea. I'd love to see a photo if you can.

Andy

Hi Andy -

Dan Benjamin on his Olson 30 White Knuckles used this on his boat. I believe he did not try and cross the tiller lines leading to the mast, instead he would push the stick in the direction he wanted the bow to turn towards. He used the tiller for purposes of getting the pole through while under spinnaker.

I think Dan is now up in the Seattle area, he might have some pictures of the setup. And Dan Newland is also up there, he may have done the mast-tiller approach as well on Pegasus XIV. Do you have contact info for them?

- rob/beetle

 

[Philpott]

SC-27's sail fine under main alone if you dump the traveler off

then, of course, you will be a singlehander

 

[johnkearney]

Changing a jib upwind, shorthanded, on a Bay Course with relatively short legs is a Loser. Better to look up the next leg and anticipate what jib will be best, and make the change downwind or reaching.

I agree with this - changing the headsail upwind is to be avoided - doubly so on my Express 27 with hanks. But I feel like it gets much easier to know when you'll need to do the sail change after doing a few of the SSS races. Generally the pattern is somewhat predictable, but the changes I have in my head for the season are:
- Corinthian Race: Change from the #1 to the #3 after Little Harding (before Blossom Rock)
- Round the Rocks: Change after the Richmond Br before the Brothers
- Farallones: Change from the #3 to the #1 near Lightship

'm wondering if we should look at a bungee setup that allows us to keep the #1/#3 on deck when unused.

Bungees on the foredeck are great independent of sail changes; when the breeze comes up they can save a lot of effort.

 

[sleddog]

Yet another option is two furlers. It is quick to change gears with this setup. The downsides are the disturbance the rolled genoa causes on the luff of the jib, although I can drop the rolled sail to the deck pretty quickly - and the need to roll up the genoa to tack or gybe it. That hasn't been too bad either.

View attachment 6366

I assume the jib stay, aft of the headstay, also goes to the masthead, negating need for runners? So you have 3 halyards in front of the mast: genoa, jib, and spinny.

Was it considered to make the jib stay removable and brought aft to the mast, especially if the forecast is for a light air race? I had that on WILDFLOWER, and my #4 (staysail) lived hanked on its stay, bagged, and stowed, ready to go, alongside the mast. This speeded tacks.

I also had small grommets in the luffs of my jibs. This allowed me to stop my headsails, take them forward with just the head sticking out of the bag, and hoist them in stops. This would work whether you had hanks or headfoil. The advantage of hoisting a jib in stops in breeze is during the hoist, the new sail is not flogging to leeward, tangling the sheets in a snarl.

On an ocean race, whenever changing the sail on the headstay, I would hoist the staysail inside on its own stay. The result was speed loss was minimized during the change.

Roller furling makes all this old timey stuff moot. Us oldsters remember hanking or unhanking a jib in less than 30 seconds. Good friend Dave Wahle was a master, and still goes by the nick-name "hanks."

 

[BobJ]

Surprise! only has the jib/head stay. If you made it removable the mast would fall down, and "Don't 'ya just HATE it when that happens?"

The genoa is loose-luffed. It has some kind of super-zippo structure that makes the luff act like it's in a foil. In lighter wind you ease the halyard slightly and the luff even projects to windward a bit.

The working jib completely fills the foretriangle and I could stand to have a #4 for heavy air. It would be nice to have it on a removable solent stay like I had on Ragtime! but Surprise!'s foredeck anchor locker makes attachment complicated.
.

 

[Critter]

it's fairly easy to rig up a second tiller from the base of the mast pointing forward so you can stand at the mast and still steer the boat with your feet.
- rob/beetle

Years ago, I heard someone describe a similar setup without a tiller. The line from the true tiller was just routed all the way around the rail on blocks, crossing the foredeck. There was a bungee cord from the stem fitting to this line to keep it in tension. You would have to bend over and yank on the line by hand, so it's not quite as slick as Dan's auxiliary tiller.

I tried this idea once; it didn't work particularly well for me. With more attention to reducing friction it would have been better.

Max

 

[Critter]

a bungee setup that allows us to keep the #1/#3 on deck when unused.

For sure. I have two lengths of bungee on each side, each one tied to the toerail at both ends with a plastic hook in the middle. They're about 6' long and they overlap. It's pretty quick and easy to grab the hook under the dropped jib, bring it inboard and back outboard over the sail, and hook it to the lifeline. More realistically, we just hook anything to anything asap.